April Grove

An unfortunate case where I am unable to recommend a game with all due honesty. While the visuals are quite cute, the sound is adequate, and the mechanics of moving around the forest are all alright... That's about it. The gameplay loop is nothing much, but requires constant input. The idea of gradually unlocking new areas to explore and new story beats is the key to a idle game, which make it fun, however... This isn't an idle game. It is a "grind fest" if we stretch those meanings a little bit, as the grind isn't exactly horrifyingly long. It is however, unfortunately dull. The unlocks are few and far between and really do not change the gameplay or mood basically at all. I wish I could give a more middling review, but I can't recommend the game for just cute visuals and an alright soundtrack

I see the potential in this game, hence the positive review. However, I do have some issues with the core game and the progression. First, the price hick as you progress feels weird, just have things be really expensive. Also, having more achievements to help guide and reward the player after 2 hours would be nice, getting each rank for the trees, doing more quests, etc. Finally, the chopping could use a minigame, maybe a minigame per tree type: think a bar that fills and have a target to hit within the bar to instantly chop instead of waiting for the bar to finish filling, idk. Dredge minigames come to mind with the same mechanic being slightly tweaked as you go. The style is such a refreshing vibe and the music is great, I think this has so much potential to be really really good, but getting to level 28 started to drag already and I just want more to stay engaged.

Game good, but it won't be for everyone. I want to mention why before continuing. This isn't a Colorgrave game in the same sense as the other ones. The developers themselves mentioned in the forums that this is something of a comfort project to come back to on breaks between their larger games. As such, what's here is much simpler and much smaller in scope, and largely (seemingly) disconnected from the main Colorgrave lore so far. Gameplay is primarily RuneScape woodcutting with light roleplay elements, built on the engine of their earlier games, and it's fun to puzzle through with the tools on hand. For extreme type-A folks, you'll be done in a few short hours. But that's not the point of the game. It's a small sim to relax in, meant to be expanded and enjoyed over time, so the developers don't burn out working on just their main thing. Respect. There's a few hooks that hint at secrets in the future, and I look forward to seeing those get added. But I have more respect for this being a smaller game that can just be enjoyed for what it is. And if you share that expectation, it's worth your time too.

The art for this game is beautiful, but that's the only thing it has going for it. You have an inventory with 15 slots (even though each tree drops 16 logs), a very slow walking speed, and 90% of your axe swings do nothing. So you swing at a tree 20-30 times to get four logs, collect 15, and then slowly walk several screens away to get to the store. The beginner logs give one gold each, and the first upgrade costs 350 gold. If you fill up your inventory each time, that's 24 trips back and forth, plus going back to your house to sleep when it gets dark. Then the shopkeeper increases prices so the next purchase costs 700 (or 1000 for the more expensive ones). When you reach level ten (which will be after or around the same time you get the first upgrade), you can start cutting oak trees, which take 2-3 times as long to cut down and drop logs that give your 3 gold each.

This game is great if you want, but not so great if it's not what you expect. April Grove is a grindy game. You need to want the grind, you need to love the grind. There's some story / lore to follow, and items to buy, characters to talk to, etc... But 90% of the game is chopping trees, picking up the logs, waiting for trees to regrow, and selling the logs until you've gotten high enough level to repeat the process for higher level trees. I went into this game wanting something nice to look at, with chill music and gameplay requiring minimal brain power, and that's exactly what I got. This game is perfect to play while listening to music or a podcast, or to relax before bed. That being said I played the entire game and got all the achievements in one night and one day. At the end of the game you can also reset your level while keeping all items and upgrades, so I'll probably keep playing to get my level back up, though resetting your level only gives you a small tree icon in the hud. My only complaints are that there's clearly more to the cave and beach areas that was meant to be added later as a DLC, but hasn't been, and there's no indication of that, so I was looking through the caves trying to find what isn't there. Overall, as long as you know what you're getting into, this game is amazing. Also it's super cheap and you're definitely getting your money's worth with the amount of gameplay. Honestly gonna give it a 10/10.

I'm not typically into games that are about doing straight labor, but this game was short and snappy enough to hold my attention. It especially helped when I realized there's a trick that adds a skill element to chopping as fast as possible which kept my hands very busy while playing (busy enough to actually hurt my hands if I tried too hard). The game's cute as well, and I wasn't bugged by the game's attempt to be calming (I typically hate environmental noises and serene music).

Just for note, I played this game 50/50 on my PC to Steamdeck. TLDR; Music was nice, but repetitive. Style is nice to look at. Game is just chopping wood and doing some quests for characters that weren't engaging IMO. Better played on contoller/Steamdeck. First off I'd like to state that I found it much easier playing this on the Steamdeck. I am not usually a controller user, so I was surprised that it felt far more comfortable on it. Possibly try playing with controller? First off, this game does one thing and one thing only. You chop wood, you sell it, and hopefully save up for upgrades and chop higher level trees. If you like doing the same task for a long period, you might just like this game. In saying this, the music in this game is nice, if not a slight bit repetitive after a while. I personally didn't find it very annoying to listen to after a while, and with the change in themes of a night it was enough. Character designs are also really nice and fit into the world. In general, the pixel art is very nice in this game. It's one of the nicer styles I've seen in a while. I cannot recommend this game due to the lack of content and just how repetitive the whole game is in it's one singular task. A game that I thought did this concept well was 'Lumberjacked', if you're looking for a wood chopping game that's quite fun. I will keep looking out for games from this dev team, and look forward to their next games.