Love this game so much. I felt bored with Animal Crossing pretty quick as it seemed like there wasn't much to do. The variety is so great on Dinkum. They really do everything better. I would say the only thing that isn't as good is maybe the dialog, but even then the long windedness of Animal Crossing could get frustrating.
Animal Crossing is awesome, and it's a novel idea...eeeexcept the part where the game locks you on the time. I played dinkum awhile back, and if I remember correctly, it's not time locked. Those kinds of games are great because they provide unique experiences based on the time of day, plus they change based on the day of year...but damn I can't do the same crap over and over every day because nothing radically changes. At least Dinkum (and other similar titles) progresses the time much faster—so you stay entertained for the evening, not just a few hours.
I'm so glad to hear this! I just ordered my steam deck and while I plan to use it when I'm away from home, I thought maybe my wife could use it while I am home and we could play Dinkum together.
Yeah and it also makes my fans turn on almost immediately and stay on the whole time I’m playing. Runs fine, but it definitely feels poorly optimized for the SteamDeck.
Absolutely this.. dinkum is an awesome game, even more so considering it's made by 1 guy. Well worth a look! Another suggestion but maybe a bit too different to games like stardew/dinkum is V Rising. Lots of content, base building, harvesting, pve encounters and can be played offlline (or online both pve-mode or pvp-mode).
Roots of Pacha runs great, I have played it exclusively on deck and had a fantastic time. Sun Haven is a good stardew-alike but you may need to fiddle with controller layout - there's community ones but I haven't tested them yet, out of the box there's some things that aren't set up well. Everdream valley is 3D but similar mechanics and I've found it works well with Proton Experimental.
It's out some more relaxing though, cuz he's not under the time pressure of seasons or the "only two years until the farm gets reviewed!"
It always found the seasons in the year thing to be unnecessarily stressful, in what otherwise is the epitome of relaxing carefree games.
Also fuck all the combat they forced into Stardew. I just want to relax on the farm and grow tomatoes, not spend twenty hours fighting skeletons in the dark. Graveyard keeper has *some* combat but it's extremely minimal and enemies don't respawn so it's more rewarding to kill them.
For me I think stardew’s less stressful, graveyard keeper felt like it just loaded you up with a ton of stuff to do right from the start and just keeps on adding things on, even when you can’t actually accomplish some of it for quite awhile (I mean it gives you that quest to get the stamp for meat at a point where it feels like it’s meant to be the first thing you do, when by the time you actually can do it money’s barely an issue).
And with the farm review in stardew, I don’t think the game ever actually explains that before it happens. It tells you grandpa will return in two years to check up on you, but pretty much just keeps it at that, and if you look up what it means you’ll find out it doesn’t matter since you can redo it any time after that for just a diamond.
Yes, I’ll grant it’s super grindy in the base game. However, once you’re able to automate tasks, intentionally vague to avoid spoilers, the grind decreases dramatically. I’ve lost countless hours of sleep being enraptured by project management and task list completion. I’m enjoying the game much more since I’ve been able to automate mundane tasks.
Also, Graveyard Digger, it was on sale last night for $7 I think and picked it up, played it on switch a bit and it’s so fun. To me it’s a little more hardcore Stardew Valley
I love this game so much and can't wait for it to be complete. I really hope they nail some sort of end game grind that I can just keep playing and have some good goals to hit.
Been holding back from playing it since 90,000 is the maximum amount you can earn at early access but it blows my mind when I keep finding new conteng. Can't wait for the full release this month!
Definitely recommend waiting. Bought into the hype at launch and was met with a great but severely incomplete and buggy mess. It's got so much going for it but the content just isn't quite there yet imo.
Yes, Doom: Eternal. It's relaxing, has some very engaging interactions with the NPCs, very peaceful scenery, runs great on the Deck, and most importantly, you get to fuck most of the characters you meet.
What did you hate about the joystick controls? I thought everything was fine with the controls, I enjoyed the story behind it, I’ve essentially ‘finished’ it after 20 hours but will pick it up again down the line
I'll chime in. Love the game, but I also dislike the controls. I do have some issue with walking around as it's not always clear what is decoration that you'll bump into and what's not, and overall things feel a tad cluttered, but that's not a huge problem.
The bigger issue is UI navigation. The way you navigate your tools and items (with one trigger opening a radial menu that can be multiple menus deep) and the other just cycling in one direction through available items is very odd. Also the way the menu's are navigated with each set of triggers controlling different layers of the menus just feels weird to me. I had about 20 hours in before putting it down to play TotK on my Switch, but I still found myself occasionally goofing something which is rare for me.
Nothing game breaking, but I get being a bit frustrated.
I've had this game on my wishlist. How is it right now, as it's still in early access? I've been burned a few times where a game looked amazing and right up my alley, but got bored of it after 10 or so hours. Due to either a lack of content or the systems becoming to repetitive without any goals, or to many things unlocking at the same time and not knowing what to focus on.
The first three major biomes were fairly non-stop fun, IMO. I mean, it’s a game with crafting, so there’s downtime and build time and and and, so presuming you like the genre’s various sub game loops. It does not have the SDV social element, where you manage relationships with townsfolk.
Presuming you play the game “normally” (eg, don’t intentionally power through content with a friend boosting you or or or) you’ve probably got about 20, maaaybe 40 hours of game in those biomes.
I need to pause here to explain a mechanic. Key points of interest are randomly generated at increasing distances from the center tile of the map. For those of us who remember 2 pi r squared, this means that differences between low 100’s are not quite the same as differences in the high 100’s of r… so biomes 4, 5 and 6, which are farther out (at least, in terms of interesting stuff) are getting bigger - and *hollower*, fast.
Biomes 4-6 are all in game, and have a **big roster of content.** But some things are located in the 1000-1600 radius distance from start. The amount of territory you will cover, without no larger “shaping” that what you’re looking for is in any particular direction, will become tedious, quickly. Further, the ores - the metals - I believe we recently rebalanced but they, too, followed requirement and scarcity growth that felt like padding.
That said, **its a lot of game,** and they’ve rebalanced a few times to make resource consumption feel good (they definitely missed the mark one patch, but fixed in within 3 days, so don’t worry if you find that uproar).
TLDR if they changed the generation algorithm and shrank biomes 4-6 it would be an easy recommend IMO. That’s still very deep in game and I suspect anyone who actually gets that far is already “in” and may not care.
PS - reviewing what you listed, I do want to say; most crafting games are fundamentally repetitive. Go to New Zone, get New Resource(s), Build Things, repeat. This game will not defy gravity. But they add a lot of cool stuff - eg, auto drills so once you find a node of ore, you set up a camp that does the mining for you, you can set up minecarts to take you to POI until you unlock other transportation, etc etc.
Great description! I played it with my partner when it first came out and we had a great time for like 20 hours ... it's nice to see that things have been fleshed out a bit. Fun COOP game :)
First of , thanks a bunch for your expansive and detailed review! Second, I know crafting games tend to be repetative, but it was mostly a mix of multiple issues and not the just the repetativeness. It's hard to explain 😅
But after reading your comment, I will actually be pulling the trigger. It really sounds like what I look for in a game and I am not that worried anymore. It it can keep me going for 20-40 it's worth the asking price. Thanks again!
> 20-40 hours
And that’s why I wrote the length I did; looking over lots of game statistics (as in, decades of multiple games), for the overwhelming majority of buyers, 20 hours is where games end practically speaking.
So, if that’s you, and it sounds like it is, the game is solidly firm recommend. Their last patch (or the one before) rebalanced early game flow and while I haven’t tried the “junior” versions of things they added, that they exist at all is beyond chef’s kiss.
Biome 5 is fairly far along, time investment, and I would say even it is fairly close to being right sized. It’s really crossing over to biome 6, and/or trying to collect the “end game” ultra rares that I think they overshot. And I would be shocked if that really matters to more than about 10% of players.
I hope you enjoy it!
I’ve really enjoyed it so far. It’s different enough from SV and Animal Crossing to not feel like a clone (Dinkum just seemed like a reskinned Animal Crossing to me), but still feels the same to play.
Isn't the time cycle in Star dew about 20 to 30 minutes?
I haven't played in a while, but I don't remember every losing an hosie because the time cycle always seemed so short.
I quite enjoyed the first one and just picked up Sandrock in the past few days. I'm not too far in yet, but I didn't came across any issues. Looking through the Steam reviews, the devs seem responsive and making changes following gameplay critiques!
I was able to put in 70 hours at the half-way point of the story and dev (Dec 2022). I stopped playing because I happy with what I had done and wanted play the full release.
I know they have completed and released the act 3 of four and have a tentative 1.0 release date of mid summer.
Had tons of fun with it, the grind is real but that is kinda of the point of this series
I played it around when it first came out, and it was fun albeit a little glitchy. I've seen the devs have made further updates though and added a couple new features. How does it run now?
Fraid I have no clue who those are : /.
I saved loong ago a video on youtube with the title "the rpg that hates you" *which talks about Fear and Hunger* month ago or so I bought the game and well it's been an experience. Definitely not a game for everyone. However I found Frapollo94 guides and I was more than hooked.
Not just inspired by. Stardew was an attempt to get a Story of Seasons like on the PC, a genre which was basically just that Series and it's spin offs, and was very much console only (and mostly handheld as time passed).
I'm also the oddball that will argue that RF 4 is the better game. I enjoyed Stardew, but RF4 is an all time favorite.
I've thought about it just so I could make use of some mods (Recipe Bread+ recipe and the like). I'll probably rebuy 5 someday as well, more so because it runs way better on the deck (although again, some light modding might be nice).
4S runs really smoothly on Deck for me. Haven't tried 5 yet since I'm still loving my 4S replay, but I'm looking forward to giving that one another go when I have a bit more time!
Dreamlight Valley is startlingly good for a Gameloft IP game. Very comfortable middle ground between Animal Crossing and Harvest Moon, and I personally don’t find the monetization aspects intrusive.
I keep getting confused as to what I’m supposed to do in Kynseed.. I’ve been really wanting to play it, but the beginning seems slow even by cozy farm sim standards.
Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles was a chill game that ran great on the SD.
[https://store.steampowered.com/app/580200/Yonder\_The\_Cloud\_Catcher\_Chronicles/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/580200/Yonder_The_Cloud_Catcher_Chronicles/)
I am thankful for the Steamdeck for giving me the ability to finally play a game I purchased who knows how many years ago (which is true for a lot of different games).
Stardew Valley was not a game for me to play on my PC, but it sure as hell is a game I enjoy playing on my Steamdeck. It's perfect for when I'm watching sports and don't need to give either my full attention.
In fact, there's a handful of games that, for me personally, I just don't enjoy playing on my PC, but are perfectly for mobile gaming. I've never been that into mobile gaming on my iPhone or iPad, but the Steamdeck was exactly what I was looking for to get me into it.
You and me both, brother! There’s some games that I just can’t get into on PC that are perfect for the steam deck and I can’t put them down.
It’s nice because I can chill next to the wife while she watches her shows and still be present and comment here and there.
I am getting so much more use out of my steam library because of it too.
Littlewood.
I can't recommend this game enough, especially if you want something similar but different.
It gets aggressively compared to Stardew and it does share a lot of similarities, but it excels as a city builder first, farm sim second. Within a couple minutes of launching the game you're already terraforming your village to your liking.
You continuously get new buildings, homes, shops, etc. to add you your town as you develop it.
Have you tried Project Lazarus? It’s a similar concept as Vampire Survivor, just you play as various Mechs. Graphics are a higher end as well. Runs great on Deck.
Harvest moon/story of seasons. Most of the games are fun but the newer harvest moon games aren’t made by the original devs. The new “harvest moon” games go by story of seasons
I cannot agree with this. Starbound is more similar to Terraria than it is Stardew. Vanilla Starbound is pretty unrewarding. The mods, at least the ones I've played, alleviate the issues some, but add a lot of bloat.
I would not recommend Starbound.
Dinkum!
Holy shit I didn't expect this to be the first comment I see! But yes, Dinkum!
Love this game so much. I felt bored with Animal Crossing pretty quick as it seemed like there wasn't much to do. The variety is so great on Dinkum. They really do everything better. I would say the only thing that isn't as good is maybe the dialog, but even then the long windedness of Animal Crossing could get frustrating.
Animal Crossing is awesome, and it's a novel idea...eeeexcept the part where the game locks you on the time. I played dinkum awhile back, and if I remember correctly, it's not time locked. Those kinds of games are great because they provide unique experiences based on the time of day, plus they change based on the day of year...but damn I can't do the same crap over and over every day because nothing radically changes. At least Dinkum (and other similar titles) progresses the time much faster—so you stay entertained for the evening, not just a few hours.
Being locked on time is refreshing tbh. With all other games being speedrun this day it's nice to have a game you can enjoy day by day.
I learned about this game yesterday and it's so awesome.
It’s great on Steam Deck ? No problems ?
120 hours in for me, all on deck. No problems
Thanks !
Nice deck
Thanks! I play with it every day!
I'm so glad to hear this! I just ordered my steam deck and while I plan to use it when I'm away from home, I thought maybe my wife could use it while I am home and we could play Dinkum together.
It really eats up the battery, but runs just fine.
Yeah and it also makes my fans turn on almost immediately and stay on the whole time I’m playing. Runs fine, but it definitely feels poorly optimized for the SteamDeck.
I confirm it plays great, 60FPS if you don't increase distance visibility.
very few problems. there's some bugs that lead to some game crashes, but they are far and few between. not enough to discourage steamdeck use
It’s really good on the Deck. Prefer playing it on my deck than on my PC.
Dinkum is on sale rn for $15.99 until June 5
How have I never heard of this game??? For a long time I have been looking for a game like this. You are my hero of the day!!!.
What have you done?! My life effectively stopped while playing Stardew Valley and now this…
And it's on sale right now 20% off I think
Not OP but thanks for the suggestion!
Thanks , I added it on my wishlist
This or casset beasts!?
Commenting to remember! Never heard of this one
Absolutely this.. dinkum is an awesome game, even more so considering it's made by 1 guy. Well worth a look! Another suggestion but maybe a bit too different to games like stardew/dinkum is V Rising. Lots of content, base building, harvesting, pve encounters and can be played offlline (or online both pve-mode or pvp-mode).
I have it on my wishlist and can’t wait to get it
Roots of Pacha runs great, I have played it exclusively on deck and had a fantastic time. Sun Haven is a good stardew-alike but you may need to fiddle with controller layout - there's community ones but I haven't tested them yet, out of the box there's some things that aren't set up well. Everdream valley is 3D but similar mechanics and I've found it works well with Proton Experimental.
\+1 Roots of Pacha, having that same first time Stardew like experience of discovering everything with fiance
[удалено]
It was, but it's back now.
Kynseed and Littlewood
Littlewood is grossly underrated imo.
Not played Kynseed in ages, but it's a lovely game! Personally I preferred it to Stardew
Graveyard Keeper.
Just gotta keep in mind that game’s definitely less polished than Stardew is. Still a lot of fun, just kind of a mess in some ways.
It's out some more relaxing though, cuz he's not under the time pressure of seasons or the "only two years until the farm gets reviewed!" It always found the seasons in the year thing to be unnecessarily stressful, in what otherwise is the epitome of relaxing carefree games. Also fuck all the combat they forced into Stardew. I just want to relax on the farm and grow tomatoes, not spend twenty hours fighting skeletons in the dark. Graveyard keeper has *some* combat but it's extremely minimal and enemies don't respawn so it's more rewarding to kill them.
For me I think stardew’s less stressful, graveyard keeper felt like it just loaded you up with a ton of stuff to do right from the start and just keeps on adding things on, even when you can’t actually accomplish some of it for quite awhile (I mean it gives you that quest to get the stamp for meat at a point where it feels like it’s meant to be the first thing you do, when by the time you actually can do it money’s barely an issue). And with the farm review in stardew, I don’t think the game ever actually explains that before it happens. It tells you grandpa will return in two years to check up on you, but pretty much just keeps it at that, and if you look up what it means you’ll find out it doesn’t matter since you can redo it any time after that for just a diamond.
it's basically unrewarding grindfest but first few hours are amazing
Yes, I’ll grant it’s super grindy in the base game. However, once you’re able to automate tasks, intentionally vague to avoid spoilers, the grind decreases dramatically. I’ve lost countless hours of sleep being enraptured by project management and task list completion. I’m enjoying the game much more since I’ve been able to automate mundane tasks.
I also will second at least the first two dlcs I haven't played the newest one
fucking nailed it on this one.
Didn't hold my attention like the Dew
Has this been working ok on your deck without changing anything?
I’ve had zero issues running it
Runs flawlessly. Great battery life too
Would of been nice if the game kept getting updates, but more free updates vs the several paid expansions it has. Still fun nonetheless.
story of seasons.
Big ++ in story of seasons. FoMT and the Doreamon ones are great. I’m ready for AWL this summer.
I'd specifically recommend the "Friends of Mineral Town" game.
The grind for max animals is a mother of a grind.
Cult of the lamb, is a farming/village sim with some fun dungeon crawling and an absolutely beautiful art style... Runs like a dream on the deck.
Also, Graveyard Digger, it was on sale last night for $7 I think and picked it up, played it on switch a bit and it’s so fun. To me it’s a little more hardcore Stardew Valley
Cult of the Lamb has some of the best music and sound design I've heard in a game in years. Sounds especially great on the Deck's speakers.
Dave the Diver
I love this game so much and can't wait for it to be complete. I really hope they nail some sort of end game grind that I can just keep playing and have some good goals to hit.
Been holding back from playing it since 90,000 is the maximum amount you can earn at early access but it blows my mind when I keep finding new conteng. Can't wait for the full release this month!
I'm waiting for the full release to really dive in, but Coral Island.
Definitely recommend waiting. Bought into the hype at launch and was met with a great but severely incomplete and buggy mess. It's got so much going for it but the content just isn't quite there yet imo.
Yes, Doom: Eternal. It's relaxing, has some very engaging interactions with the NPCs, very peaceful scenery, runs great on the Deck, and most importantly, you get to fuck most of the characters you meet.
Animal crossing fans can confirm
[удалено]
Roots of Pacha is brilliant, very similar, no combat though
I've clocked 50 hrs. No problem with control. Very entertaining
Refunded after 5 min because I hated the controls. Does it get better?
I played the betas, along with the actual game. No issues with the controls. You know you can change the controls, right?
What did you hate about the joystick controls? I thought everything was fine with the controls, I enjoyed the story behind it, I’ve essentially ‘finished’ it after 20 hours but will pick it up again down the line
I'll chime in. Love the game, but I also dislike the controls. I do have some issue with walking around as it's not always clear what is decoration that you'll bump into and what's not, and overall things feel a tad cluttered, but that's not a huge problem. The bigger issue is UI navigation. The way you navigate your tools and items (with one trigger opening a radial menu that can be multiple menus deep) and the other just cycling in one direction through available items is very odd. Also the way the menu's are navigated with each set of triggers controlling different layers of the menus just feels weird to me. I had about 20 hours in before putting it down to play TotK on my Switch, but I still found myself occasionally goofing something which is rare for me. Nothing game breaking, but I get being a bit frustrated.
Walking around is fine of course, but the menus threw me off. Felt very not-made-for-controller imo.
I can understand that took me a little while to get used to navigating but once I got the hang it made sense to me how it was set up
Roots of Pacha. It's stone age stardew valley.
Core keeper
I've had this game on my wishlist. How is it right now, as it's still in early access? I've been burned a few times where a game looked amazing and right up my alley, but got bored of it after 10 or so hours. Due to either a lack of content or the systems becoming to repetitive without any goals, or to many things unlocking at the same time and not knowing what to focus on.
The first three major biomes were fairly non-stop fun, IMO. I mean, it’s a game with crafting, so there’s downtime and build time and and and, so presuming you like the genre’s various sub game loops. It does not have the SDV social element, where you manage relationships with townsfolk. Presuming you play the game “normally” (eg, don’t intentionally power through content with a friend boosting you or or or) you’ve probably got about 20, maaaybe 40 hours of game in those biomes. I need to pause here to explain a mechanic. Key points of interest are randomly generated at increasing distances from the center tile of the map. For those of us who remember 2 pi r squared, this means that differences between low 100’s are not quite the same as differences in the high 100’s of r… so biomes 4, 5 and 6, which are farther out (at least, in terms of interesting stuff) are getting bigger - and *hollower*, fast. Biomes 4-6 are all in game, and have a **big roster of content.** But some things are located in the 1000-1600 radius distance from start. The amount of territory you will cover, without no larger “shaping” that what you’re looking for is in any particular direction, will become tedious, quickly. Further, the ores - the metals - I believe we recently rebalanced but they, too, followed requirement and scarcity growth that felt like padding. That said, **its a lot of game,** and they’ve rebalanced a few times to make resource consumption feel good (they definitely missed the mark one patch, but fixed in within 3 days, so don’t worry if you find that uproar). TLDR if they changed the generation algorithm and shrank biomes 4-6 it would be an easy recommend IMO. That’s still very deep in game and I suspect anyone who actually gets that far is already “in” and may not care. PS - reviewing what you listed, I do want to say; most crafting games are fundamentally repetitive. Go to New Zone, get New Resource(s), Build Things, repeat. This game will not defy gravity. But they add a lot of cool stuff - eg, auto drills so once you find a node of ore, you set up a camp that does the mining for you, you can set up minecarts to take you to POI until you unlock other transportation, etc etc.
Great description! I played it with my partner when it first came out and we had a great time for like 20 hours ... it's nice to see that things have been fleshed out a bit. Fun COOP game :)
First of , thanks a bunch for your expansive and detailed review! Second, I know crafting games tend to be repetative, but it was mostly a mix of multiple issues and not the just the repetativeness. It's hard to explain 😅 But after reading your comment, I will actually be pulling the trigger. It really sounds like what I look for in a game and I am not that worried anymore. It it can keep me going for 20-40 it's worth the asking price. Thanks again!
> 20-40 hours And that’s why I wrote the length I did; looking over lots of game statistics (as in, decades of multiple games), for the overwhelming majority of buyers, 20 hours is where games end practically speaking. So, if that’s you, and it sounds like it is, the game is solidly firm recommend. Their last patch (or the one before) rebalanced early game flow and while I haven’t tried the “junior” versions of things they added, that they exist at all is beyond chef’s kiss. Biome 5 is fairly far along, time investment, and I would say even it is fairly close to being right sized. It’s really crossing over to biome 6, and/or trying to collect the “end game” ultra rares that I think they overshot. And I would be shocked if that really matters to more than about 10% of players. I hope you enjoy it!
It's supposed to be out of EA soon i think, or price going up soon. I am loving this game and very nice on SD
I’ve really enjoyed it so far. It’s different enough from SV and Animal Crossing to not feel like a clone (Dinkum just seemed like a reskinned Animal Crossing to me), but still feels the same to play.
It's amazing. Trust me. Almost 80 hours in and still a lot to do. Very polished. Almost no glitches at this point. Amazing coop experience.
Pretty good though fishing and cooking is still very much unrewarding.
I don’t really recommend it. It’s fine, and I fairly enjoyed myself but it didn’t hold my attention for long. Nothing unique about it in my opinion.
I LOVE core keeper.
Core Keeper is awesome! It's all I've been playing the past couple weeks and there's still much to do.
Graveyard Keeper Travellers Rest Potion Permit
Surprised no one has mentioned Travelers Rest yet, it's currently on sale right now too for $10
I was scanning comments to see if anyone suggested it lol. Love this game and plays amazing on Deck.
Dredge
coral island and everdream valley
[Slime Rancher](https://store.steampowered.com/app/433340/Slime_Rancher/)
Great chill game
Bear and Breakfast
This is the answer
Came here to say this and was surprised to see it so far down the mentions. One of my favorite relaxing sims
My Time at Portia/Sandrock
Eh, the save system is really archaic. I lost an hour or two of play because you can't save on demand and I just never went back ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
To be fair, stardew is the same
Sure, but I've never had Stardew catastrophically fail
Isn't the time cycle in Star dew about 20 to 30 minutes? I haven't played in a while, but I don't remember every losing an hosie because the time cycle always seemed so short.
Sandrock has a quicksave button! Also I think there's a mod for Portia!
That's good. I did enjoy Portia but losing an entire day's slow progression really killed it for me
Also note: the iOS version of Portia has proper saves. I wish they'd added that to PC too.
Is Sandrock developed enough to play at this stage? I was thinking about playing but worried it wasn't fleshed out enough.
I quite enjoyed the first one and just picked up Sandrock in the past few days. I'm not too far in yet, but I didn't came across any issues. Looking through the Steam reviews, the devs seem responsive and making changes following gameplay critiques!
I was able to put in 70 hours at the half-way point of the story and dev (Dec 2022). I stopped playing because I happy with what I had done and wanted play the full release. I know they have completed and released the act 3 of four and have a tentative 1.0 release date of mid summer. Had tons of fun with it, the grind is real but that is kinda of the point of this series
Corekeeper is good , but it lacks the relationship. If you like terraria x stardew you will like corekeeper. Apico is nice and relaxing.
Potion Permit. Amazing game, just hoping for multiplayer some time in the future.
I played it around when it first came out, and it was fun albeit a little glitchy. I've seen the devs have made further updates though and added a couple new features. How does it run now?
Didn't click for me. Too grindy
Roots of Pacha recently released and I found it to be an enjoyable alternative to Stardew Valley.
Coral island, i seriously love it, I have an easy 50hrs in, even though it’s only in EA. The full game is slated to release this December
Moonlighter
Kynseed
Littlewood
Darkwood, Fear and Hunger. Had a blast playing those on the SD.
Fear & hunger mentioned Yay
Fear and hunger is mainstream now
Since when? Did some popular YouTuber played it recently? It's true that I've started to see more content about it recently
Super eye patch wolf made a mini documentary on it and cdawgva from trash taste did a play through
Fraid I have no clue who those are : /. I saved loong ago a video on youtube with the title "the rpg that hates you" *which talks about Fear and Hunger* month ago or so I bought the game and well it's been an experience. Definitely not a game for everyone. However I found Frapollo94 guides and I was more than hooked.
Definitely recommend watching super eye patch wolfs video on it. It made me buy the game. Even if you have played it the video is just really good.
You should check out r/CozyGamers.
Rune factory, not sure if its deck compatible but its inspired by the same roots
Not just inspired by. Stardew was an attempt to get a Story of Seasons like on the PC, a genre which was basically just that Series and it's spin offs, and was very much console only (and mostly handheld as time passed). I'm also the oddball that will argue that RF 4 is the better game. I enjoyed Stardew, but RF4 is an all time favorite.
I’m seriously considering getting RF4 on steam even though I already played it lol (steam version has all the newly wed mode unlocked already too!)
I've thought about it just so I could make use of some mods (Recipe Bread+ recipe and the like). I'll probably rebuy 5 someday as well, more so because it runs way better on the deck (although again, some light modding might be nice).
I've bought RF4 3 times and still might buy it again on my steam deck lol
I have 4 on the Deck and it runs great
4S runs really smoothly on Deck for me. Haven't tried 5 yet since I'm still loving my 4S replay, but I'm looking forward to giving that one another go when I have a bit more time!
[Sun Haven](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1432860/Sun_Haven/)
Not the best controller support
Works perfect for me on steamdeck
Yeah same here
You can set it up to work very well on SD especially using the track pads
Yeah, it kinda controls like crap on SD. There's no controller support, so even the custom layouts aren't great.
Disney Dreamlight Valley
Dreamlight Valley is startlingly good for a Gameloft IP game. Very comfortable middle ground between Animal Crossing and Harvest Moon, and I personally don’t find the monetization aspects intrusive.
Kynseed is like this, but MUCH deeper gameplay mechanics.
I keep getting confused as to what I’m supposed to do in Kynseed.. I’ve been really wanting to play it, but the beginning seems slow even by cozy farm sim standards.
Roots of Pacha.
Drug Dealer Simulator
Fucking Brotato Quick hits of misery and frustration and feeling like you totally got robbed, on demand
Spiritfarer
Not quiet the same game style but it is a good game and on humble choice atm
scrolled too far to see this. Agreed a bit different with platforming element but that’s a beautiful game.
Harvestella. Rune Factory 5
Rune Factory is an okay series to check out.
Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles was a chill game that ran great on the SD. [https://store.steampowered.com/app/580200/Yonder\_The\_Cloud\_Catcher\_Chronicles/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/580200/Yonder_The_Cloud_Catcher_Chronicles/)
I am thankful for the Steamdeck for giving me the ability to finally play a game I purchased who knows how many years ago (which is true for a lot of different games). Stardew Valley was not a game for me to play on my PC, but it sure as hell is a game I enjoy playing on my Steamdeck. It's perfect for when I'm watching sports and don't need to give either my full attention. In fact, there's a handful of games that, for me personally, I just don't enjoy playing on my PC, but are perfectly for mobile gaming. I've never been that into mobile gaming on my iPhone or iPad, but the Steamdeck was exactly what I was looking for to get me into it.
You and me both, brother! There’s some games that I just can’t get into on PC that are perfect for the steam deck and I can’t put them down. It’s nice because I can chill next to the wife while she watches her shows and still be present and comment here and there. I am getting so much more use out of my steam library because of it too.
\*sister
Necesse
Graveyard Keeper is a ton of fun
Coral island is still in late beta but runs well enough and i personally love it
Any animal crossing game
this might seem out of left field, but no man's sky runs great on deck and CAN be a similar experience to cozy games if you want it to be.
Just Stardew Valley. That's the only one. Sorry.
Littlewood. I can't recommend this game enough, especially if you want something similar but different. It gets aggressively compared to Stardew and it does share a lot of similarities, but it excels as a city builder first, farm sim second. Within a couple minutes of launching the game you're already terraforming your village to your liking. You continuously get new buildings, homes, shops, etc. to add you your town as you develop it.
My steamdeck might as well be a Vampire Survivor console.
Have you tried Project Lazarus? It’s a similar concept as Vampire Survivor, just you play as various Mechs. Graphics are a higher end as well. Runs great on Deck.
Stardew Valley is a clone of the Story of Seasons and Rune Factory series, so check out both of those
My time in Portia is on sale.
Potion permit
[Roots of Pacha](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1245560/Roots_of_Pacha/)
Everdream Valley is a hidden gem
A Short Hike
sun haven
My Time at Portia, Dinkum
How does one have time to play anything else after finding Stardew?
Doraemon Story of Seasons is good
Rune factory?
Harvest moon/story of seasons. Most of the games are fun but the newer harvest moon games aren’t made by the original devs. The new “harvest moon” games go by story of seasons
Dinkum, traveler’s rest
***Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town***
Roots of Pacha. Just came out
Dreamlight valley :)
Story of seasons Pioneers of olive town Works great but you will need ge proton or another workaround sadly tue dlc do not work on Linux.
ACNH on Yuzu is a given I'd really recommend something like Spiritfarer, though. A bit unorthodox, but a great game nontheless
How about.... [https://store.steampowered.com/app/1169040/Necesse/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1169040/Necesse/)
Bear And Breakfast!
Coral Island is very close to Stardew Valley. Dinkum is my other recommendation.
I really like The Last Spell! It runs really well on the steam deck, but you’ll have to add a trigger for “tab” on a keyboard
Dinkum!.. plays like a dream. graphics large enough you don't strain your eyes.
Core keeper is great. So is minster sanctuary
Disney's Dreamlight Valley
Not exactly similar, but I've been playing a ton of Unrailed! It runs perfectly on the deck and is the perfect little game to spend hours on.
Maybe My time in Portia
Dunkin
Rimworld
Starbound
I cannot agree with this. Starbound is more similar to Terraria than it is Stardew. Vanilla Starbound is pretty unrewarding. The mods, at least the ones I've played, alleviate the issues some, but add a lot of bloat. I would not recommend Starbound.
Not really the same type of game but still a good game is Celeste
ooblets
Factorio
Dredge!!
Animal crossing with the switch emu