Kynseed

I adore this game. I've played quite a few cozy / farming type games by this point, and Kynseed is my favourite. I even think it's better than the juggernaut that started it all - Stardew Valley - which is quite the accolade. Yet it's taken me a while to write a review for Kynseed. I can't quite figure out how to get it into words. What is it that I love about it? The first thing that springs to mind is its sense of humour. It's just right for me. Very British humour. It's had me laughing out loud at times, s♥♥♥♥♥♥ing at others. And there's so much humour everywhere in this game. It's also such a richly crafted game. There's so much world lore, expressed through a variety of mediums - books you can find to read (I recommend actually reading any book you come across in the game), proverbs that are both amusing and helpful, tips or rumours from NPCs. All this lore and the story itself is woven from a lot of recognisable themes from real world folklore and myth, and it all feels very alive and cohesive. If you like fairies / fae (and not all of them the fluffy, happy sort of fairies / fae - beware Fairweather!), references to murky, ominous beasts of myth, gnomes, ghosts, witches, characters from folktales (with the game's own spin), and/or treant-like-creatures, you're in luck. Then sprinkled in amongst all the humour and folklore there are plenty of real life easter eggs. Want Gnome Edmunds with a gameshow (complete with gameshow music, sound effects, and catch phrases)? Got him. A tribe of time-lost roleplayers? Yup. Eun Livingstun sharing his love of Make Your Own Adventures? Check. And those are just a few. Although it doesn't take long to befriend most NPCs (once you've got the hang of the friendship system) and their individual stories aren't that long, they all have a unique flavour or personality, and you get to know them and their life's story a bit. Once you've maxxed out friendship with someone they'll give you a little quest or task, and you usually find out more about why they are who they are, or help them grow or change a bit. It's bitesize-style stories, but with a surprising amounts of depth in not very much time spent per NPC. All in all, the game's writing is just *chef's kiss*. It's clear that the game was a labour of love, and that really shows in the world and the writing. But what of the gameplay, I hear you cry? I expected it to be convoluted and difficult to figure out. It really wasn't that bad. Maybe that's because I've played Graveyard Keeper before; after figuring that game out, no other games so far have seemed as convoluted, Kynseed included. And Kynseed's systems do feel a little similar to Graveyard Keeper's, so if you've played Graveyard Keeper then Kynseed should be easy to pick up. But even if you haven't, it's not hard once you click with the sort of 'internal logic' of Kynseed's systems and controls. One thing I wasn't sure about at first was the mini games. I hadn't realised the game had mini games and upon starting to play it seemed I was finding them everywhere. They were a bit daunting at first too. But actually, with some practice, most of the mini games turned out to not be too bad once you'd got the knack of each of them. I even quite enjoy baking pies in Kynseed now. My only real criticism, if you can call it that, is that the generation system didn't quite hit for me. I do tend to get attached to my player character, but in this game while I liked my original character, I kind of wanted to naturally pass on to the next generation. Without being too spoiler-y, there is a way you can make that happen manually in the game, but I wasn't as comfortable with that method; I would've liked my character to pass more quickly, naturally, on to further generations. I have some ideas of how to speed that process up on my next playthrough, but it's not going to happen naturally on this first one. I have today just got to the point where my character's children are old enough to do chores around the farm and be sent on gathering missions, and now I see how deciding their chores impact the childrens' stats, I like how that works. I just would've liked the years to pass a bit quicker, I guess, and I don't mean daytimes to be quicker, just the amount of years that needs to pass for the child to become the player character to go a bit faster naturally. But that's fairly minor. In discussion on the Kynseed Discord recently, someone suggested that Kynseed actually does generational gameplay fairly well compared to other games that have tried to add a generation system, and it's hard to get right. I've not played many games with a generational aspect, so I don't know if that's the case, but it might be. I'd also like to give a quick shout out for the music and sound design. Most areas have their own tunes and styles, and some of those tunes have really got in my head - in a good way. It's excellent. I would love to see Kynseed get more content. I know it might not get more though, and even if there's no more content to come I really love the game as it is now. I can see myself playing it again, and coming back to it fairly often over the course of years. Despite the fact that some of its themes are a little darker, I actually find it quite cozy. Somehow it feels like a comfort game for me. I bought this game years ago but for some reason have only just got round to playing it. That was a mistake. I can see now I should've played it much sooner. If you've not played it yet but the writing, folklore/myth focus, gameplay, world... any of it sounds good, give it a go.