Im quite unwell atm and have been finding gaming is my only distraction. Unfortunately my ability to understand even basic game systems is slipping away. In the couple of hours ive played so far, Ive found this game to have enough things to do to keep me engaged and the mechanics are designed and introduced in a way that i can manage. Thank you to the devs for giving me a few hours of relief.

Dear devs - LET PEOPLE SKIP THESE DIALOGUE SCREENS! If I have to have hte boss battle reset to the start of the day, I don't need 10 minutes of dialogue again! the first time is witty, love it, but every time after that is just rubbing salt into the wound.

Overall I enjoyed the game as it is far more novel than the other cooking games I've played. Has components of farming, cooking, building, questing etc but was ultimately turned off by the dialogue spam. Some of it was kinda funny but it got old very quickly and I just wanted to get on with the actual DOING part of the game rather than the spacebar smashing part. I don't want to leave a negative because it's really not bad, just be aware there's LOTS of dialogue bubbles.

I really wanted to like this game, but it just wasn't for me. I love the story, the farming, the fishing, raising animals; I even love the cooking. What kills the game for me is there is nothing to record the recipes you have made. I might have to step away for a few days and When I get back to it I've forgotten that awesome recipe I made. So instead of doing battles I'd only complete battles when I have to. I've beaten all of the side quests and now it feels like an endless slew of cooking battles. If you want to play this game keep a notebook handy or maybe update the wiki

Cute and fun game, with a slow pace and a bit of farming. The only thing I don't like is that you have to wait until the end of the day to save, so if you're in a hurry and need to close the game, well know that you'll lose your progress. Overall rating 7/10

This is a pretty moderately good grinding game(not as good as My Time at Portia) however it isnt for everyone since there is no way to auto farm or even lightly mass farm basic ingredients in the mid early game, so you do need a lot of patience to mindlessly mass farm things and store them in a lot of containers since each inv slot only hold 1 of each item. There is no jumping which leads to a lot of places just stopping you from moving even if there looks like a clear path or there is a slight difference in ground levels.

Wish the cooking aspect was a little more developed instead of just adding in ingredients and stirring a pan over and over again, i only say this since im a cook and this feels like the mega simplified version of what actual cooking is even when compared to cooking mama.

Definitely a lot that could be added to the restaurant aspect of the game since you mostly just decorate and add things to the menu. For sure could have added mass auto farming to supply your restaurant with the needed ingredients from your base, then add a mini game to actually cook your menu items for your customers with varying success for better reviews or rewards.

This is a okay game at the moment however there is definitely a lot of potential and many things could be improved, added or even taken out to make this a really top tier farming/cooking game. For now this just isnt a game i would recommended to more then 50% of people.

Will try to finish the game(if i dont get bored of manual farming), and hope to see more with updates or DLC

An entertaining and fun game.

This game blends the farming and social aspects of games like Harvest Moon and Stardew Valley with a story driven crafting game like My Time at Portia. Add in a silly story with a splash of comedy and then top it all off with chef battles for a fun game!

Even though I know I'll end up playing more of this game I going to have to mark it as not recommended and honestly it's only for a few reasons but they are big enough reasons that any good is being drowned out here.

Here's the good...

-The game is hilarious. There have been several moments when the game got a genuine laugh out of me. Not a giggle. Not a snort. An actual laugh. At first I didn't think the writing would be all that good, but sure enough the game manages to be really funny at times. The humor is actually one of the best parts of the game for me.
-The graphics are surprisingly fun. You look at them and it's a blocky almost voxel type style and you think it's not gonna be all that good. However, each character in the game has a pretty unique personality and the outfits and designs match. I wasn't all that fond of the main character, Zest, design... until I got the chefs uniform because everytime Zest gets mad he looks like Gordon Ramsey and I find that endlessly hilarious.
-Giant chicken scream at window... I will give no context.
-Cooking mini game is actually pretty fun. It's explained kinda badly honestly, but once you figure it out it's a decent mini game that is pretty fun. It gets more complex as you go with the addition of sauces, which are really overpowered if you use them right. It's a fun kind of overpowered though. Then the additional mechanic of the cooking battles is really fun. I have sadly not gotten to do them much at this point, but I do enjoy them when they happen.
-Birch is an adorable mount you get at a certain point that I'm in love with. I want a figure or a plush of this cute little guy like yesterday.
-Crafting.... okay so crafting is actually kind of a toss up for me. Mostly because it's kinda convaluted at a point. It's also frustrating that recipes you buy in a store don't disappear once you buy them. I already bought the slaughter house why do I still have the option to buy it?
-You will find Jesus in the best possible way
-Food looks pretty good. Would I put very much of it near my mouth? No because I know what went in it, but it looks good.
-Crops can grow several times in a day so you can usually get what you need for any one given thing pretty quickly if you somehow manage to run out of something (probably tomatoes to be perfectly honest).

Now let's move onto the bad and why I wouldn't recommend the game

-Some things are just not explained well or at all. I'm frankly really frustrated right now because I got myself 2 cows (one I bought and one that I got for free from the magic shop). I looked at the description for the slaughter house and the cow summoner (don't ask) and the only clue I got for how to slaughter my cows was that I needed some sort of animal tamer thing. I was at the end of a day though so I went to bed. The next day I spent forever trying to find this animal tamer thing. Found it, got back to my house, lured a cow to the slaughter house and nothing happened. Now the entire time there was a red plate and fork above the cows which I realized must mean they were hungry. Maybe I can't slaughter them if they are hungry for some reason? So I ran with it. I just happened to remember where I had seen a trough so I went and got it. Came home, got the stuff to make it, built it, got distracted for a few minutes in real life, and when I got back it was close to bed time. I went to see if I could make cow feed. You need tomatoes and carrots. Unfortunately I didn't have any tomatoes. So I went to bed thinking I'd have tomatoes in the morning after I planted some and I could make the feed then. Nope. When I woke up both of my cows were gone. After spending ages looking for my cows I assumed that for some reason they just up and disappear if you don't feed them for two days. So I had to save up money again, buy another cow, and then slaughter it right away. It's so frusrating because I lost out on 2,400 because of this. Because the game never told me how to care for cows, it barely even told me how to get them. After getting the meat I just closed the game. If you wanna have a weird way of doing something in your game cool. What you need to do though is either choose a simple and straight forward obvious way to do something that needs to explanation.... or do a weird way of doing things and provide explanation.
-The inventory is the most frustrating thing in the game and it was nearly a deal breaker allllllll on it's own. Why? Because items don't stack. If you have 20 potatoes they will take up 20 inventory slots. So you'll be playing the game for maybe an hour and already need several storage chests. Why on earth the devs decided to do inventory like this I don't understand. it's so incredibly frustrating.
-I hate the sleep mechanic. Now let me be clear here. I don't mind a game telling me that I need to go to bed by a certain time (looking at you Stardew). I do mind being told I can't go to sleep till a certain time. Now you can speed up time to go to bed by sitting at your desk or chilling with the golem. The fact though that that needs to be an option spells out the problem. The days in the game are SUPER long. Some days I actually am doing things from morning to night, but most days I am done doing everything I can by 6pm and I can't go to sleep till 8pm. Instead of making us go through an extra step to go to bed... just let me go to bed as early as I please. Then on top of that you can't save and the game doesn't auto save. Your game saves when you go to sleep and wake up. Making it even more frustrating. I'm fine with a game only saving when you go to sleep, but again... if you are going to tell me that I can only save when I sleep... let me go to sleep whenever I want. There is no reason I can think of for why this is set up the way it is.
-There is actually very little to do in this game. Most of my play time is just me running to the beach and getting rats and seaweed to sell to get enough to do things. I don't mind it and I tend to like things that end up establishing a routine but I also know this could be a deal breaker for some people. Most of the game so far for me.... has been walking, waiting for my crops to grow, gathering stuff to sell, and then sprinkled in there very sparingly it seems.. is the story and quests.

Those 4 things are easily the reasons why I would not recommend the game. It's a fun game, don't get me wrong. But I'm just under 7 hours in and those three aspects have frustrated me to no end. The thing with the cows made me close the game. The inventory thing is driving me nuts. Why do crops grow so many times in a day, giving us tons of stuff, but then one single item takes up a single slot? Either give us less stuff or give us less storage.

If you think you can deal with the negatives I recommend the game... timidly.... because like I said I can generally get past the negatives cause it's a funny game but even I am sitting here closing the game out of pure frustration. If you don't think you can deal with them AT ALL then just straight up don't bother.

Despite a lot of flaws, this game is fantastic if you're a fan of off-the-wall humor. Have a pro/con list! (Review subject to change, as I'm only 10 hours in.)

Pros-

- Monty Python/Futurama-esque humor holds up throughout (as of 10 hours in.)
- Cooking mini-game/battles are fun.
- Varied buildings for your farm.
- Several outfits to unlock throughout.
- Cutesy art style.

Cons-

- You can only save at the end of day by sleeping.
- Keybindings are currently bugged.
- No jumping.
- Inventory management is atrocious. (At 10 hours in, I have 40 storage units at my farm for stuff that I don't need, because it's too much of a chore to take it to town and sell.)
- Mouse wheel doesn't scroll through your equipment/seeds.

Neutral-

- Side characters are so fun that I want more of them and way more sidequests.
- IF you're looking for a cooking-focused game, this isn't it. It's more of a fun mini-game and story-focus.

Also, the game doesn't have voice-overs, which would have just solidified this game as a gem.

Shameless self-plug segue: Here's me poorly voicing over the intro of the game:

https://youtu.be/Ws1NAL3fR60

The audacity of making you lose your progress unless you've slept, in a game with unskippable cutscenes and timed events, and a day that lasts a whole IRL hour.