#when hyperfixations don't aesthetically match with the environment

[sparrowseagles]

it feels so weird to be fixated on the terror rn . like in spring. ?? what do you mean the sun is shining outside, the birds are chirping and flowers are in bloom. all i know is the arctic cold, the horrors, and the pursuit of a pointless goal that only benefits Britain and will cost me my life and the lives of my crewmates after years of suffering & starvation

[nowoyas]

It's fun seeing you talk about hyperfixations, so what are your favorite non-HM / RF farm sims? :3c

*breaks fingers* you've activated my trap card

okay SO! I'm actually still developing a favorite because there's so many in the genre to pick from and they're all so unique! so I'm just going to ramble about non-bokumono and bokumono-adjacent farm sims that I think are good and worth bringing up!

Stardew Valley is the obvious one everyone jumps to. It's a solid harvest moon clone--not in a derogatory way, I mean it was literally created to be a clone of an earlier harvest moon game, and it does that job extremely well and then proceeds to build on the formula in a way that clearly resonated with a lot of people. It is not, however, my favorite. Don't look at my play time on steam. I am slightly burned on it due to how many people slap the label "stardew valley but [core aesthetic]" on every fucking farm sim because they're Guy Who's Only Played Stardew Valley, Playing His Second Farm Sim. BUT it IS really just a great farm sim with solid mechanics.

Graveyard Keeper gets a mention here because, while it doesn't quite match up tonally with the rest of the genre and is only sort of even IN the genre, if you like farm sims as a whole, chances are great that you'll like Graveyard Keeper, as it scratches the same gameplay loop itch that you'll get from any good farm sim. This is a game that was recommended to me by no less than seven people when I was looking for a new farm sim to play, and for good reason! Loosely, you get Issekai'd into another world to be that world's graveyard keeper, and spend the game trying to get back home. Not a farm sim in the truest sense, still worth mentioning here.

Coral Island. Ohhhh my god Coral Island. It's still in the creation stages and being polished, but holy SHIT the vibes are immaculate. Nature and environmentalism-focused farm sim with one of the most diverse casts I've gotten the pleasure of seeing in a farm sim. The characters are beautiful, the concept is gorgeous, and the focus is not just on farming and community, but on cleaning up the environment and taking care of the world we live in. Kind of like another farm sim, I think, but I'm blanking on which one I'm thinking of right now?

PUMPKIN DAYS is absolutely worth mentioning here. It's a super super charming proper farm sim. I wouldn't recommend it to people new to the genre, but rather to genre vets who are already sure they like the core gameplay of farm sims. Much like Coral Island, Pumpkin Days has a MASSIVELY diverse cast. There's three towns you can live in on the island the game is set on, each with their own characters. While it's hard to definitively point to any one character as a specific breed of queer, it's actually the only farm sim I can name where you can be truly poly! Also extremely nice, there's a town on the island called Spoonie Island that's a lovely little community of variously disabled and neurodivergent characters. The reason I wouldn't recommend this as a starter farm sim is one thing: tank controls. This game has tank controls. This is the most interesting decision I've ever seen in a farm sim. Once you settle in with them, it works and I hardly noticed the difference anymore after about 20 hours of gameplay, but if you're a newcomer to the genre? You'll want to start with a game that controls like 74% of other games in the genre. (This is also why I don't recommend Island of Happiness or Sunshine Islands to newcomers to the genre. Touch screen movement is another you get used to but should not start with.)

Another not-technically-a-true-farm-sim game I absolutely fucking NEED to bring up here is Sakuna: Of Rice And Ruin. It's developed by XSEED games, which you'll note is an American subsidiary of Marvelous, the company that makes the bokumono games. They're really fucking good at farm sims. Sakuna is not technically a farm sim--there's a set plotline, the game is much more combat-oriented, and there's no dating system, but this game is still very much about community, and one of the main mechanics is farming rice to grow your strength as a harvest goddess. This game is SO fucking technical with the farming aspect, in the best fucking way. In learning more about how to properly grow the rice, I actually ended up looking into actual fucking real life rice disorders and being able to translate that into in-game mechanics to be able to treat them. I still get advertisements for farming equipment and fertilizers from how much research I've done. I only got 100 hours out of this game, but I chalk that more up to the plot and progression having a more definite end than, say, Rune Factory 4 and its endless dungeons in the endgame. If there were more plot to work through and more progression to gain, I would easily get another 300 out of it.

This post is starting to get long (it's like I'm talking about farm sims or something) so this'll be my final mentions here: My Time at Portia and My Time at Sandrock. Again, not true farm sims in that you're not technically a farmer. Absolutely a farm sim. In these games, you're a Builder who comes to a town (Portia or Sandrock, depending on the game [wow]) and works to build up the community. It took some adjusting to settle in to the art style, but once I did, holy shit these games are fun. These are also more combat-oriented and DEFINITELY less farming-oriented--while you can grow crops and have animals, it's absolutely an afterthought to gathering materials to build things for people. You can get married in these ones, unlike Sakuna or Graveyard Keeper, and it's definitely the closest to true farm sim out of the "kind of but not really but definitely in the genre but also not really" category. My Time at Sandrock sees a full release in September, and I am SOOOO excited. I haven't been playing it as much because I literally have So Much Of Everything to get done while working full time and obsessing over my boys, but any game I've talked about here is well worth it.

OH MY GOD I DIDN'T MENTION ATOMICROPS. Atomicrops counts. It has the farming sim tag on steam so it counts. Okay so like imagine the apocalypse. Now imagine running a farm after the nuclear apocalypse. Much much more combat oriented. This one's a roguelike. You can and should get married in this one. Hands down the best farm sim to recover from dental surgery to. I associate this game with the taste of mashed potatoes.

Okokok I'm pretty sure I'm having an allergic reaction so I'll stop digging through non-bokumono farm sims for now BUT THANK YOU SM FOR ASKING I LITERALLY LOVE TALKING ABOUT FARM SIMS WHEN I WAS A KID MY MOM ALMOST TOOK ME TO THERAPY BECAUSE I PLAYED HARVEST MOON FOR LIKE 18 HOURS STRAIGHT AND FORGOT TO SLEEP