Keep in mind that this game is still in Early Access and things can and will change.

Ahh, another farming simulator hits Steam. As a huge fan of the Harvest Moon series, I definitely put aside some money to purchase this game. Please bear in mind that I only got up to Spring 27, Year 1 and basing my review on everything I've seen so far.

Unlike other farming simulation games, the main character was not left to tend to a farm of a deceased relative, but in fact had aspirations to become a farmer since they were young. The first day you are introduced to the mayor who helps get you settled into your new home along with another farmer who helps teach you the basics of farming. After a quick tutorial, you can take your character outside the farm and begin exploring.

Pros
+Controller support
+Nice looking graphics
+Several different crops to grow in each season.
+Characters are unique and have different personalities.
+Tasks available to complete.
+Several different animals you can raise.
+Being able to edit the contents of the shipping bin before it's shipped. Very helpful if you accidently put something in you needed.
+You recieve a dog on Spring 2, Year 1.
+One of the coolest features, which reminds me of Animal Crossing, is being able to write letters to other characters, including your mom!
+Lots of areas to explore and forage to collect.

Cons
-Not much to do in the first couple days. I found myself running around town several times just to kill time.
-No map to help keep track of exploration.
-Some of the building/store times of operation are weird. Why is the library only open for 7 hours in the middle of the day?
-Female playable character not implemented yet as of 4/22/17.
-Only two skin choices.
-Some NPCs have no unique text and/or stand in one spot all day, every day.
-No storage unit to put extra things you don't need/want to collect.

Suggestions
= Add a statistics panel to track various stats such as conversations had, products/produce shipped.
= Add a relationships page to track relationships with characters.
= Add collectible shells at the beach.
= Add an in-game calendar.
= Add text to the television.
= Add a map.
= Add images to the character's text box.
= Add voice over to the opening cutscreen.
= Add being able to get a cat.

If any of these things are already in-game and I just haven't unlocked them yet, please let me know. Otherwise this game shows great promise and I look forward to any and all updates! Brian Hudell is working very hard to provide the best customer service experience he can and has already provided several updates using suggestions from players.

In addition we also started a wiki for the game if anyone feels like editing and helping out: http://orange-season.wikia.com/wiki/Special:WikiActivity

First off - yes, this game is like other games in the same genre (ie: Stardew Valley, Harvest Moon) and, yes, that is exactly why I bought it. I love those types of games but once you make your fifth farm... well, there is only so much to do, isn't there?
So, when I saw this game for sale at a modest price and good reviews, I decided to give it a shot. Am I happy? Yes. Could I be happier? Yes.
The thing is, this game is still in development and you can tell. Pictures on NPCs don't show up on the text boxes, sometimes the FPS drops down to "is the game about to die" (fixed by a quick reboot of the game), and other little things. But, I am okay playing am game with those things happening as long as I think it is worth it. And, in this case, I do.
I have to assume one or both of two things is true: 1) the developer is a longtime player of games in this genre 2) the developer has been reading through complaints and wishes for other games in this genre. Why do I think that? Well, here are a couple examples:
a) When I went to buy seeds (which, as far as I can tell, you can buy on any day), I was given the information about the seed and plants whenever I had them selected. How much they cost, how much they sell for, how long they grow, how many days in-between growths. All right there. How many times have I wished for that info at that moment in other games??? It was awesome.
b) The map shows people WHERE THEY ARE. Not where they live. Where they are at that moment. Trying to hunt someone down? Never fear! If you can recognize their little face, you can stalk them. [side note: a legend of who is who would be great because I have a hard time with real human faces, not to mention little animated ones]
c) YOU can MOVE BUILDINGS. I am a bit of a designer, and so moving buildings is a big deal to me. I don't even have to wander, for example *coughcough*, up into the mountains and use an NPC to do it only to realize that there is a piece of plowed land in the way.
d) For me, it really harkens back to the good-old memories of a certain GameBoy Advance game. A little grindy, a little gritty, but still an adventure.
So, would I buy it again? Yes. Do I want to see changes? Yes. Should you buy it? If you are willing to say "ah yeah, I guess that feature isn't ready yet but OMG look at my crops and chickies!!!"

Things that might make things better:
Character Clothes Customization (ie: pants for the ladies - who farms in a skirt?)
Instead of "pet" name, maybe just go ahead and say dog?
Transparent Trees (would like to see what is behind those dang things)
Names of people & places when you hover over them on the map

I really want to like this game, and I know it is still in development and will hopefully improve with time, but as it stands there is just not enough content at the moment. I waited for several updates to happen before finally getting it and I kind wish I had not as it feels like a lot of the content has been removed recently. I keep reading about areas etc that do not appear to exist anymore. This also makes it very difficult to find help/advise about anything that I think I might be missing (I spent at least ten minutes trying to work out how to buy grass for fields only to finally work out that you can not, something I have never come across in a farming game before!) I have made it to Year 2 and feel like their is nothing more to do, I have found all the current areas, bought all the animals, planted all bar a few crops and their just is not anything else to do. I went and played something else for a bit hoping their would be more updates or I would feel more interested but that has not helped. I understand that it is still in development but considering how long it has been I would expect more content by this point. I think it would need some hefty content heavy updates before I would feel able to recommend this game.

I am a fan of RPG-Farming-Life-Sims.
I am a fan of the Harvest Moon series (before the latest ... but even then there's something vaguely redeeming), and happily played days away on Stardew Valley.
Finding a farming sim is easy, these days. The Internet seems to be crawling with them.
So, when I say that Fantasy Farming:Orange Season is different, even though it seems to follow the same formula, Trust me, it's different.
Yes, it's still in development. The person behind the game is very active in his community of players and is actively working to make the game as good as possible, given what he envisioned.
There is no combat at this time. There are two towns of people to explore. Multiple mines to do mining for ores and gems; an interesting randomized request board; fishing; Rune Factory-style "seasonal" fields hidden away in caverns and caves, mountains to explore and forage through, and a secret hidden society.
For non-violent fantasy, with responsibility, budgeting, and even some interesting animal breeding available, what's not to love? You can upgrade your house and your tools, buy seeds, buy and care for animals, raise "better" animals depending on what you personally consider better, and spend days wanderng the mountains or fighing in the ocean.
My advice? Get in on the ground floor and help shape the game. But, if that's not for you ... it's still a good playable game with regular updates and an active community.

It looks like this game has been abandoned. No updates in over a year, and the game is still listed as early access. The game is out of date, and is not in a playable state. I hope the creator comes back.

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Fantasy Farming: Orange Season is an indie farming-simulation RPG much in the same spirit of the Harvest Moon games and also Stardew Valley. Similarities would certainly group these games together in many of the same categories of comparison, whereas the differences would allow the player to enjoy each for its own game.

Similar in style, art direction, and gameplay, these games all offer a start-up farm after a quick introductory story. I haven't played Harvest Moon Since the Wii and it's been about 2 years since I fiddled around in Stardew Valley, so my recollection of those games are only from memory. Thus I am not going to be offering any kind of significant comparison, but rather talk about this game alone. In addition, Please keep in mind that 8 hours is a really (and I mean, reeeeally) short time period to offer proper judgement of a game of this type, so this is a mere first-impressions review.

So you want to know what you can do in this game? To lay it out in numbers, there are 25 other people to meet and to interact with in town, 14 different types of animals to own, 43 areas to explore (the buildings in town all count separately), 50 cooking recipes, 271 different items you can ship to sell, and currently 25 available tasks as of right now in Early Access. The recipes list is being developed and you cannot look at it from your menu yet. And I believe that there will be significant addenda to the actual tasks/quests, because 25 really seems like a fairly low number. (Although depending on how long you are planning to spend playing the game, I have completed 9/25 tasks so far in my time playing.)

As expected, you are going to be cleaning off areas of your farm, farming vegetables, fruits, etc. You will have to take good care to water your plants otherwise you will lose part of your crop. Before your first crops are harvested, you can explore around the local areas to forage for items to sell, so that you are able to make some money. Exploring also opens your own abilities because several of the essential farming tools are only found scattered around the map, and having them would mean the ability to gradually improve your own farming methods.

This game has plenty of fruit trees that will ripen allowing you to pick the fruits right off of them when you can see the fruit. The Orange Season subtitle of the game is no joke, as it seems that oranges are always in season, whereas other fruits will come and go depending on the seasons themselves. You will also often find random fruits and other valuables littering the local nature scape, so you can be pretty sure that you will never go hungry--even though hunger is not a problem for the protagonist in this game. It is for your animals, but all you ever need is sleep. Eating foods will remove your fatigue and restore stamina, but you can also do that just by hitting your pillow anywhere, any time.

Raising animals can be a big part of your farming instead of the traditional style of tilling land, sowing seeds, and watering them until fruition. You can raise chickens, ducks, cows, etc. You can use them as renewable resources and sell the eggs, milk, etc. that are produced. How you ultimately run your farm is up to you, although the game will definitely give you plenty of tasks to keep you more or less having the capability of maintain all styles of farming available within. A point of note is that the hens need a rooster in order to lay viable eggs for hatching. So getting that rooster is going to be important, lest you wish to keep paying $1000 gold for each little chicklet that you purchase. (I have raised 3 chickens from baby chicks so far, all of them egg-laying female. I have no idea if you can get lucky and buy a chick that turns into a rooster. I will probably keep trying, because the rooster was too pricey the first (and only) opportunity I had seen it come on sale.)

Or should you wish, you can opt for a more adventurous career and still maintain a flower garden. The flowers don't need much care, and AFAIK, they will just grow on their own once the seeds are sown. All you need to do is look at them until they are ready to harvest. Flowers can certainly generate a decent income if you have a steady supply of them to sell.

Live as a hermit or social butterfly, or just an animal lover and a people hater? I suppose all of these options are available. And you can practically gift anything to anyone, though if you are looking through your inventory in the pause menu, it does tell you if people will dislike an item. After all, it's right around Christmas time right now, who would want a lump of coal? Building up a relationship takes plenty of time, as the game's relationship hearts look almost infinite wells that will only slowly build up with lots of interactions and plenty of gifts.

When you have enough money and resources through your hard work and scavenging, you will be able to expand your house and fence things inside. I do wish you can just pick up and rearrange your fencing, because I kind of made a couple of mistakes in creating the fence around my chicken coop, and now it looks like a cat walked over my keyboard when I was putting it together. Hmm... That's my story and I will stick to it!

The different seasons will bring different items to plant or find. You will be able to attend the various festivals that occur to participate in the mini-games that are built in in hopes of winning a special prize or two.

Overall there's just a lot of stuff to do, and so far 8 hours in, I am just scratching at the surface.

I am playing with a controller, it plays decently well with one. I think there are definitely times when I think a mouse pointer would make things a little smoother, but I prefer the controller here. KB+M of course work perfectly as well.

Pixel-art farming pleasantries. The whole game code is available for people to freely modify it with whatever custom designs should that be a desire.

Nothing spectactular, not bad. Mostly just background stuff that you can opt to ignore. I think the dog barks a little too loud, but that's just me probably.

I think taking one glance at this game, if you have played other similar games, would tell you whether you are the targeted audience.

Base price of $13.99 is fair in its Early Access state right now. The price may increase with more content. Currently the Winter Sale price at 30% off is pretty good, in my opinion.

https://youtu.be/CIpdrjZpgBU

Fantasy Farming: Orange Season will offer you plenty of hours of farming simulation goodness with its variety of adaptive styles to the farming idea in that as long as you make money you can keep moving forward with making things bigger and better for yourself. This is clearly a game not for everyone, just like some people think that these farming-sim/RPG style games are just too tedious and too much like real work. To me, I think it's really nice from time to time to sit down with a casual and relaxing game, more or less thoughtless and effortless...

Umm... What do you mean I sat around thoughtless for too long! Wait, did I lose a whole crop of cabbages when I typed this review? NOOOOoooooooo!!!!!

I received the product for free. I did not receive any compensation to write this review. The opinions represented here are entirely my own and were not influenced in any way.

In the state of the game actually... Don't get it full price. Only if it's less than 5 bucks and even then. It keep crashing, impossible to open since they messed up some update after more than a year without any news or nothing. I spend so many hours trying to play the game and it kept crashing and villagers getting stuck somewhere impossible to talk to them, I had to restart a few games because of bugs.

It could have a lot of potential but from the look of it, I don't have any hope for it to be finished and polished.

this game has been in development for quite some time, has changed its core people working on it and has changed the engine it was being played on. all with out a heads up to the community that once staunchly supported it.

the "updated" version is buggier than a summer night around a bunch of empties & a porch light on. to the point of being unplayable.
the devs, while they Do respond to concerns, don't seem to have any concrete answers or fixes for the problems their "new & imporved" version has created. some have compared their cookie cutter responses to that of EU when They were on the ropes for poor game functionality and other problems.

when it was first in demo, i would have said yes, get it.
when it was first in early access, i would have said yes, get it.
but now?
now i would advise against getting this. even on sale.
if you already Have the Original version on your system, play That. Do NOT update until you hear the other players say it's fixed. you Can go back to the original... check out the discussions for tips on how.

Bought this game in December 2018 - that is four years ago now (for less than 10 Euros, mind you) for a game that is _still_ in EA. Since then the game has sparsely been updated, with the recent update transforming the game into a hot mess of all the unsquashed bugs Tyrion's cousin never got. The things that they _did_ work on, was taking everything out that made the game charming and a refreshing alternative to the already stale and overhyped other type(s) of this genre. Namely the fantasy elements - hence the reduction in the name of the game, formerly known as "Fantasy Farming: Orange Season". I am glad I only lost 10 eurones in the making of another Steam Disappointment (tm) and I wish good luck to everyone thinking this game of regurgitated content might be anywhere close to worth it's current price.

[Edit: Tumbled the words of the original game name, corrected. Also:]

I was checking with myself all day today, whether I had been too harsh in my negative review and I decided to research a bit more. Seems I was not too harsh at all, because checking out the publisher via the Steam Databank made me aware of another abandonware game by them: "Wild Season - Episode 1" which has been abandoned way before work on this game here started, is _still_ available on Steam for a whopping 15 € despite the overwhelmingly negative reviews and is also not listed among the list of games on the publisher site here on Steam - one might wonder why (or actually, not).

I strongly advise anyone to decide for themselves if they want to spend an insolent amount of 25 € for a game that is most likely going to be abandoned again soon, after being in EA for six years now and with an already dead, yet still available predecessor, that nets them money for no amount of work whatsoever.

Unfinished and broken. Not to mention lacking lots of heart that the original dev put into the game before selling it. All the good dialogue from the first dev has been cut and the game is a shell of what it was. I'm only grateful that I got it while it was on sale a few years back.