Stardew Valley released in 2016, immediately becoming a huge hit for fans not only in the farming sim community, which only consisted of those who played the old Harvest Moon games back in the day but also those who rarely game at all. Stardew Valley hit the same vein that games such as Animal Crossing: New Horizons does: a seemingly mundane set of tasks somehow becomes addicting.
It struck such a chord that small-time and individual developers began creating numerous games inspired by the same formula of farming simulators. One of these games was Kynseed, which similarly has added content over the years since its release. After pouring hundreds of hours into Stardew Valley, Kynseed is an excellent follow-up game because of the way it twists and turns the farming sim formula.
Stardew Valley began essentially as a copycat of the old Harvest Moon games, aimed at capturing the feeling no longer present in the new Harvest Moon and Story of Seasons titles. Though the series has somewhat improved their graphics over time, they ultimately end up feeling like hollow emulations of the past, leaving most farming sim fans to turn to Eric Barone’s recreation, Stardew Valley.
One of the reasons why Stardew Valley continues to be a success over any modern Story of Seasons or Harvest Moon release is how balanced the game’s mechanics are. When just getting started, it takes quite some time to accrue enough money where it’s no longer a concern, and the first year really requires the player to budget out seeds, fodder, and other necessities. Fishing also has a unique learning curve, but rare fish will also stay appropriately difficult. Mining higher-quality ore will also become increasingly harder thanks to varying enemy types.
But if the game gets too easy from playthrough after playthrough? Stardew Valley has difficulty settings known as “Profit Margins.” This is the start of how Stardew is great for both children and adults. It’s family-friendly, but there are some darker storylines in the mix keeping it interesting for the adults playing the game. Kynseed takes these subtle mature themes, as well as difficulty, and runs with them in a way most uncommon to the normal farming sim. But that’s exactly why so many players love it.
Boasting a similar yet more complex pixel art style, Kynseed was one of the many farming and life sims inspired by Stardew Valley. But while they may look mostly identical, Kynseed does more than regurgitate the same mechanics, unlike some other titles. Instead, Kynseed leans more heavily into the RPG genre with more quests and a more concrete story, but Kynseed also created its own original charm.
According to development studio PixelCount, Kynseed fuses British folklore with the sandbox world of a farming sim, meaning the characters’ humor and personalities are a bit less innocently chipper and a bit more cynical and sad. But perhaps its this macabre trait that has gotten players addicted to Kynseed, some even enjoying it more than Stardew, despite the game only being available in Early Access.
This same humor is echoed in the game’s everyday tasks as well. Like most farming sims, players can expect the usual: raising a farm, helping villagers, romance, and starting a family. But while Kynseed is whimsical, it’s also more realistically dark. The game starts off with planting an acorn, which turns into a family tree as time passes. Unlike most farming sims, the player will age and watch the tree age as well. Everyone ages and dies, including the player character and their pets.
When the player dies in Kynseed, they can step into their children’s shoes and continue the legacy. And the player’s choices will affect their children’s lives in this farming sim, and so on and so forth. As for pets and animals, while it might be a bit morbid, farm animals can die and they can be harvested for resources, such as a pig dropping pork behind when it passes, for example.
So for those picking apart Stardew Valley‘s darkest storylines, felt that the relationships in the game aren’t organic, or are just simply running out of original content, perhaps look into Kynseed as a more complex and unconventional spin on the successful formula.
Kynseed is out now for PC.
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