Author: Darlinganddeath
Date: 05-06-2023
UPDATE (05-30-2023): For the newest version of our Everdream Valley Review, please visit this article instead: A Magically Refreshing Addition to 3D Farming Sims | Everdream Valley Review
Everdream Valley was one of the first game demos we jumped into when started our content creation journey. We spent a bit over an hour playing through it and we honestly enjoyed what we experienced. We did experience a couple of bugs and the game lacked a few key things we usually like to see in a game such as efficient quest tracking or hints such as "how to open your quest log". Well, on April 7th they updated the Demo of Everdream Valley and we finally made time to play through it to experience all the updates.
Let me start by saying... my gosh it's brilliant. They quite literally improved everything we'd originally had comments on and even added some features that we'd made jokes about, but didn't really expect to be implemented into the game ever. Don't worry, we're going to highlight all of those changes here but believe me, we're excited about this game for sure!
Note: If you haven't seen the original video, you can watch it below. This article is focused on comparing our previous experience to this one and ranting about all the positive improvements they made, as well as highlighting what we love most about Everdream Valley.
The Changes:
Before we get started, I want to just list to you what they changed / added to the Game Demo back in April:
Grandparents now lend a helping hand on the farm, offering delightful surprises every morning.
Witness charming new behaviors from your grandparents.
Enjoy smoother camera movement.
Localization bug fixes and additional language support.
More options for avatar customization.
Two new music tracks to set the mood.
Engage in new side quests for added fun.
Game balance enhancements.
New tutorials to guide your journey.
Discover the animal atlas.
Meet new varieties of sheep, chickens, and cows.
Numerous minor bug fixes for a polished experience.
What They Added:
Okay, so... let's talk about what Everdream Valley added before anything else because these are the most important features to us and we want to highlight them first.
The Starting Cutscene:
When we first experienced the demo a few months ago, the game immediately threw you onto the farm after the character creator and you were left with this feeling of "okay, but why am I here?" we got a few lines of text from your grandparents telling you that you're stuck here for the summer and that your parents aren't joining you. I didn't care to question it because I immediately started cleaning up the little farm, chopping down dead bushes and trees, and doing whatever task they asked of us. Now, that's fine, it's a farming simulator, but for obvious reasons, a lack of story can be a game's downfall. Farming Sims are probably one genre you can get away with having a lack of story since there realistically should be enough to do in the game to keep you busy. In Everdream Valley, there is definitely enough to keep you busy.
Image: Beginning Story Scene
Having said that... Everdream Valley didn't just throw in a couple more lines of text detailing the story, they threw in an entire cutscene between you, your mother, and your grandmother. I don't want to spoil it for obvious reasons, but it added depth to the reason you were on the farm and even gave some insight as to why the farm has gotten a bit run down in recent months. I actually felt a sense of connection to my grandparents and wanted to go clean up the farm and return it to its former glory. Not because some line of text told me to, but because they'd implemented just enough to make me feel a sense of purpose and a desire towards helping my little old grandparents and the family farm.
Your Grandparents:
Alright, I made a joke in my original Demo Review that your grandparents sat around the farm expecting you to do everything. This is typical in every. single. farming game. You're apparently the only one in the town capable of returning the town to its "former glory", and everyone else is happy to keep doing exactly what they were doing and let you go about your day. When I made the joke, it was a completely playful joke with no expectations of them actually changing how the game worked... BUT!
Image: What Grandparents Do
Everdream Valley went and made it so that your grandparents actually go out and collect things and how much they collect is determined by how much you collect in a day. It wasn't just a simple bug or two that my grandparents gave to me at the start of a new day, no, they loaded me up! From bugs to berries to sticks, wood, and stones. I honestly couldn't believe they made this a feature, but it's brilliant! Especially after the story scene at the beginning, I was completely fine with my grandparents sitting around doing nothing but telling me what I needed to do next, but now they don't even do that! I adore it, another pat on the back to the Everdream Valley team.
Quest Tracking, Helpful Hints & Map Experience:
I'm honestly struggling to find the words to express how purely excited I was to see the updates to the map, hints, and quest-tracking system. On my first playthrough of the demo, I experienced a huge disconnect between the quests and the map. They were located in 2 different sections (Map you hit M, Quests you hit J) and while it told me how to bring up the map, I had no idea how to open up my quest log. So, I did what I always do... I rolled my face along the keyboard until a journal opened upon hitting J that showed me all my quests. This was great, I finally knew how to locate what I needed to be doing, but there were so many bugs related to the quest tracking (like it just not showing up at all when the map wasn't open), to the fact that there were no actual guides on the minimap or map for some of the quests. I was left staring at it going "Okay, guess I'll run around and figure it out". Now, I'm a determined person and I'll figure it out, don't you worry... but that doesn't make for an enjoyable experience. A game needs to be designed for someone who isn't willing to "figure it out" and the quest tracking and map were my biggest complaint. Actually, they were my only real complaint. Even with the other bugs I experienced it was nothing compared to not being able to find what I needed to be doing or where I needed to go to do it.
Image: Helpful Hints Added
So... how was this changed? Oh my lanta let me tell you... Immediately after receiving a quest, it showed up on the side of my screen as a quest being tracked. It also told me clearly that I needed to hit J to open up the quest log and that's a huge improvement from rolling my face on the keyboard to find which button worked. Aside from that, I hit M to check out where it was located and hallelujah there was a huge circle radius of where I needed to go. Then I closed the map and took a look at the minimap... my gosh there wasn't just one little colored icon that told me where I needed to go for my quest, there were 2! Yes, there was a color-coded icon on the minimap for both the quests I was tracking. This simple quality-of-life improvement made it so that I could complete quests that I hadn't completed in the first demo and got to experience more features I hadn't touched in the first playthrough.
Image: Map Quest Icon
I will say that for the animal-tracking quests, there wasn't a location on the map for them. This is good... great even! You have a dog that you're supposed to use to help find the animals. It doesn't make sense for the quest to tell you where it is when it's your job to use your pup and figure it out, so I'm giving them extra-extra points for leaving these quests out of the tracking.
What They Fixed:
In this section we're going to talk about the bugs we experienced during our first playthrough that we're happy to say were not in our second playthrough, hoorah to the great dev team for the improvements!
Save Game Bug
In our first video, we documented a bug we experienced when we went to save the game and the first slot appeared empty and unclickable. We were confused as to why we weren't allowed to use Save Game Slot 1 for our save, so we opted in for Save Slot 2 and that was that. We later realized that this slot was dedicated to the Auto Save data as it appeared when we went to save the second time.
Image: Save Game Slot Working
We're proud to report that this bug has been fixed! When we went to save the game, it was clearly labeled as an Auto Save slot.
Map, Quest Tracking & Bugs:
Okay, I already ranted about how excited I was that they improved the quest tracker, and I'm extremely pleased to say I had no issues navigating to quests or having the tracking system stop working. I'm honestly most proud of the developers for this quality-of-life improvement. Nothing sucks more than having to look up how to do a quest on the internet as it completely ruins your immersion in a game. Honestly, a huge shout-out to the Everdream Valley team for taking critical feedback and not only improving it but revamping it to a standard that not many games even offer. Hooray!
Image: Improved Quest Tracking Side Frame
We also didn't have any issue with the little map icon pulling a disappearing act on us towards the end of the demo the way we had the first time (hehe).
Quests Out of Order:
So, I can't actually comment on this because I knew going into the second version of the Demo that if I did the quests out of order I might be subjected to not being able to complete them, as I had that happen in the first playthrough. So, I did all the quests in their correct order this time like a good grandchild and I didn't experience any issues like grandma telling me she wouldn't accept my jug of milk (lol).
Swinging Sword Bug & Basket Not Working:
I'm happy to report... the basket works! I ran through my crops and even the berry bushes and the basket did indeed pick everything up the way it was supposed to. Yay!
I did notice that when I have my axe or sword equipped that I still pick up the fruit off of bushes and such, but this isn't something I'm complaining about. Whether it's supposed to be like that or not (lol) I'm not going to complain that when I run through the bushes wielding my wooden toy sword, it lops off the berries and places them magically in my inventory... no really devs it's totally fine I love it lol!
Gif: Running With Axe & Auto-Collecting
Features We Love:
We discussed some of what we loved about Everdream Valley in our video review of the Demo, but I want to highlight them here for anyone new that is just now finding out about the game.
Farm Customization:
Yes, we get a lot of games that have some level of customization and the ability to drag and drop your houses and barns where you please, but the level of 3D customization in Everdream Valley is exciting! We can freely (meaning no locking to a grid) place our fences, farm plots, orchard trees, and crafting benches where we want. This is awesome to me because it's going to allow for such a huge variety of the different farms people can create that it should get most types of people entertained and engaged in the game. Think about if you already have your farm laid out a specific way and all of a sudden you need more room and have to re-imagine the entire thing to make it more fluid, accessible, and enjoyable. Yes, I'm going to be playing around with layouts quite a bit if you can't already tell (hehe).
Gif: Customizing Workbench Location
Animals & Mini-games:
Let's start by saying not many farming games, or games that feature animals in general, offer interactive mini-games when it comes to collecting their resources. It's usually your simple "take this milking tool and go milk the cow" and you'll hit one button and the cow will be milked. I don't really expect games to implement much more than this as it can get tedious and repetitive, especially if you have lots of animals, however, Everdream Valley does.
For each animal (except chickens because... well it's perfectly logical to just pick up an egg out of a nest and call it good) there is a corresponding mini-game. For sheep, you have to sheer them, for the cow, you milk them, etc. They're quite simple and they definitely add a level of engagement to caring for your animals that you wouldn't otherwise have. Don't worry about them getting hyper-repetitive as most of your animals you can only collect resources from every couple of days, and honestly? The in-game days are quite long, so there will be a good period of time when you don't have to worry about the mini-games. There are also mini-games related to cooking, and chopping wood, and I'm positive there's more we have yet to experience (obviously) but these are definitely just fun and easy activities to keep you entertained, rather than horrendously repetitive tasks you come to dread at the start of every day.
Gif: Cooking Mini-Game
Aside from the mini-games you have interactive trust-building activities with your cat and dog. I didn't attempt the cat one during our first playthrough but I did this time. This is the only mini-game I actually felt a bit of a struggle with. How and where the cat is going to jump is hard to predict, especially if it's running sideways or awkwardly at you. I did fail the little training exercise twice in my playthrough but I got the hang of it after a few times. I don't know if there's any way to implement any type of targeting system that shows a bit better where the cat is going to jump in order to make having your cute kitty jump through hoops, an easier experience.
Gif: Cat Training Game
Crops:
In my first playthrough of the demo I didn't even touch crops. I don't know if the quest didn't exist or if I was too pre-occupied with animals and fruit trees that I just didn't notice, but this time I was given a quest early on about how to take care of the crops on the farm, and it even had me planting more to use them for cooking. I admire how easy the entire process of planting, watering, and gathering is as with how many plants you can have it would be suicide to have some complicated action behind it. Yes, your watering can will run out eventually, but I certainly wasn't running to the well every row of crops to refill it so it held a good bit.
Image: Crops Need Watering
Inventory:
Maybe you all know how much of a loot goblin I am by now... or maybe not... but regardless... this game satisfies my inner loot goblin x10. Not only do you have a huge amount of inventory to start, but if you're out collecting stuff and you don't have the room? It automatically goes back to your storage at the farm which has, oh yeah, 100 slots. Yes. We're very pleased. I don't care how unrealistic large amounts of inventory space are, give me moorreeeee!
Image: Inventory + Storage Chest
Crafting:
I actually adore how this game introduces and manages the crafting system. Certain quests reward you with new craftables, but one feature in particular I enjoyed was that to get new fence recipes you had to actually find the fence in the game. Your grandfather tells you "If you see a new fence you like and want to learn how to craft it, just come back and ask" and then you get the recipe. This is genius! It's a great way to make the new recipes feel like you earned them rather than saying "Oh yeah, our dear granddaughter who's brand new to the farm, here are 100 recipes for fences, barns, workstations, and more, even though you're 11 and shouldn't know how to make any of this really".
Image: Crafting Workshop
Yes, gating the recipes behind quests and story makes your actions feel like you've accomplished something and added something new to your gaming experience. I greatly prefer it to your typical "oh look I found a soaking wet recipe attached to this fish in the ocean" approach.
Exploration:
Sometimes world exploration in farming sims feels more like a "pick up every weed or piece of trash you find and hope it sells for something or has an all incredible purpose for crafting". It's for this reason that it's hard to even judge a farming game on its exploration because... well what is one to do off the farm aside from picking up random plants and bugs in the world? I have to compliment Everdream Valley because the world exploration feels fun and the map feels pretty huge for a farming game. There is also a purpose for venturing off the farm... how?
Well, let's talk about the 3 big reasons you leave. The first is to find your lost animals. Apparently, chickens, cows, sheep, and other animals we have yet to experience, would rather tough it out in the neighboring areas than come live a comfy-cozy, cared-for life at the farm, so you have to go fetch them. Whether it's behind a hill grazing, or up in a tree hiding the way the rooster does, you have to find them one way or another. While this may not be the most realistic farming aspect in the world, it's so fun. I love finding my critters rather than just buying one from a shop. It's engaging and interactive so it's a big plus for me.
Image: Sheep in the Wilderness
The second reason you leave is to find new fruit trees and crops. There are little farms all around the map that have a few new fruit trees that aren't on your farm, and I also found some patches of dirt with crops in them that I didn't have prior, like corn. Now... I don't know which farmer we're stealing trees or crops from, or if they were just extensions of your grandparent's farm (I feel like this is more accurate), but it's another form of engagement to have you run around and find these different trees and crops, rather than just another thing to buy. I'll say it again, engagement is a big + here.
Image: Outskirt Farm Area
Lastly (though I'm sure there's more, this was a 1-hour demo, let's not even begin to assume we've experienced all the content), there are other buildings and bridges to be repaired on the outskirts of the farm. These bridges take you to new areas of the map, and the buildings allow for improvements such as repairing the mill so you can make grain and flour in order to sell or use in cooking. These are once again adding a sense of accomplishment to the game as after you get all the resources, you unlock a new feature that either enhances or expands your experience and list of things to do. I'd rather be drowning in a list of things to do than be left desperate for more content any day of the week. I'd be hard-pressed to think you're going to be bored in this game even after 6 hours of gameplay.
Bugs We Experienced:
We did experience 2 bugs during our second playthrough so let's talk about them here!
Dog & Herding:
There was only 1 bug I experienced in the second version of the Demo that I did not experience in the first which was... my poor little pup got bugged into a fence so when I went to herd the little runaway sheep, I ended up having to just pet them all and have them follow me home. I will say that once I slept and woke up my Puppo was out of the fence and ready for action, but it did make me giggle seeing him just standing in the fence wondering why I was giving him the side eye.
Image: Dog in Fence Glitch
The Trader with the Cute Cow:
Now we still had to go talk to the trader in this game to get a pup, just as in the first one, however, when I revisited him at a later point I couldn't sell anything to him, there simply wasn't an option to do so. I'm not sure if this was a bug or just a feature that's now gated behind a quest and unlocked at a later point but I figured I'd document it since I was able to sell stuff to him in the first demo experience.
Improvement Suggestions:
There are only 2 things I'd like to propose they improve upon that spurred a bit of confusion. At one point I opened up my quest log and had no Active quests. I was greeted by a blank screen and I was a bit worried I'd broke something. I realized that I could use the A & D keys to go back and forth between Active, Completed & Failed Quests, but with no text on the quest journal, I was confused. My only suggestion would be to add a simple line of text that says "No Active Quests at this Time" or something along those lines. That way it's a bit more obvious we've got some free time to go fishing or scavenging at that moment.
Image: Active Quest Journal Sample
The second thing I noticed was that depending on what I was holding in my hand, certain actions, like speaking to my grandparents or attempting to access a workbench, weren't possible. I'd have to switch to a different held item in order to have the option to speak to them or use the tables, pop-up. Maybe there's a way to ensure that the action is useable no matter what you're holding in your hand? It's ultimately not a huge deal but I can imagine it being confusing if you're walking up to someone or a crafting table hoping to use it, only to realize you can't and to wonder why.
Our New Experience & Conclusion:
I'm not exaggerating when I say it almost feels like a different game. My bug-riddled experience of the first demo had me a little nervous about the game's overall structure but my second playthrough has me convinced this game is ready for its release date of May 30th. My experience was absolutely seamless this time and even though I had one bug with the dog, it was so minor it didn't impact me negatively. I can even feel the updated camera movement as it just felt more fluid when running and turning.
I have to give a huge shout-out to the Everdream Valley team for caring enough about their game and its success that they've already implemented suggestions from the community and made huge improvements. We know there's tons of content we haven't seen yet just from following their social media pages so there's still a lot to be excited about, but even from what we have experienced, Everdream Valley is set to be a fantastic addition to the farming genre.
You can expect us to be streaming this on release day as even after 2 playthroughs of the demo, we still can't wait to get our hands on the full game!
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Disclaimer:
Please note that we have not been paid or promoted for this review and are not affiliated with Everdream Valley or its developers officially in any way. All thoughts are based on our own genuine experience of the game Demo. All footage is based on the Game in its current state as of 05/06/2023 and is subject to change upon release or in future patches at the developer's discretion.
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