Fantasy Farming: Orange Season vs Stranded Sails - Explorers of the Cursed Islands
Fantasy Farming: Orange Season
Fantasy Farming: Orange Season is a relaxing farming game and is an amazing new addition to the growing popularity of farming games like Stardew Valley and other similar games, such as My Time at Portia. Grow various crops and earn tons of money, go out foraging and sell what you get, and build relationships with a colorful cast of characters in town by helping them with tasks, giving them gifts, and simply talking to them every day.Being essentially a farming simulation game, you can expect to spend most of your playtime planting, watering, and harvesting a variety of crops. The game starts you off with a handful of them, but as you progress, more crops are unlocked and you’ll then be able to buy their respective seeds at the store at a price. Some seeds even require specific conditions to grow.
Considering there that crops take some time to grow and mature, you’ll likely be spending most of the remainder of your time trying to earn cash by foraging. Foraging here means picking up stuff that is dropped on the ground like sticks, fruits, flowers, etc. Once you can go into the mines and start mining for stuff, you can harvest a variety of valuable ores and stones as well.
You’ll also want to head over to the town as soon as you can. Here, you’ll be able to interact with a variety of characters, some of which have quirky personalities. You’ll need to help them with their requests from time to time and you’ll get something nice in return. You can also gift them presents and depending on what they personally like, they may or may not appreciate said gift.
Fantasy Farming: Orange Season has a gameplay that’s somewhat similar to another indie farm game, My Time at Portia, albeit with cute pixel graphics similar to Stardew Valley. And if you love that game, you’ll definitely love this one. The grind here is real though, so if you find grinding for materials on MMOs to be fun and relaxing, you might be able to enjoy playing this game.
Stranded Sails - Explorers of the Cursed Islands
Stranded Sails - Explorers of the Cursed Islands is a farm simulation/adventure game where you’ll not only need to maintain a farm and make sure that your surviving crew’s needs are being met; you’ll also need to set off on mini-expeditions to explore the many mysterious islands within the archipelago and to discover the secrets they hide. Maybe, if you’re lucky, you might end up finding a way off the island after all!The game is really easy to get into, mainly because the game is driven by its story-based quests so by completing these quests, you be able to unlock new areas and even new tools that will allow you access to different parts of the archipelago. However, you’re given complete freedom to explore any of the islands as you wish, though there are certain parts of the island that would be “roped off” until you’ve progressed far enough into the story and have unlocked the necessary tools.
Everything you do in this game requires energy - and yes, this includes walking – and it’s the main “currency” you’ll need to keep an eye on whenever you head out for a bout of exploring or just a resource-gathering run. Due to this energy system, the gameplay here can be quite strategic, forcing you to decide when you’d want to focus on exploring and when you’d want to spend some of the energy you have to gather some resources like fishing and chopping some trees.
Being a farm simulation game, Stranded Sails also has an allocated area within your base camp for you to grow some crops and feed your crew. You can even try your luck by fishing at the ocean, and then use those raw ingredients to whip up some delicious food to fuel your adventures.
So, overall, Stranded Sails is an oddly strategic farm sim/adventure game mainly because of its energy system, and as a result, the game isn’t as casual as some players would have liked. That said, the game has an interesting storyline going for it, and the gameplay, aside from the energy aspect, isn’t too shabby either. It’s definitely a game that fans of Harvest Moon or other similar games would love to play.