Grave Seasons got a lot of attention on social media following its reveal, thanks to its strong but truly unique premise in the farming sim genre. Not only will players be able to romance NPCs in Grave Seasons and tend to their farms, but they'll be investigating townsfolk to discover who is secretly a serial killer as well. Game Rant recently set down with the lead developers on the project Son M. and Emmett Nahil to learn more about how they invented this general premise and their inspirations.
In our interview, the developers revealed an interesting fact about the game's inception. Despite borrowing elements from a variety of popular games like Stardew Valley, the game’s original inspiration comes from an unexpectedly specific place: Harvest Moon: Save the Homeland for the PlayStation 2.
Released originally in 2001, Harvest Moon: Save the Homeland put a unique spin on the very genre that its parent series helped create. This game features one notable difference from other titles in the series: there is a time limit. When the player answers their family’s summons to take over the family farm, they learn that the village will be torn down and turned into a theme park in one year’s time. From there, they must engage with the villagers and follow a variety of character-based storylines in order to save the village, and this time limit introduced stakes to otherwise typically cozy games. That's what the developers of Grave Seasons wanted to use.
Grave Seasons Brings Stakes to the Farming Simulator Genre
Introducing stakes to a traditionally laid-back genre was one of the driving concepts behind Grave Seasons. The team at Perfect Garbage realized that farming sims, while fun and compelling in their own right, rarely realized their full storytelling potential. Son M. feels that a clear ending and a sense of underlying urgency will transform the genre and elevate the experience into something new and exciting, for both long-time fans of farming sims and newcomers to the space.
“I think with life sims in general, there is often too much focus on the management sim aspect and not enough focus on the narrative aspect. Something we really wanted to do with Perfect Garbage was make a game where we could have this life and management sim aspect but also cater to something that has a definitive end.”
Emmett agreed, and added that while their indie game certainly caters to existing fans of farming simulators, they also seek to attract those who are traditionally put off by the genre’s traditional lack of stakes or a distinct endpoint.
“I was not a huge farming sim person growing up. I brushed over a lot of it because I am such a narrative-focused person. I’m excited for the opportunity to make these more thorough narrative storylines in the genre, because I feel like that would draw in players like me who don’t automatically gravitate towards farming sims.”
Replayability is another aspect of the game the developers are prioritizing. Once someone has played through a farming sim once, it can be hard to find a reason to return. To remedy this, Perfect Garbage added a key twist: the killer will change with every playthrough. In doing so, the developers are “looking to create a depth that can’t just be seen in one playthrough,” and it'll be interesting to see how this game compares to other upcoming farming simulator games.