A Grittier, More Mature Take On Harvest Moon Is Being Kickstarted

Called Wild Season, don’t be shocked at how similar its title looks to Harvest Moon. The Kickstarter indie project by Philippines developers Quickfire Games is unabashedly aimed at creating a “more mature” version of everyone’s favorite farming simulation game. This includes the possibilities of same-sex marriage, turning yourself into a stalker-san, or even turning townsfolk into your enemies.

The game is currently on Steam looking to be Greenlit, and is intending to broach the gamut of what-did-I-just-do oddities. There’s some sort of dark secret surrounding this town that you’ve come to anyway, taking over the decrepit farm. And if you explore hard enough you might find out what that secret really is. You don’t have to do much to follow the farm itself, say the developers, if you choose. You could instead opt perhaps to run for office and shape how the town goes if you so desire.

The game will also slowly introduce new technologies like TVs and cellphones to make later tasks more automated.   Wild Season’s custom-built relationship engine—called with no irony whatsoever the Friend-Zone Engine—will actively track and manage how you deal with other characters, including whether you sneak into their rooms at night (which will eventually have them yelling at you) or if you miss a few nights of drinking at the pub. If you schmooze and then dump a potential love interest, they might even turn into crazy exes. (I’d like to see that,actually.)

Of course, if you prefer, there’s also all the standard fare of a farming simulation game, including raising crops and animals, selling the produce for phat profit, and basic odd jobs to help you earn a little bit of spare cash.   As of press, the game’s raised over half of its intended goal with about £15,700 and some 11 days to go. You can check it out here.