story of seasons a wonderful life matthew gifts

Fish, foraged plants, and dig site finds can't be sold in my nightly shipping bin so I've got to either wait for the two days a month local merchant Van is in town or set up my own stall and stand there all afternoon waiting to sell items to passerby as if I'm in an actual farmer's market. Cooking is encouraged, but selling meals doesn't turn a profit, so ingredients are better used to make myself a hearty meal or prepare a gift for a friend. Rain and sun come and go at random, not on a daily basis, so an early spring shower may save me from watering crops until evening but an afternoon shower will see me running home to let my cows back into the barn so they don't catch a cold. Instead I pay close attention to my slowly growing herd of cows, breeding my first one when necessary so she continues to produce milk, separating her from the rest of the herd when she's close to giving birth, and hand-feeding her calf with mother's milk. It doesn't have storage to craft so I can organize my fleet of chests and crops. With that lesson learned the hard way, I start to see all the other ways A Wonderful Life wants me to stay attuned to the details of farm and town life. Much as every other farm sim is about a city kid adjusting to pastoral life, they all allow me to continue living at a city pace

All things come in time in A Wonderful Life. It's not until year two that I unlock hybrid crop breeding or consider breeding any of my animals. I can't even splurge on better tools until my first summer. Instead I'm incentivized to save across seasons for major farm upgrades like a dairy processing room, which has such a prohibitive 150,000 gold price tag that I actually feel less stressed knowing I can't possibly afford it for a couple years. Field space is limited and buying additional animals feels expensive initially, so profit comes at an equally slow pace.īut it is kind in some areas: A Wonderful Life isn't squeezing me to pay for crafting game luxuries like a bigger backpack and just gives me a generous 40 slot inventory right away. The shorter seasons give me just enough time to harvest only one or two groups of crops before the next. That pace is where A Wonderful Life makes clear that it's truly a simulation of a lifetime, not the fast-tracked crafting, hoarding, and optimizing games I've grown accustomed to.Įach season is only 10 days long, much shorter than the 28 most current games opt for, though that's for the best as the story takes place across several years as I get married, have a child, and watch the village residents change. It took until mid-Autumn to fix my mistakes and to finally figure out that A Wonderful Life was telling me to slow down. Then I foolishly failed to pick my turnips on time, wasting a field of crops. Apparently I don't even want this milk: I can't sell it in my shipping bin or even cook with it and it sells for a paltry 10% of normal quality milk even if I do manage to hawk it at my market stall in town. Her health had completely depleted by midsummer, leaving me to milk her for just four bottles of the lowest quality milk per day. I'd left my cow Ginger in a similar state, not realizing that my pasture did not have any long grass for her to eat. I faint in my field one afternoon, having eaten so little I couldn't water all my crops in a day. (Image credit: Marvelous Inc, Xseed Games) My first season's progress fools me into thinking I'll quickly save up for more animals and farm facilities. I'm sweet on the bar waitress Molly who also moved to the valley from the city and after learning that she likes the Moon Ore I found at the dig site, I spend two afternoons digging up more. The basic tenants of A Wonderful Life will be familiar to modern farm life sim players: Each morning I wake up around 6 am, cuddle each of my chickens, milk the cows, let all the animals outside into the pasture, spend about half my day's stamina watering crops, and then decide whether I'll use my afternoon to deliver gifts to increase my friendship with the locals, go fishing, or dig up relics in the archeology site.Ī Wonderful Life makes clear that it's truly a simulation of a lifetime, not the crafting, hoarding, and optimizing games I've grown accustomed to.ĭuring my first spring on the farm I grow a modest crop of tomatoes and watermelons, saving up the 1,000 gold to buy a second hen.

Story of seasons a wonderful life matthew gifts