You recently decided – after a bad run in with the Mafia – that it would be a good time to leave town, preferably before you wake up at the bottom of a river with cement blocks on your feet. During this time you happened to drive by a real estate agent listing a plot of land for sale that was both cheap and very far away, and so – with the offer being precisely everything you were looking for – you quickly take them up on it. Thusly you now have a new home, where the villagers seem to be friendly enough – yet somehow curiously distant – and the forest next door emanates an oddly ominous feeling.
So went the set up to Wild Season, a recent Kickstarter project claiming to derive inspiration from titles such as: Harvest Moon, Animal Crossing, Rune Factory and Thousand Arms. Quickfire Games – a group of programmers living in the UK – have proclaimed that their title, which allows players to be either male or female, will set itself apart due to its serious storytelling. Whereas most of the aforementioned games encourage you to become everyone’s best friend, here it’s entirely likely – during you investigations – to become someone’s worst enemy.
In order to make such interactions meaningful, the developers have promised that every NPC – dateable or not – will have a unique history coupled with a well fleshed out personality. Complimenting this will be a context driven relationship system where characters react to your behaviors, noticing if you happen to be antisocial or if you seem to be constantly barging into their house at odd hours of the night. Wild Season may very well be the first RPG ever made where players aren’t blindly allowed to have their way with each house they enter, at least unless they’re willing to trigger actual consequences.
Character interactions aside, players will also be able to grow a wide variety of crops – join the town council and help shape the village’s future – and even tackle a diverse range of livestock that even includes penguins. While the above has been fairly standard to recent Harvest Moon titles, players will also be able to take on part-time jobs – deal with potentially crazy exes, should they break up with someone – and even eventually research technology to help automate their farm’s processes. However, perhaps the most significant unique thing you can do with Wild Season – versus any of its inspirational sources – is play the game on to the go using your iOS based device.
Never before has a proper – high quality – take on Harvest Moon esque gameplay been available for iOS platforms, but that will soon change thanks to a successfully funded Kickstarter. While the Kickstarter project itself has mere minutes left, those seeking to get in on Wild Season’s ground floor can still make backer pledges via PayPal up until January 31st. Other than the game itself, backers – depending on how much they pledge – can have access to all of the following: BETA testing privileges, opportunities to help design in-game items, a production art book, or even the chance to have an NPC named after you (and possibly help design their house as well).
For every interested person out there, whom has long been searching for an iOS equivalent to Harvest Moon, Wild Season’s full release is expected to happen sometime around September 2014.