My Time at Sandrock vs Coral island ?

[Sorgal]

I'm searching for a chill farm and explore game and appreciated Portia so much.
But it seems Coral Island is a must have too and as i missed stardew, so on which one should i loose plenty hours ?

[SimuLord]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย galacticcorgi:

So basically, only one game an entire genre every 20 years. Though taking a peek at your reviews, I wonder why you only apply this to CI and a very small subset of farming sims... Considering you seem to give glowing reviews to others.

OK, let's look at games I've reviewed this year, and yes, I do have a very strong positive bias toward games I take the time to write reviews for.

Let's School
I compared it to Tropico and Prison Architect. The first is about being a dictator (or, if you're playing nice, the lawful and democratically-elected president) on a Caribbean island. The second is about running a prison. And Let's School is...well...about running a school.

That's three distinct takes on the same basic core gameplay loop. It's not "one game per genre per 20 years." I love cozy games as a genre, but I want some variety in how they're set and presented!

Travellers' Rest
I praised this game for its efforts to genre-blend; one part Stardew, several parts Recettear and Diner Dash. Interestingly, one of my biggest drumbeats when I post on their Steam forum is to try and prod the developer to understand and "find the fun" in their game because they're trying a little too hard lately to be like every other cozy game out there. I hope that as their Early Access run continues, they focus in on the tavern gameplay (that Recettear-meets-Diner-Dash element) because it's a great gameplay loop presented well.

Going Medieval
"If you like RimWorld but sci-fi isn't really your jam."

In other words, it's a specific kind of game for a specific kind of player in contrast to the game whose gameplay it otherwise lifts almost too chapter-and-verse. It's not that I object to games being similar to each other (especially RimWorld, which was my Game of the Year for 2018.) It's when they're more or less exact clones. Going Medieval takes a formula and shifts the setting radically. And it works because of that! (Sapiens, as it goes through Early Access, is becoming another game I'm really getting into, for the same reason.)

But the one you're really wondering about, I'm sure...
Roots of Pacha
"If this isn't a Stardew Valley ripoff, why are you ragging on Coral Island?", I practically hear you screaming.

Well, because Pacha is a huge shift in setting that takes the core concept of a Harvest Moon-like and puts a stamp on it that is distinctly its own (the Stone Age/tribal/whole thing with the glyptodonts that, unlike Coral Island's so-far-barely-touched merfolk angle, is a critical and self-evident part of the story they're trying to tell—CI has left that part of the story unfinished in 1.0.)

In fact, let's go back to a negative review of mine from another genre to explain why I'm going after Coral Island.

Forest Village
"A shameless Banished clone that managed in the first hour to sufficiently annoy me—brain-dead AI, a terrible camera, and a CTD after the first tutorial—to convince me that I should just refund it instead of giving it a chance.

Just play Banished instead. Or play any of the many, many games that have come out more recently and improved on the formula since 2014. Rimworld is the gold standard, but there are plenty of these sorts of games to choose from."

Minus the glaring bugs and crashes (CI at least runs stably, even if it's glitchy as heck sometimes, it won't break your computer), that second paragraph sums up why I bash on CI and praise other games that you'd think would raise my ire for committing the same sins.

tl;dr I'm all for games being similar to one another within a genre. Where I draw the line is at games that just remind you there are other, better games you could be playing while you're playing them and Coral Island is that to Stardew Valley.

[B Unit]

Sandrock is definitely the better package and a 'true' 1.0. Coral Island has a more ambitious future but feels incomplete currently inn comparison and there is no promise the game wont just get abandoned down the line.

[Witosław]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Sunny:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Witosław:

As a player, I love two types of games:
- relaxing, where you can create a character, do simple work, meet locals
- with challenges, mainly rogue-like action games, I like advanced fights and controls, and the game is supposed to be demanding.
For me, My time at Sandrock ticks both boxes, but I don't like that the game doesn't quite live up to my expectations.

You seem to understand that those are two different types of games. This game *is not* the latter. You want it to be, but it isn't, and them making the game into that would alienate the audience that actually wants it to be the game that it is (the first kind). Which you are also aware of, given your attempts to insult somebody by saying they liked easy games.

Ok, now imagine My time at Sandrock without the fight. I wonder what the plot of this game will look like.

[Sunny]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Witosław:

Ok, now imagine My time at Sandrock without the fight. I wonder what the plot of this game will look like.

Nobody is asking for that.

Here's a better experiment for you: go find the Counterstrike forums and post there demanding that the devs add optional fishing. See how that goes.

[Witosław]

Counter Strike is an online game
Stardew valley is a relaxing game with optional combat
Dead Cells is a rogue-like game with challenges
Skyrim is an adventure game in which combat is also the main attraction
A My time at Sandrock is a game that combines a relaxing game with combat challenges!

[Sunny]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Witosław:

A My time at Sandrock is a game that combines a relaxing game with combat challenges!

I thought your whole problem was that there wasn't a combat challenge.

[Dangeki]

Can y'all stop derailing this aint about you this is OPs post lol. I'd also say Sandrock has a more addicting feel to it. The characters are cute and the daily commissions sure do keep me entertained as i progress the story.

[Shift]

Depends, do you like focus on farming? Because farming in Sandrock is secondary and more of a side activity, the focus is grinding resources to build items.

I prefer sandrock because I'm a bit tired of the farming theme.