Pumpkin Days

The game has very basic graphics, but compensates by sheer number of activities, items, NPC's, map size collectables, and let's not forget, the ONLY polyamorous farming sim out there.

Habs im Multiplayer angefangen. Kein Tutorial, wonky Kamera. Ich weiß nicht, was ich da machen soll, wohin es geht... Macht leider nicht viel Sinn so.

There is an incredible amount of content in this game. I'm nearly 30 hours in and still feel like I've only scratched the surface. The map is absolutely massive, and the farming mechanics are some of the best I've experienced in the genre. I usually find watering crops to be one of the more tedious parts of farming sims, but here it's quick, convenient, and easy to manage even large fields. There are hundreds of cooking recipes to discover, which has been a lot of fun, but my favorite part is the progression system tied to crafting and production. I love gathering resources and gradually unlocking new stations and equipment. There's something incredibly satisfying about constantly working toward the next unlock and expanding what you're able to produce. I've also had a great time mining, collecting materials, crafting, and caring for my animals. The animals are adorable, and the petting and brushing mechanics are simple without feeling like a chore. What I've enjoyed most is how much freedom the game gives you. Rather than pushing you through a rigid storyline, it lets you focus on whatever interests you most, whether that's farming, crafting, cooking, mining, or expanding your production chains. Playing this game made me realize just how much I enjoy that kind of open-ended sandbox experience.

I received this game through a gift when it was given to a charity organization i was once a part of. We were given a bunch of copies for mental health game night. This is the only game i have been graciously given that I could be liked "no. here have a blueprint for harvest moon. Try again." And then return their offer and maybe geta muffin for my trouble. Pros: Inclusive. very little hand holding. Go at your own pace. THAT IS ALL. Cons: Movement feels awful planting crops is a chore as the planting mechanic is objectively terrible and hard to work with. It's charming but don believe the steam trailers, they have zoomed in significantly. Zoomed out it looks very different. Heaven forbid you want to put down a building. Good luck with that. Even mining is boring. The fishing mechanic is one of the worst I've seen in quite some time. Some systems clearly got more love than others. Final thoughts: Okay if you actively need to play something that lets you break normal conventions, this is the one. But if you want to play a GAME, this is not the one. I also did an interview with one of the designers for assets and they confirmed that yes, just before or after they lost their lead programmer and DIDN'T LET ANYONE KNOW THEY COULD NOT support the game anymore. So it was dead in the water for updates from the get go. DO NOT BUY THIS GAME for 15 bucks. It is not worth it. I do not understand how this gets very positive except there is so little lgbt representation in these types of games that people will snap up ANYTHING that fits. Which is fine. Pumpkin days COULD have been a fine game. But poor programing, buggy behavior that can't be fixed, and a farming and fishing interface that are actively fighting against you. I assume most people just use this as a dating sim, and more power to you. That side had fewer bugs.

This became one of my favorite modern farming games. It had so many innovative features that made it feel fresh and interesting, like the animal crossing-style debt system, the regular quotas, the ability to raise animals for meat. I have started and restarted this game time and again because it is just such a quick to start and entertaining farming game compared to so many out there, And I loved that I was able to play as a plus size character. I really hope to see some new farming game in the future from these guys. But if this is what we get I would be very happy too!

Ich persönlich finde das Spiel echt klasse, vor allem die meisten Charaktere sind voll goldig. ^^ Ich empfehle das Spiel jedem, der Gelegenheitsspiele mag bzw. liebt.

Although it's not without some issues (such as Orpheus implicitly in-game being part of a different friend group than what the code says he is) and polyamory being punished if you don't date within the same friend group (so Orpheus, by the code, will lose affection if you don't date his coded-in friends), those issues are negligible when compared to the great size of the game and love clearly put into it. All of the characters have heart and are more noticeably unique than one would expect of a game with so many different ones. Also, issues like the one above can easily be fixed with mods anyway.

As somebody who loves life simulation games as a genre dearly, but doesn’t particularly favour farming sims, Pumpkin Days is easily my favourite in the farming lifesim sub-genre. This review is long overdue as I first started playing a few years ago, but as I still play this game, I thought I’d share some wisdom for anyone who is considering buying Pumpkin Days. I won’t spend too long on the negatives as there are negative reviews that cover the bulk of what you may want to consider, but coming from someone who loves the game dearly and frequently recommends it to others, I do think a few things are worth noting: The game no longer recieves fixes or patches (which the devs are transparent about), but in my experience moderators in the discord and other players alike will offer a hand if you need help. I haven’t personally come across any major bugs in my singleplayer saves (I got stuck once, to which there is a handy “help I’m stuck!” button in the settings which will set you somewhere safe), and the game has never crashed on me in singleplayer. However, in multiplayer I often find characters getting stuck, have things display incorrectly (such as chicken feed not visably appearing in its trough despite being visable to the host), sometimes lag, and so forth - none of this is a big deal to me personally, and they aren’t things that happen to the host so I assume it’s just a concequence of not being the one hosting the server. In most cases I can ask my friend who is hosting to pick things up for me or check things that aren’t displaying right. I have had the game crash a small handful of times in multiplayer, but I didn’t lose any progress and was able to jump right back in with my host. I will say that the multiplayer does kind of drop you in without much direction, so if anyone is looking to pick up this game specifically to play with friends then I’d recommend starting a single player file just to acquaint yourself with the game first so you can get a feel for the gameplay loop, and to familiarise yourself with the controls as I know I personally took a while to adjust to them (namely movement and the camera) when I first started playing. The game is incredibly ambitious, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing at all. I love seeing what indie devs do with the genre, especially since I feel that the pioneers of the genre and other major developers often play it too safe and stick to the same formula title after title (that is not to diss Story of Seasons or anything, they’re fine games! I just cannot warrant paying £50+ for games when I don’t feel like they’ve progressed much over the past decade or so). Having a farmsim with an open world island, over a hundred characters (most of which you can romance), four towns, and set goals to work toward was welcome to me. It also does not shy away from things that modern lifesims still have not gotten on board with that I do think should become the norm for the genre, such as customisable body types, optional polyamory and the ability to live with friends platonically. Even things like having the choice to process your animals for meat is appreciated as this isn’t common in the genre anymore as developers try hard to accomodate the “cozy gaming” bandwagon which can sometimes lead to unnecessary sanitisation in my opinion. I personally find it very easy to get immersed in the world. Despite the sheer amount of characters, they all have their own individual charms and I love getting to learn more about everyone as your friendship grows with them. You soon find yourself learning who likes what items, where they like to hang out throughout the day, and who their friends are - I find it very endearing that each character has their own set friend group, who also grow more fond of you as you befriend a member of the group. I feel like theres a character (or two, or many!) for literally everyone. Of course it’s worth noting that you can date regardless of gender, have multiple partners with no hard limit (as long as you’re treating them all right!), and even have a ceremony as friends if you’d like someone to move in with you platonically, the latter two of which aren’t common in the genre at all. Something that often breaks my immersion in other farmsims is when heart events are so specific to encounter that you have to look the conditions up online (“speak to X on a Tuesday by the fountain in Summer while it’s raining” type stuff), so I like that it’s so easy to just run into events by pure accident in Pumpkin Days. Similarly, I like that if I need a specific item, whether that be a fish, bug, type of wood, flower, etc. then I can go to a library in-game to learn, rather than having to look it up online. Things like this really add to the immersion and fun for me. As previously stated, I’d usually prefer to pick up a different sub-genre of life simulation over farmsims just because the farming gameplay loop isn’t my jam, but Pumpkin Days manages to do it in a way that I find satisfying - it also helps that you can pick a partner, roommate, or child to help with chores on the farm! Having a monthly farming quota to work towards that isn’t compulsory, but instead gives you extra money as a reward gives much appreciated gentle guidance, and nice insentive to work on the farm. The large amount of customisation also makes me very happy. Not just the character customisation, or the amount of clothing and accessories (none of which is genderlocked due to the game’s gender ambiguous player character), but I really like how unique you can make your house and farm. I’ve seen a few mentions about the lack of grid, but that’s actually a plus to me. I love being able to freely rotate furniture, stack things, and place it as I like. I feel like the ability to have “clutter” adds a much appreciated lived-in feel. My in-game husband secretly loves cute things like plush toys, so I covered our bed in plushies. That sort of freedom really gives Pumpkin Days charm to me that I don’t see often elsewhere in the genre. There’s also nice customisation to gameplay. As someone who gets very attached to animals in these sorts of games, I’m glad that I can play with animal death disabled. Similarly, as someone who easily becomes daunted by deadlines, I like that you can put the game into relax mode and not have to rush the museum donations (I should note that this is broken in multiplayer and selecting relax mode will still put you in normal mode!). You can also toggle how long in-game days last (which I didn’t realise until halfway into my second year), and it is quite nice slowing down time to really get the most of your days, especially if you want to spend time exploring the island. Overall, I love the unique features that Pumpkin Days brings to the genre, and even at almost two hundred hours, it has so much more milage left for me (I’m far from filling the museum, I haven’t explored the whole island, my tools aren’t fully upgraded, etc.). Around a hundred hours into the game I started a second savefile (alongside my main save, and my co-op save with a friend) just so I can play in a different way. I already know I’ll eventually make yet another save just so I can start the game in Pumpkinvale and have one save revolving around each town. The game is so cheap for the amount of content you’re getting, and it goes on sale pretty often, too. I was gifted this game by a dear friend of mine who knows I love life simulation games, and I’m eternally glad that they did because this game has become very special to me. I know others are more critical than me when it comes to bugs and such, but I believe in treating indie teams (especially a team as small as Pumpkin Interactive!) with kindness, and hope that people who love lifesims as much as I do would consider giving this game a fair chance. It really is something special.

Love this game, addicting. One negative, horrible storage system. But I still play it.

clearly a labour of love creation and a fun if floored cosey game that probably should have been created using a different engine as clearly the bugs it has are more troubles with the engine used than any errors in design. worth a play for a few hours but dont expect a masterpiece.