Replayability? Was fun, but I think I am done. -- SPOILERS

[PlasteredDragon]

I got about 80 hours of play out of the game and it was a lot of fun, DEFINITELY worth the price, but at this point it has become like work. So I guess I could start over from the beginning again but I can't see why I would want to at this time. At the beginning of the game it takes so long to care for crops, to get around, to fish, that I can't imagine going through all that again -- seems like drudgery. This feels like a "Play Once" game to me.

About the only thing I haven't done is build the slime hutch, and I think I don't want to bother, after all, at best it's probably going to bring me more money, and at this point I have more than I can spend.

So first question -- after you've completed all the quests and seen all the events happen, is there a reason to play again? Are there interesting ways to play this game to get further life out of it after you've done all the stuff? Right now it seems like unless the developer plans to add DLC with new areas to explore and new quests, the answer is probably no.

Second, some observations and opinions. What follows is just a list of random things I learned while playing.

1. Ducks and Chickens aren't worth it. Mayo, eggs, and feathers don't bring in much money, and clicking chickens to keep them happy is kind of a pain. Once you hit the necessary quests/bundles, you're probably better off selling off all the poultry. Rabbits seem worth it since cloth sells for a lot.

2. Cows and Goats also aren't worth it. Like chicken/duck products, there just doesn't seem to be much value in milk and cheese. Sheep and Pigs on the other hand appear to be much higher value, truffle oil and cloth bring in serious money.

3. Once you have a greenhouse, it hardly seems necessary to plant crops ouside. Since you can grow whatever you want, you can focus on the crops that give the most payback (cranberries, blueberries, strawberries) -- since these are plant once & harvest multiple times it's pretty easy to build a large stockpile to make bank on. Especially with a seed maker.

4. Preserves and wine make so much money it almost breaks the game. I've got about 20 kegs and 20 preserves jars, and the money I can make on these seems almost crazy. I easily can bring in 10K to 20K in a single day. Sure some days go by where you bring in very little, but there is no rent to pay, no veterinary costs, no farm hands to pay, etc. I currently have about $300K in the bank and nothing to spend it on. If I keep playing it is only going to go up. At this point I could sell all of my animals, break down my bee houses, remove all the taps on my trees, stop foraging, mining, and fishing, and I'd still make enourmous sums of money with a greenhouse and preserves/wine.

5. The museum is fun for awhile until you realize that Gunther's rewards are almost entirely worthless. Nothing he gives you helps you forage, mine, grow crops, tend animals, or fish. Just home decorations. Big deal. Yes, you can get the sewer key and the dwarf language guide from him, but that's it.

6. Once you complete the fishing bundles, there doesn't seem to be a reason to fish.

7. There doesn't seem to be a reason to cook, your character doesn't have to eat, and once you have a preserves/wine setup going, you can walk into Gus' place and buy 50 salads without batting an eye. Courting Leah is a breeze, two salads a week? Easy peasy.

8. The two-year timeline feels a little short-ish. I think three years would probably be better. Although grandpa's opinion appears to have no real lasting effect on gameplay.

9. I had so much ore from mining that once I completed the fishing bundles and got the boulder removed it was kind of a huge let-down. Wow I might be able to pan ore that I've been passing up in the mines out of the stream? Pfffft. Thanks for the pan Willy, it's going right in a chest and staying there.

10. The blacksmith should be able to process geodes while he's working on one of your tools.

11. It would be funny if you could marry Krobus or the dwarf.

12. 20 wood --> 1 coal seems pretty extreme. I would have expected about 5 --> 1, just like ore --> bars.

13. Most of the townie quests don't appear to be worth it... sure I could expend resources befriending Marnie to get the mayor's shorts back for example, but the reward doesn't come near covering the costs. So why bother?

14. I made one totem to get to the beach, and then never made another totem. Just get a horse or use the minecarts to get around. About the only totem worth making is possibly the one that you can use to warp home, and even that may not be necessary. It only costs 1000g to be carried home by the Joja folks.

[AvatarMan]

I can definitely agree with most if not all of these points. I'm doing a second playthrough slowly for the Joja storyline but I don't see myself playing it much past that point.

[hairyharryz]

In addition to a "make your farm as profitable as possible" game, this game is also meant to be a sandbox game where you can decorate and customize your farm come end-game.

Of course not everyone enjoys these "Minecraft" like aspects of the game.

[Elegant Caveman]

CA is planning new free content. Take a break, come back later for the new content and/or MP.

Other than that, yeah, this isn't exactly a game with a lot of replayability.

As you said, though:

Originally posted by PlasteredDragon:

I got about 80 hours of play out of the game and it was a lot of fun, DEFINITELY worth the price

[maculator]

Its to linear to replay it, thats what I think.

[Proteus]

I think, just give it a break fvor some months and then play it again from scratch ...
it looks like the Dev still is cvhanging and adding a lot, therefore starting a new game in a few months from now may have a feeling that is different enough to get you interested again

[CatPerson]

You could try playing as nothing but a Dairy farm, once you get to the point where it's possible to make those buildings etc.

But yes, if one isn't into trying oddball, not "normal" farm-strategy methods or the sandboxy deco type concepts, then one or two (complete) playthroughs seems a fair assessment.

I've been having fun *starting* new characters (first few seasons worth) to check out different idea progressions, but at some point I'll finally reach the so-called end-stage of the game (I don't mean Grandpop) with a chr. and will likely not play much after that (for a while at least, I mean).

[Dekeon]

I agree with a lot of the points you made, but point 13. Holy crap isnt that a little cold?

"Nah, I wont help you with anything because being your friend isnt worth the resources I put into it."

[Elegant Caveman]

Quests pay you better than whatever they ask you is worth, and you get a relationship boost. And they're entirely optional.

I don't see the problem.

[maculator]

There should be more ways this can be played. For exapmle if you decide to go for crops you get unique options and a penalty on animal farming. If you want to be a miner you wont be a good fisher, stuff like that. Also a real story and way more, good, quests wouldn't hurt.

[Bowie]

Meh.. it's just the way you play it give it an end.. It's open-ended, not endless lol. I don't think this game it's all about farming or grinding. 80 hours of yours could be hundreds of hours of others because they want not only a end-game maximum profitable farm but also unique and beautiful farm.

And after running away from daily responsibilities i still can come back and see Penny waiting me at my house and kiss her..

Anyway, should've come back to some real grinding RPG man, your farming fantasy is over for now if money and profit is all the thing you ask for.

[PlasteredDragon]

Originally posted by Dekeon:

I agree with a lot of the points you made, but point 13. Holy crap isnt that a little cold?

"Nah, I wont help you with anything because being your friend isnt worth the resources I put into it."

I accept this rebuke. :-) Maybe it comes across as cold, but if you are trying ultimately to get the best "score" from grandpa, or to finish the Jumino quests which have real tangible benefits, then yes, most of the townie quests seem pointless. Let's say I shovel expensive items into Marnie for awhile to get back the Mayor's shorts. He gives me a small sum of gold. That's it. I invested time and resources, and the payback doesn't cover the cost. If the 2-year timeline were longer, it might be worth it. But if I can sell one jar of strawberry jelly for more than the return on most quests in a fraction of the time, then that's going to actually help me score far better than getting the Mayor's shorts back. In the end, quests end up *costing* me rather than helping me.

If I want the mayor to be my friend, there are easier ways.

Now, if the quests were necessary (say, you can't get into the secret wood without doing a wizard quest, or Robin can't build things on your farm without her axe, or you get a permanent foraging boost from finding Linus' basket) then they would make a lot more sense.

[Elegant Caveman]

Originally posted by PlasteredDragon:

Originally posted by Dekeon:

I agree with a lot of the points you made, but point 13. Holy crap isnt that a little cold?

"Nah, I wont help you with anything because being your friend isnt worth the resources I put into it."

I accept this rebuke. :-) Maybe it comes across as cold, but if you are trying ultimately to get the best "score" from grandpa, or to finish the Jumino quests which have real tangible benefits, then yes, most of the townie quests seem pointless. Let's say I shovel expensive items into Marnie for awhile to get back the Mayor's shorts. He gives me a small sum of gold. That's it. I invested time and resources, and the payback doesn't cover the cost. If the 2-year timeline were longer, it might be worth it. But if I can sell one jar of strawberry jelly for more than the return on most quests in a fraction of the time, then that's going to actually help me score far better than getting the Mayor's shorts back. In the end, quests end up *costing* me rather than helping me.

If I want the mayor to be my friend, there are easier ways.

Now, if the quests were necessary (say, you can't get into the secret wood without doing a wizard quest, or Robin can't build things on your farm without her axe, or you get a permanent foraging boost from finding Linus' basket) then they would make a lot more sense.

Quests are random; simply don't do the ones that are inefficient for you at any given point.

The monetary reward makes up for the item's value, but I'd argue that the primary reward of the townie quests is the relationship boost you get.

Don't forget that relationships help you with Grandpa, and birthdays aside, I believe that quests are the most efficient way of raising your relationship with someone.

[Klumpatsch]

There'll always be a point where you finish a game and don't feel like playing it again. Sometimes after 6 hours, sometimes after 80 hours, sometimes after 500 hours. At some point you'll always say "I beat the game". And the only thing you can do is to move on and return after a few weeks or months if you feel like it.

But I happened to notice that you don't have a very good attitude. You say "I'm drowning in money, farming wine is OP", but yet you say that "fishing is useless, quests are useless, animals are useless, everything is useless because you don't get enough money from it." You know what I mean? All those quests, animals, fishing, mines... those features are for fun, to have diversity. Who cares if animals don't give me as much money as crops? How am I going to spend all those millions anyway? If you only farm starfruit wine, of course it won't be as fun.

[Klingenmeister]

1. Animals in this game have an extremly bad Work -> Money ratio
2. like I said
3. (cranberries, blueberries, strawberries)? Ether you are trying to keep your post spoiler free, or you actually dont even know, how broken rare and ancient seeds are^^
4. Yep, I was right, you have seen nothing yet :D with ancient seeds + buggy trees in the greenhouse you get up to 100k per day.
5. Its just a funny gimmik in the game. After a few hours of playing, you will notice that 90% of this game is living on gimmiks.
6. 100% true. I still have to catch the rare fishs, but fishing is just too annoying.
7. The speed + luck recipes are kinda OP for dungeon running but everything else...
8. Can the developer please tell me, why I should give a ♥♥♥♥ about some ghost moron telling me, how I should do my farm? Go back to your grave, grandpa!
9. Yep, most useless quest -> reward ratio of all time
10. xD
11. Well, I am not into that...but the current people are kinda boring, irritating or creepy.
12. The dev seems to hate trees.. :P
13. To make them love you, so you can get more cooking recipes you will never use!
14. The totems were a real letdown. Just make them permanent! It wont break the game...


It is clear, that the developer never balanced a game before.

I have a 15. : We have 2 groups of people in this game: One that complains about getting nothing out of the skull cave and one that stacks insane amounts of bombs and complains about having tons of iridium.

[alphaomegasamsara]

I mostly agree with what you said. If youre done youre done.... but 80 hours of entertainment for 14.99 holy smokes looks for that almost anywhere on the planet... and as others have said this game is said to be like the constitution, a living document, more to come eventually...