Developer: Mooneaters
Publisher: Untold Tales, VARSAV Game Studios
Platform: PC
Tested on: PC
Everdream Village – Preview
Cast away the worries and woes of the big city life and settle down on your own new farmland. Surrounded by family, friends, and many kinds of wildlife, Everdream Village is the newest take on a cozy farming sim. Here you can terraform your own farmland, take care of your friends and family, and even transform into your own dog! This preview will explore what sets the game apart from other known titles and what makes it so enjoyable.
Without too much explanation, you’ve been given land and are now the new mayor-in-the-making of a whole new village. Along with Remenedes, the valley’s magical witch cat, you start to create a new farm where you and your family reside and try to make the best of it. What your family doesn’t know, or doesn’t want to understand, is how you own a magical hat. This hat allows you to morph into the animals on your farm and perform other various tasks, otherwise deemed impossible.
Throughout the game, the story progresses in the form of quests, which allow you to explore the land, learn new skills, and meet new people. Due to the pacing of a typical cozy game, there is little to no pressure in how fast these quests need to be cleared, which makes the game even more enjoyable.
Of course, by completing more quests, various options become unlocked, which in turn allows the player to do and create more to grow their farm and meet more people and animals alike.
Those who love cute and soft graphics will find themselves falling in love with the imagery of Everdream Village. Both animals and people are designed in a cute, happy, almost chibi-like design, which immediately puts the player in a comfortable mood. Aside from the living, walking characters, the farmlands are just as beautiful, changing their appearance based on the time in-game, with a lovely orange glow at sundown or lush, vibrant greens around noon.
The UI of Everdream Village is also properly adjusted to fit the style of the game, presenting itself in pastel, rounded boxes with an almost handwritten-like font. This makes it readable and immersive for the player, while remaining clear and not interrupting the current gameplay.
Something to note is that there is an anti-dizzying function, which creates a white dot at the center of the screen, allowing players to focus on a single point and preventing nausea from turning the camera.
In terms of sound, we found Everdream Village somewhat lacking. There is one tune playing in the background, which changes slightly depending on what area you are in. This can make longer gameplay sessions, where the music is played repeatedly, become monotonous or even annoying.
There were also moments during our gameplay that we were surprised there weren’t any sound effects implemented. When coming across a running river, there was no water to be heard, or when running through a swarm of bees, there wasn’t any buzzing either. This is somewhat disappointing as it would add to the nature aspect of the game, though this could perhaps be implemented later as the game is still in Early Access.
In essence, Everdream Village is a quest-driven game that takes place in a farm-setting. There are various mechanics to unpack, but to keep some of them a surprise, we’ll go over the main ones the player gets to experience earlier on.
One of the main selling points is the fact that you can transform into your loyal dog. Through using the ‘magic hat’ in your inventory, the player becomes their dog and can talk to the other animals, guide them to their pen, and sniff the area for specific items. We found this feature to be handy for certain quests that are given later, as well as just a cute experience altogether.
Next up is the gathering of resources and using them to craft and cook. Early in the game, you are tasked with crafting fences. Rather than just chopping trees and being done with it, the player gets to play a minigame that requires them to puzzle the item together, as shown in the corner of the screen. This made us think back on early games such as MySims and was a lovely addition to an otherwise overdone mechanic. The cooking minigame felt like the old mobile game Fruit Ninja, where your ingredients are thrown in the air and need to be cut once they enter an indicated square. For those who aren’t interested in these minigames, once you have made the item once, there is an option to ‘fast craft/cook’, and skip said game to save yourself the trouble or time.
Finally, something that was less enjoyable was the shaping of your land. At a certain point, you are tasked to extend some ground to plant more crops. Rather than this being a grid-like feature, the player is free to place the bedding as they please. This can make landscaping messy and non-linear, which can cause a bit of a headache for some of us. Though it is pleasant that the player gets this much freedom, a snapping function would make a nice addition for those who prefer to keep fields more structured.
Conclusion
Despite being in Early Access, Everdream Village is already an enjoyable farm sim, where you are surrounded by cute animals, as well as beautiful outside areas. The various options of decorating and reshaping your land as you please are very innovative, though they aren’t made for everyone. The number of quests given at times can be overwhelming at first, but since there is no time pressure as to when you need to complete these, this game really fits the ‘cozy’ tag. Overall, we recommend this game, though perhaps it is best to wait until a full release.
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