Echoes of the Plum Grove

The NPC I wanted to marry got engaged on the day I was going to propose going steady, so I bought a death cake and gave it to his spouse on their wedding day. Now we're married and expecting our first child. 10/10 game

[h1][i]A very unique style of game that I think is very unique -- although a bit daunting to get into.[/i][/h1] I've enjoyed this game, granted I still haven't gotten everything done in it. It is reminiscent of some other life simulation games such as farming games like [i]Story of Seasons[/i] and [i]Stardew Valley[/i], though it has a different take on the groundwork those familiar titles have laid. It also is weirdly reminiscent of Oregon Trail to me, in that it has a survival, historic aspect to it. I enjoy that and it's probably my favorite thing about the game. The graphics and art direction remind me a bit of [i]Paper Mario,[/i] which I find to be very unique and charming. It's definitely an art style that will stick with you as there isn't that many games like it. My one issue with this game is that in my opinion it is very hard to get into. I think that will put many, if not maybe even the majority, of people off the game at first. It's slow to progress and that is both I think a strength and a weakness. Strength, as it makes you slow down and appreciate the game. Weakness because in my opinion the slowness lends itself well to becoming stale a bit. Give it a try. I've really enjoyed it, and I think I will continue to as I progress.

I really, REALLY, wanted to like it. I have been watching their videos and followed it since it came out, and I finally decided to get it, as I love these types of games, and was so excited over the concept. But it just never really caught me, it felt unpolished (not in a graphic kind of way, as I love the graphics, more game story wise). There is this whole setup to someone in the cage and then it is just like, "oh hi, let's never talk about it again". The NPCs really just seem like they have no personality. I am not saying it is terrible, I there were some moments I liked, and it might become better the longer you play, but I just do not find it fun or interesting enough to continue to play.

I've enjoyed this game so much. While it has some similarities with Stardew Valley/Animal Crossing, I like the aspect of death being involved and aging. I like that your family ages and you have many generations. I've convinced like 5 other people in my friends, family, and co-worker circles to purchase this game. I'm excited for the work the developers will continue to add.

Was fun :) Took me hundred hours to complete the game :) Would recommend it to people who loves Stardew Valley and similar games

I first purchased Echoes of the Plum Grove on the Nintendo Switch and I think I've probably sunk 60 hours into it at least. I typically have a really short attention span for any games at all but for some reason this one has really captivated me. I love a good "cozy" slice of life type of game like Stardew Valley, Animal Crossing, Harvest Moon, Fields of Mistria, etc. but they do kind of get repetitive after awhile...I haven't run into that issue with this game yet, though. I really enjoy the art style of the game and the music is fantastic, really soothing (I'm actually considering buying the soundtrack on here lol). I think something that makes this game stand out is the way you can build your legacy; it gives you something extra to strive for, you know? You can get married and have kids and set your kids up as apprentices in different jobs (or send them to school or keep them to help you out on the farm) and they can grow into those jobs as adults. On the Switch version my first play though I was going solo, just trying to build up wealth and expand my house and all that, thinking I could get into the family system later on and bring them into a fully established household....but I got old and couldn't marry so my game was going to eventually end with my character. This time around, I started early into the game with a new character, meeting townspeople and experiencing the romance and family aspects of the game, building my wealth and expanding my house/farm along the way with the family in tow. I have two girls in this household, both apprenticed now but formerly both helping me with the farm and going to school in the Winter when farm work was nonexistent. I'm working hard to earn money and expand the farm so when I'm old and die and the kids take over the farm they have a nice established home from the start. I think it's so fun to have that as a goal for a game! Certainly, you can play the game without any particular goal in mind and without grinding whatsoever, just doing as you chose with fishing or gathering stuff or exploring the romance side of things, farming...whatever you really want to do within the little village you call home. You can join a coven and do witchy things...you can bake special cakes that...ahem...rid you of problem villagers. The villagers can pass in this game, which is unique, and your whole village can catch diseases if you're unlucky (one playthrough I did I lost like half my village to smallpox). They all have personalities and you get to know them as you play so sometimes it's sad to see them go (or happy to watch them thrive and get married, have kids). If you are an old-school Animal Crossing fan and you miss the fact that the animals used to have varying personalities (and some weren't so nice and cheerful), you'll appreciate that you'll have a variety of personalities in the villagers of your little town on this game. There's a particularly grumpy old lady at the start (and a grumpy old gentleman too) and initially I wasn't too keen on helping either of them with anything because they were sassy to me...but after seeing them pass away and missing their grumpy scowling faces around the village, I decided the next playthrough I'd be kind to them and make them smile. The old lady turned out to be gentle-hearted underneath. :) I have already highly recommended this game on some public forums and to friends, I bought it on Switch and on PC, and I bought it for my husband (who also really enjoyed it...until his whole village got smallpox at least lol) and I'm not usually that effusive in my praise for any games (because of the aforementioned short attention span). I think this game has a whole lot of heart and charm that you won't find in just any cookie cutter cozy game out there. The art, the music, the personalities of the villagers, the landscape of the little village with it's lighthouse-lit shore and tranquil woods....it's just really a lovely and soothing game experience. There are festivities throughout the year, home upgrades and decor to enjoy, PETS now (which I love)...there's just a lot to enjoy, even on replay. I can't wait to see where the game goes in the future and I'm following the devs on Instagram because I just love what they've done here. I hope yall enjoy it as much as I have.

I really hoped this game would become my new cozy obsession, but sadly it just didn’t click for me. It’s undeniably charming with its adorable art style and interesting ideas, but there are some major drawbacks that made it hard to enjoy. It is nearly impossible to get anything meaningful done during the day and actually progressing felt stressful rather than relaxing. The dialogue felt quite disconnected, and unless you’ve been playing for a while, it’s hard to follow what anyone is talking about. Planting and farming also felt painfully slow, and I constantly found myself wishing the mechanics were smoother. Another frustration was figuring out who everyone was – it felt impossible without constantly looking things up online. Overall, while I love the concept and see so much promise here, I found myself getting frustrated quickly. I really want to come back to it one day, because the idea of dealing with life events like illness or raising a family is intriguing, but right now the execution just doesn’t feel balanced enough to keep me hooked. Fingers crossed the developers polish it up, because it truly has the potential to be something special.

I love everything about this game, so i bought it on Switch as well. I played it for a while and then the ‘Save Game Menu’ popped up and i couldn’t close it. so i closed the game instead. And when i reopen the game, I couldn’t walk. I’m very sad rn. To the creators..Can you fix it please 🥹🥹🩷

This was the closest I found to Stardew Valley and I had a lot of fun playing it. It has some features that makes it a bit more challenging in some aspects, such as foot rot and diseases. You can disable those if you'd like. Of course it id simpler than SDV but man, it is BEAUTIFUL! The sunrise and sunsets are amazing! It has an involving atmosphere both because of the light and the music. I would definitely recommend!

I'm not as far as I want to be as I'm still in the first season, but I've enjoyed the game thus far, it's very relaxing to me and there's a lot to do and I'm very curious to see what happens later on in the game. I know this bug in the game exists on Mac as it's happened to me, but I haven't been able to play the fishing mini game, it doesn't take away from the game nor hinder your progress if you take fishing tasks as you can turn off the mini game and still fish and do all the stuff and I'm aware that they are working to fix the bug. I was very worried that it would hinder gameplay but was very relieved to find that I could simply turn off the mini game and still progress.

Satisfying aesthetics, interesting premise, I wish there was a lil more to the game but the fact I can't think of what more I want I'm not sure it's a valid critique. Hope the game keeps being updated! Maybe it's the ghost storyline, I just don't have any interest in the potions

*DO I RECOMMEND IT? NO... BUT ALMOST... OR YES IF YOU DON'T MIND A FEW QUIRKS* I liked this game. My second time playing it, I finished it by the second summer, which was unfortunate because I was hoping there would be more story to it. I do have the option of continuing the game, and I was preparing kids for when my main character died, but I finished it before that happened. Some reviewers have mentioned how slow it is. I completely agree. Even though there are buffs (you can fast transport to spots, or move more quickly temporarily if you get coffee or something), it would be much better to have everything sped up. The storyline is decent but clearly unfinished, and there are a few components of the game incomplete, such as the tree tapper and letters in a bottle. If the game were complete and tweaked, I'd say this is 100% worth it. While it was still worth it to me (and if the devs keep working on, I'll gladly do more playthroughs), it may not be worth it for those expecting a completed game.

I've played ten hours of this game so far and absolutely love it! I'm not a big fan of farming simulation games but this was definitely the exception. Highly recommend this game to everyone but especially the cozy gamer's.

very fun game!! it's like stardew but a refresh, and i love the fact that there is aging. i do wish there was more drama between villagers, like fights, divorce, idk stuff like that, and also a bigger mine! but overall super fun game and can play for hours at a time.

This game is cute! Fun farming sim, I love the use of death and disease to create more stakes in the game. It's very cozy. However, I am already getting bored. I feel like I'm running out of things to do or accomplish even though there is a big main quest and mini quests. In other farming sims, I usually run into this problem muuuch later. Character interactions are ehhh. Currently waiting for my current character to die so that there's something interesting going on

Very fun and love how unpredictable it can be as well as all the events, food being able to rot and tools breaking, little secrets in the game, and being able to pass on and continue as your child makes it a really hard game to put down. The only issue I've had is that while rare sometimes the game has not allowed me to access the menu, inventory, etc. and has to be reset or has crashed while watering plants.

I had no idea what I was getting into when I purchased this game… but it’s becoming one of my favorites!

I did enjoy the game but there are definitely some things I hope are updated before it becomes a full release, such as; + completing a pillar should give some sort of reward like a bonus so even just finishing one feels like an accomplishment +connect the fridge inventory to cooking so player doesnt need to keep pulling stuff out the fridge +stop time while looking through cookbook, just looking to see what recipes you have the ingredients for is a rush because time is still ticking by +eventually offer a bigger storage chest +clicking on things that are close together is a nightmare. somehow make it easier to differentiate layers so if for example, there are two cows close together the player doesnt keep petting the same cow +NPC's dont have any sort of memory. They might say something like 'youre my friend', but it doesnt give any sort of background to the friendship. If you werent making friends with them and you were simply walking by it'd be one thing, but youre supposed to be building a relation with them but they characters are hollow. They dont even mention knowing your mom or dad even if they knew them +Family members after they move out act like youre no one special. It would be nice if they chatted like they were siblings +Remove items from game that have no purpose and return them when they finally do i.e. doubloons Other than that it was fun.

I think its a great game. I kind of regret buying it bc i realized farming sims arent really my thing halfway through this (this was my first farming sim). But i do believe it's an awesome game. The hunger mechanic is annoying, but u can gladly turn it off to enjoy the game without worrying about it, which is good! I figured after marrying the character i liked theres not many more things that hook me in this, which again says more about me than the game, because there [i] are [/i] quite a lot of things to do with your partner, it just didnt hook me enough to do it bc i guess my objective was to marry and when i did i was left with no motivation to keep going. Maybe ill someday start another save and pick someone else! :)) i neither recomend nor not recommend, bc there are layers to my opinion on this game so i don't think it's fair to recommend it or not based on that. i've played 11 hours so it did keep me entertained for a while, just not enough to make me want to continue playing on the long run. something i didnt like however is how battery consuming this is, played in a class and shortly after my laptop was dead. i'm not sure if other games like this are the same way, so i don't know if this is something reasonable to complain about, but keep that in mind.

Doesn't fit my standards, weird plots and villager dynamic I though it was in old times. Anyway I personally don't recommend it, spend you hard earned money somewhere else

So cozy, so sweet, perfect balance of time sensitive trials and the inspirational kind of ennui you get from being around nature.

A grumpy old man gave me a quest to insult 20 villagers. Got 5 coal as a reward. Serves me right

MULTIPLAYER WHEN??? This could be the greatest couple's game!

Have loved the game, Have enjoyed all the time ive played, Good time killer

nice game. had an existential crisis.

I love this game so far! Everything about it.

this game is very fun

It is good

10/10

Stardew mixed with sims