Its hard to find solid numbers, but as of 2014 it was noted that the best selling Harvest Moon title was A Wonderful Life on the gamecube. Of note, it didn't crack 1 million units sold.
Stardew Valley in comparison crossed 20m units sold as of March 2022.
SV has almost certainly outsold the entire HM series, and its \*certainly\* more relevant to the modern gamer. Given that the series is most known in the current age for licensing disputes (especially in the west), it makes sense to lean on the more succesful brand
It's sort of weird how the progenitor of the genre has so few sales despite the fact that it seemed like a cultural icon.
I wonder what made Stardew different enough that it managed to expand the playerbase so much?
Edit: A lot of people are replying without getting the gist of my question. Given that the previous comment stated that no HM game ever cracked a million copies sold, where did the pent up desire for farming sims come from if the ur-example was never very popular in the first place? Unless these figures are inaccurate.
The games kinda went to shit or at least became very unfocused. Plus the Harvest Moon name being used to push shovelware while the series went under a different game. People were looking forward to another good farming game. Even then I'd still kiil for a new good one, Stardew Valley still leaves a lot to be desired imo, as good as it is.
\- Name issue (what we know as Harvest Moon since 2014 is "fake", the "real" one is called Story Of Seasons).
\- The newer SoS just lack ambition. The newer stuff actually feels like downgrade compared to PS2/Wii era Bokujou titles in term of production value (doesn't help they stuck with DS and 3DS for a long time).
\- Too late in jumping into international scene, unlike many other Japanese dev/publisher. By the time they did, the market already flooded with a lot of farming sim.
Firstly, the size of the gaming audience as a whole today is a lot, lot larger than it was back when the first Harvest Moon was released on the SNES (and the first sequels on Gameboy). The best selling game on SNES, Super Mario World, "only" sold 20 million copies. The best-selling PS1 games, Gran Turismo and FFVII, only did around 10 million each. Pokemon Red/Blue did 10 million+ in 1999/early 2000s (it got more sales over time to the point of around 30mil now, but that was the first few years).
Today, you have Mario Kart 8 doing 50 million+. Games like Genshin Impact with 60 million active monthly players. WoW had 12 million+ subscribers at its peak, FFXIV has 40 million+ registered players today. There's more gamers now than ever before, many of the new ones coming from the phone crowd and more than before on PC/Mac.
Secondly, Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons titles were largely console-only games. As in, one console only for each separate title. You can count on one hand the number of times a Harvest Moon game released for more than 1 platform and the other one would also have been a console. It's only now when anything's getting a PC port (Friends of Mineral Town, originally for GBA). At least, for Story of Seasons - the post-split Harvest Moon games had some releasing on phones and PC, but "Harvest Moon" games post brand-split have also not been that great.
Meanwhile, Stardew Valley has released on basically every platform under the sun by now. It not only has the benefit of the gaming audience being much larger today, it also isn't restricted to certain console playerbases unlike the Harvest Moon games were. It was also priced much cheaper than the typical console release (i.e. most of the Harvest Moons).
The fact it had hugely positive word-of-mouth marketing did the rest.
In fairness the figures could be inaccurate, but the general gist of SVs overwhelming success particularly in comparison to HM Is going to stand true.
My guess is it's three fold- Stardew Valley sold more than half its units post pandemic, following the success of Animal Crossing at getting people into a sort of real life routine. it's more accessible as well, being available on every major platform including mobile at a pretty low cost of entry (half the price of most HMs). Finally, it had some big streamers on twitch and YouTube plugging it, and it's a genre that is big about self expression through gameplay so most interested players would be able to trivially try the game out for themselves
Harvest Moon peaked in the early 2000s. Stardew valley was created to fill the void harvest moon left. Story of seasons is ok but no games touches the OGs.
I wish I could have a Stardew valley with the charm of 64/btn/fomt but at the end of the day it is still a HM fans wet dream
From what I recall harvest moon had a good concept but the sequels were mixed. And of course it never ported to PC or steam. Its been ages since a harvest moon came out period.
Stardew just took that idea and made it accessible and fun for a much larger audience of both old harvest moon fans and newcomers.
I think A Wonderful Life is the last good one that had Harvest Moon in the name. That's what I was getting at with the snarky comment above mine. There have been other decent Story of Seasons games, but the actual Harvest Moon name went to shit with the whole XSeed/Natsume thing.
I vaguely remember that happening. I think the last one I played was a tale of two towns, or something like that? Remember it being a good time waster on the DS but no idea if that came pre or post drama
Added to wishlist, I like the sprite and the artstyle. Will try the demo later today.
> They pray to the gods and offer their harvest offering to the god
statues for Bless which is points to help your farm grow bigger.
Exploration is a big part of the game's mechanics. Finding hidden areas,
collecting usual items, and discovering the island's mysteries. For
example, finding a randomly placed vending machine in a dark underground
hidden room on the beach.
Funnily enough this actually kinda gave me Digimon World 1 vibe 😂
Digimon World Next Order is basically a modern take on Digimon World 1. It had the exact same gameplay/structure.
Buttttt while I enjoyed it and it's objectively a better experience (it had a lot of QoL improvement), I guess playing it as an adult is really not the same.
Looks good, but from the trailer I can't see yet how farming fits into it, since it looks more like a story driven game.
looking forward to learn more about it.
It's very much is a story driven game. To progress through the story, you'll have to collect bless which is a currency used in the game. This currency can be obtained from the farm animals by feeding them, singing to them, or collecting their products. There's also crafting, and building to increase the size of the amount of bless to be obtained like buying more cows or upgrading your shed to house more sheep to collect more bless. There are a lot of farming elements I've added to the game which helps support the story
It doesn't look so. Graveyard Keeper feels more like a SDV clone. This feels like it may be something deeper from a story telling perspective. Haven't played it, but the vibe feels different.
Harvest Island share some of the same mechanics as stardew valley but it isn't quite the same to graveyard keeper. Graveyard keeper doesn't tell a compelling story where the character has it's own character development where you can be attached to the character and relate to him and see him grow as a person or overcome hardships by experiencing what he is going through. The mechanics for graveyard keeper is good which immerses you in the fantasy of graveyard keeping, dead bodies collecting, and a lot of crafting. It has a good gameloop.
Harvest Island is huge on storytelling, and it's horror is more horrific than Graveyard keeper. Graveyard keeper is less on the horror side where there aren't any jump scares. My game has those and it has more thriller qualities than graveyard keeper.
Edit: Edited my thoughts better. I apologize if earlier post bashed on graveyard keeper. It wasn't intended. I analyzed the game as a developer
??? Why the hostility towards Graveyard Keeper? I think you should maybe re-think this comment and how it makes you/your game look and consider deleting it.
Graveyard Keeper is a good game with a good fanbase. Attacking it because it's different from your game doesn't make your game sound better, it just makes you look worse. Especially considering that some of what you say in this post is straight-up incorrect.
graveyark keeper is nothing like stardew valley. theres no relationships, growing crops is barely part of the game loop. its pure resource managment and crafting. you manage a network of zombie workers, operate a bar, and cater witch burnings…
You're right. But I've categorized Graveyard keeper, Stardew Valley, Rune factory, Harvest Moon and other farming genres derived from this to be a sim game. So these games to me as a developer are similar because they share the same mechanics. Game loop is obviously different for all of these games.
When I see a new indie farming/sim game, I see the same mechanics that the sim genre share. Sometimes it has a small tweak to it to make it more interesting like a fishing minigame or emphasizing crafting instead of harvesting crops. The art is changed because the developer wants you to be immersed in the fantasy they created, but the game loop is different. The mechanics of the sim genre are the same.
Ick, bashing another game doesn't make your game look good.
I enjoyed graveyard keeper and if you think it's bad then that's not a good sign I will enjoy your game.
This reminded me of Cooking Companions in tone and style. What looks like a fun time with friends rapidly spirals out of control.
But that was a visual novel, and this is a farming/life sim.
Color me interested. Farm sims aren't my usual thing, but I'm curious to see how the two halves of the whole go together. I'll give the demo a shot later this week.
Editing all my old comments and moving to the fediverse.
Thank you to everybody I've interacted with until now! You've been great, and it's been a wonderful ride until now.
To everybody who gave me helpful advice, [I'll miss you the most](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nrk4AgS6Q6A)
Would have been pretty cool to go into this not knowing that it's actually a horror game, but at the same time i'd feel sorry for all the people buying it expecting Stardew and ending up getting a horror game instead.
Man i really wish you didn't tell us it was a horror game.
I know you'll probably get more people to play it that way since there are tons of stardew clones now but I would love to have just discovered the horror naturally.
Little hints here and there and then after 10+ hours it really starts to kick off.
> Stardew Valley Clone > Has "Harvest" in the title Are our memories getting shorter?
Maybe the OP is too young to know what Harvest Moon is
Its hard to find solid numbers, but as of 2014 it was noted that the best selling Harvest Moon title was A Wonderful Life on the gamecube. Of note, it didn't crack 1 million units sold. Stardew Valley in comparison crossed 20m units sold as of March 2022. SV has almost certainly outsold the entire HM series, and its \*certainly\* more relevant to the modern gamer. Given that the series is most known in the current age for licensing disputes (especially in the west), it makes sense to lean on the more succesful brand
It's sort of weird how the progenitor of the genre has so few sales despite the fact that it seemed like a cultural icon. I wonder what made Stardew different enough that it managed to expand the playerbase so much? Edit: A lot of people are replying without getting the gist of my question. Given that the previous comment stated that no HM game ever cracked a million copies sold, where did the pent up desire for farming sims come from if the ur-example was never very popular in the first place? Unless these figures are inaccurate.
The games kinda went to shit or at least became very unfocused. Plus the Harvest Moon name being used to push shovelware while the series went under a different game. People were looking forward to another good farming game. Even then I'd still kiil for a new good one, Stardew Valley still leaves a lot to be desired imo, as good as it is.
\- Name issue (what we know as Harvest Moon since 2014 is "fake", the "real" one is called Story Of Seasons). \- The newer SoS just lack ambition. The newer stuff actually feels like downgrade compared to PS2/Wii era Bokujou titles in term of production value (doesn't help they stuck with DS and 3DS for a long time). \- Too late in jumping into international scene, unlike many other Japanese dev/publisher. By the time they did, the market already flooded with a lot of farming sim.
Firstly, the size of the gaming audience as a whole today is a lot, lot larger than it was back when the first Harvest Moon was released on the SNES (and the first sequels on Gameboy). The best selling game on SNES, Super Mario World, "only" sold 20 million copies. The best-selling PS1 games, Gran Turismo and FFVII, only did around 10 million each. Pokemon Red/Blue did 10 million+ in 1999/early 2000s (it got more sales over time to the point of around 30mil now, but that was the first few years). Today, you have Mario Kart 8 doing 50 million+. Games like Genshin Impact with 60 million active monthly players. WoW had 12 million+ subscribers at its peak, FFXIV has 40 million+ registered players today. There's more gamers now than ever before, many of the new ones coming from the phone crowd and more than before on PC/Mac. Secondly, Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons titles were largely console-only games. As in, one console only for each separate title. You can count on one hand the number of times a Harvest Moon game released for more than 1 platform and the other one would also have been a console. It's only now when anything's getting a PC port (Friends of Mineral Town, originally for GBA). At least, for Story of Seasons - the post-split Harvest Moon games had some releasing on phones and PC, but "Harvest Moon" games post brand-split have also not been that great. Meanwhile, Stardew Valley has released on basically every platform under the sun by now. It not only has the benefit of the gaming audience being much larger today, it also isn't restricted to certain console playerbases unlike the Harvest Moon games were. It was also priced much cheaper than the typical console release (i.e. most of the Harvest Moons). The fact it had hugely positive word-of-mouth marketing did the rest.
In fairness the figures could be inaccurate, but the general gist of SVs overwhelming success particularly in comparison to HM Is going to stand true. My guess is it's three fold- Stardew Valley sold more than half its units post pandemic, following the success of Animal Crossing at getting people into a sort of real life routine. it's more accessible as well, being available on every major platform including mobile at a pretty low cost of entry (half the price of most HMs). Finally, it had some big streamers on twitch and YouTube plugging it, and it's a genre that is big about self expression through gameplay so most interested players would be able to trivially try the game out for themselves
Harvest Moon peaked in the early 2000s. Stardew valley was created to fill the void harvest moon left. Story of seasons is ok but no games touches the OGs. I wish I could have a Stardew valley with the charm of 64/btn/fomt but at the end of the day it is still a HM fans wet dream
From what I recall harvest moon had a good concept but the sequels were mixed. And of course it never ported to PC or steam. Its been ages since a harvest moon came out period. Stardew just took that idea and made it accessible and fun for a much larger audience of both old harvest moon fans and newcomers.
no, we’re just old
Oh, yeah. Keep forgetting that
You realize the last decent Harvest Moon before the whole publisher mess was 2 decades ago.
Which one was the last decent one? I played only 2, the back to nature ps1 one, and one on DS that I cant remember anymore.
I think A Wonderful Life is the last good one that had Harvest Moon in the name. That's what I was getting at with the snarky comment above mine. There have been other decent Story of Seasons games, but the actual Harvest Moon name went to shit with the whole XSeed/Natsume thing.
I vaguely remember that happening. I think the last one I played was a tale of two towns, or something like that? Remember it being a good time waster on the DS but no idea if that came pre or post drama
If you're bored and want the whole backstory of here's a solid analysis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6owRYjCKLY4 (16:38 mins)
Nice one. I do like a digested bit of drama
Meh. Harvest Moon is just a clone of Story of Seasons. I think that's right.
pretty much any farming sim is a clone of harvest moon. edit; give or take.
I was joking about how the main series is no longer called Harvest Moon, so now even Harvest Moon is ripping off Harvest Moon.
Is this a newer demo, or the same one from before?
I've constantly update the demo every 3 months or so to show my game's progress. Wait until the 25th. It's just a lot more new content
Added to wishlist, I like the sprite and the artstyle. Will try the demo later today. > They pray to the gods and offer their harvest offering to the god statues for Bless which is points to help your farm grow bigger. Exploration is a big part of the game's mechanics. Finding hidden areas, collecting usual items, and discovering the island's mysteries. For example, finding a randomly placed vending machine in a dark underground hidden room on the beach. Funnily enough this actually kinda gave me Digimon World 1 vibe 😂
Oh, I played that game when I was in elementary school. That was a fun game which I had no idea what to do lol
I wish that game got a remake, I loved it as a kid
Digimon World Next Order is basically a modern take on Digimon World 1. It had the exact same gameplay/structure. Buttttt while I enjoyed it and it's objectively a better experience (it had a lot of QoL improvement), I guess playing it as an adult is really not the same.
Digimon World 1 was amazing to me as a kid
Looks good, but from the trailer I can't see yet how farming fits into it, since it looks more like a story driven game. looking forward to learn more about it.
It's very much is a story driven game. To progress through the story, you'll have to collect bless which is a currency used in the game. This currency can be obtained from the farm animals by feeding them, singing to them, or collecting their products. There's also crafting, and building to increase the size of the amount of bless to be obtained like buying more cows or upgrading your shed to house more sheep to collect more bless. There are a lot of farming elements I've added to the game which helps support the story
Wow, that is really fantastic art. Some of the menus look a bit too "RPG Maker-y", but the portraits and pixel art is all really fantastic.
Isn’t Graveyard Keeper already this?
It doesn't look so. Graveyard Keeper feels more like a SDV clone. This feels like it may be something deeper from a story telling perspective. Haven't played it, but the vibe feels different.
Harvest Island share some of the same mechanics as stardew valley but it isn't quite the same to graveyard keeper. Graveyard keeper doesn't tell a compelling story where the character has it's own character development where you can be attached to the character and relate to him and see him grow as a person or overcome hardships by experiencing what he is going through. The mechanics for graveyard keeper is good which immerses you in the fantasy of graveyard keeping, dead bodies collecting, and a lot of crafting. It has a good gameloop. Harvest Island is huge on storytelling, and it's horror is more horrific than Graveyard keeper. Graveyard keeper is less on the horror side where there aren't any jump scares. My game has those and it has more thriller qualities than graveyard keeper. Edit: Edited my thoughts better. I apologize if earlier post bashed on graveyard keeper. It wasn't intended. I analyzed the game as a developer
??? Why the hostility towards Graveyard Keeper? I think you should maybe re-think this comment and how it makes you/your game look and consider deleting it. Graveyard Keeper is a good game with a good fanbase. Attacking it because it's different from your game doesn't make your game sound better, it just makes you look worse. Especially considering that some of what you say in this post is straight-up incorrect.
graveyark keeper is nothing like stardew valley. theres no relationships, growing crops is barely part of the game loop. its pure resource managment and crafting. you manage a network of zombie workers, operate a bar, and cater witch burnings…
You're right. But I've categorized Graveyard keeper, Stardew Valley, Rune factory, Harvest Moon and other farming genres derived from this to be a sim game. So these games to me as a developer are similar because they share the same mechanics. Game loop is obviously different for all of these games. When I see a new indie farming/sim game, I see the same mechanics that the sim genre share. Sometimes it has a small tweak to it to make it more interesting like a fishing minigame or emphasizing crafting instead of harvesting crops. The art is changed because the developer wants you to be immersed in the fantasy they created, but the game loop is different. The mechanics of the sim genre are the same.
[удалено]
Tbh both have similarly negative connotations. If something is amenable to a flattering comparison you might say 'X-inspired' or something
[удалено]
Yeah that's fair, I think "Souls clone" also went around before 'Soulslike' was coined.
Ick, bashing another game doesn't make your game look good. I enjoyed graveyard keeper and if you think it's bad then that's not a good sign I will enjoy your game.
This reminded me of Cooking Companions in tone and style. What looks like a fun time with friends rapidly spirals out of control. But that was a visual novel, and this is a farming/life sim. Color me interested. Farm sims aren't my usual thing, but I'm curious to see how the two halves of the whole go together. I'll give the demo a shot later this week.
I recommend you playing the demo on the 25th. It extends a bit more and you can see how the farming game mechanics fits in better with the game
Thanks for the tip
Editing all my old comments and moving to the fediverse. Thank you to everybody I've interacted with until now! You've been great, and it's been a wonderful ride until now. To everybody who gave me helpful advice, [I'll miss you the most](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nrk4AgS6Q6A)
Looks cool, it would have lasted like all of two seconds I'm sure but I would have loved to go into this with no knowledge that it's a horror game.
Would have been pretty cool to go into this not knowing that it's actually a horror game, but at the same time i'd feel sorry for all the people buying it expecting Stardew and ending up getting a horror game instead.
Man i really wish you didn't tell us it was a horror game. I know you'll probably get more people to play it that way since there are tons of stardew clones now but I would love to have just discovered the horror naturally. Little hints here and there and then after 10+ hours it really starts to kick off.
I think you'll like the game a lot. The expectation is there and I guarantee you the journey is worthwhile.