Thoughts after finishing year one.

Bless this Mess

I did it! I finally finished the game for the first time on grim difficulty without deaths and all quests completed, including Adeline's research.

I haven't been so hooked by a video-game in a long time. As a huge fan of farming games, this game quickly became one of my favorite ones. It was exhausting, brutal, and i loved it.

I have some thoughts i'd like to share regarding story and characters, and i'd like to hear what other players think as well.

CAUTION: SPOILERS AHEAD!

First, the game feels very year one focused. I know this is obvious and is undoubtly going to change, since year one is literally all we have for now, but after the biblical-level catastrophy that was winter, i seriously ask myself how (and if) everything is going to run normally literally days after the siege.

Everyone is mentally and physically broken, the village is completely wrecked, and depending on how well the player went, the farm too (skill issue from me, i know)

Overall, the ending really left me with a feeling of ''okay, now what?''

My first guess is maybe do something similar to Harvest Moon A Wonderfull Life, where they do a time skip of two or three years instead of starting ''year two'' the day immediately after winter. In my opinion a time skip of at least a year would be a good way of putting get the village back on track and the time would help heal the villagers' very recent trauma.

It would be really off-putting for everybody to act like the start of year one mere two weeks after the siege and after all they've been through. I hope they take all this into account when making the second year.

As for the plague, it would be easy to explain that the blizzard that killed the infected that attacked Grimshire wiped out most of the ferals across the kingdom, and crubed the spread of the plague.

About the characters, all of them are very charming and likable, and i love how it feels like a real community. I especially love Poppy and Jack, they're so cute and have such fun dialogues.

Althought, after a long while playing the game, they really start to feel a little a bland and just like... npcs, if that makes sense. All they do is walk around the village, stand in some spots for a while, enter some buildings and repeat the process.

They talk about Edgar's sermons but we never see it. It could be a weekly event like the friday night at inn in Fields of Mistria. Jack and Poppy talk about playing in the mud, but we don't see it. Willow talks about painting in the forest but we never see her doing it.

You know, make them do stuff instead of just walk around.

More dialogue options would also be most welcome, it gets tiring hearing Rose talk about Hazel's sneeze and Adeline saying she likes books about the outside but doesn't like going outside. I'm sure this is one of the things they're already working with though, since this is one of the main aspects of the marriage system in any farming game.

I hope i'm not sounding over-critical, i completely understand that the team is very small and they're putting all their heart into the game. I'm just pointing out things that i look for in the future. It was already amazing that they took the trouble of localizing the game in different languages so early in development (thank you very much, by the way!)

I'm also very curious on how they'll handle rival marriages. It was always one of my favorite things to have in a farming game, and it brings so much more life to the characters and to the world altogether, even better if i can help with it. Come on, devs, let me be Grimshire's official matchmaker!

Anyway, the game is incredible and i'm excited to see what comes next, i'm sure they'll do a great job regardless.

Thanks for reading, sorry for the text wall.