Wylde Flowers is a pleasant, eerie farm simulation.
Our Verdict
Wylde Flowers is a wonderfully witchy farming life sim with an enchanting story to tell. Soak up the chill vibes and relaxing atmosphere of Fairhaven, as you get close to its residents, get a handle on your own magic powers, and reveal the secrets of this sunny seaside town.
Although I haven't played Wylde Flowers on the Apple Arcade yet, I was thrilled to see that the game will be available on the PC and Switch, so I packed my things and drove to Fairhaven. Simply put, I'm a simple lady who may be found in a farming simulation with a cat and a witch hat. I jumped at the chance to play the pre-release sample on Steam/PC, and I'm delighted to report that it has me enthralled. The cauldrons, cats, and crops are definitely there, and there are much more surprises to discover along the route.
Farming games and life simulation games have been around for a while. The genre has been made accessible to a broad audience of players by titles like Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley, which have even piqued the attention of those who wouldn't normally pick up a controller. These games provide a calm kind of escape, letting you temporarily forget about your everyday life and put yourself in another person's shoes. This trend began during the pandemic and has continued ever since.
Naturally, this means there are always new fields to care to, crops to develop, and online friends to meet. However, with so many titles, it may be simple to become lost in the maze. However, in all of its enchanted splendour, Wylde Flowers escapes this destiny.
With a gameplay cycle that centres on farming, mining, taking care of your animals, doing missions, and making friends with the locals as you try to solve the mysterious mystery that surrounds you, Wylde Flowers is fundamentally a narrative-driven life sim. Anyone who has played similar games previously will recognise the straightforward gameplay cycle, which depends on gathering, using, and selling resources in order to advance.
The game's narrative is where it really excels. It begins by having you assume the role of a city dweller seeking a change of scenery, which eventually has you moving onto a relative's dilapidated farm in a sleepy small town. You play Tara, a young lady who has went through a difficult breakup and is now living in with her sick grandma Hazel.
Naturally, however, this isn't just any farming or life simulation game; this is Wylde Flowers, and your darling little Gramma is keeping something from you. You get to see eerie sequences throughout the night that feature robed, masked people meandering around the forest. These riddles get much more mysterious when you discover that Gramma, who is notoriously evasive when questioned, has hidden a trapdoor beneath the rug when she asks you to assist her in sweeping the house.
She then sends you to get a flower that only blooms at night in the woods. I am aware of how this all sounds now. No, Gramma is not the insane murderer depicted in the Lily's Garden advertisements. Nope, you and a few other individuals in the town, including Gramma, are witches!
From here, the novel takes a turn for the better, delving into a fairly adult subject matter that deals with loss, sadness, broken relationships, and even hints at more mature subjects like alcoholism. It also has some really emotional components. Every townie has a relationship structure, and as you get to know them more, their perception of you changes.
They gradually gain your confidence and open up to you about their past, fears, and aspirations for the future. You may also choose from a variety of bachelors and bachelorettes, like the stylish surfer guy Kai, the nonbinary butcher Kim, the charming doctor Amira, and even a scholarly werewolf named Westley.
But this variation extends beyond the singles and married couples. The residents of Fairhaven are diverse in terms of their origins, orientations, races, and sizes. Concept artist Iona and environment artist Riley made it apparent in our Wylde Flowers interview that they intended to portray individuals who don't often get to see themselves in games, and they did an amazing job doing it.
You can't help but be enthralled with each character since they are all so different and have such a rich backstory—especially because you will be spending a good chunk of each in-game day speaking with them. The excellent voice acting, which interprets every line of conversation in the game, enhances this even more.
Naturally, the real attraction lies in the mystery and magic, as you spend the day as an ordinary farmer and the night as a budding witch, visiting your cauldron and concocting potions and charms. As you advance, you'll even find an intriguing place called Ravenwood Hollow, a beautifully bizarre fantasy village teeming with fantastical animals. I'm excited to see what changes and perhaps additional places they bring, particularly since the main story's current duration isn't that lengthy.
As was already noted, there isn't much gameplay that deviates from the norm, but that doesn't always mean a negative thing. Running about the hamlet and making the most of your awake hours, you occupy your day with the aforementioned activities. It takes some time to settle into a rhythm, but once you do, you'll discover a fulfilling exchange of reciprocity. Additionally, because your rucksack is infinite, inventory management is not necessary.
The primary problem in the game is your stamina metre, particularly in the beginning when Tara becomes fatigued after cutting a tree or picking up a few pebbles. However, the cooking system saves the day for the first few missions. After that, the cheapest and most efficient approach to ensure you have enough energy to do tasks is to stop by Sophia's Diner and get a couple coffees. Quite similar to actual life, to be honest.
Using the pause menu, you may alternate between easy, normal, and tough at any moment. This is a very useful time management tool since it merely modifies the rate at which the day goes by. Set it to difficult and watch the minutes fly by if you've completed all of your day responsibilities and are only waiting for night to arrive so you may visit the coven or if you need a crop to develop in order to advance.
Turn it down to relaxed and take your time getting all the necessary supplies if you're going into the mine with a few spells and a backpack full of munchies. Since time-oriented activities are a common source of irritation in agricultural sims, I actually enjoy that this lets you have control over how you want to play the game.
Every townie has a different schedule, and every store has a different opening hour. The majority of tasks, such as growing crops, making potions, and mulching compost, depend on an in-game timetable. Because most of your quests involve growing a certain amount of a particular crop and giving it to a villager or talking to someone during their working hours, the game slows down to a crawl in the early going. This leaves you with a lot of hours and not much to do, especially until you unlock features like the mine.
But as you go along, there's a lot more work to be done. While you wait for timers to chime, there's much to occupy your day, including mining, travelling, or taking care of your animals. The previously stated difficulty settings might assist you in getting through the early game stages rather than wasting time fiddling with your thumbs. You also have access to convenient potions that provide a variety of boosts, such as boosting the yield and grow pace of your crops.
Wylde Flowers boasts a comprehensive economy that depends on many retailers and their hours of operation, as well as cooperating with other settlements. To turn a profit, acquire more crops or recipes, or construct new structures, you must get familiar with the schedules, inventory, and goods that each store will purchase from you.
Tuesdays are my best days to make money because, for some reason, selling fish sticks is the most profitable activity in the game. Purchase from Lina a few hundred bags of flour, from Bruno an equal quantity of tuna, go home, prepare a whole sack of fish sticks, and sell them at Sophia's restaurant. Call myself Captain Birdseye; simply rinse, repeat, profit.
Being a fish stick tycoon and controlling the economy is a strangely pleasant sensation. I assure you that it's not cheating at all when you go home on a Tuesday night with an additional $100,000 in gold in your luggage. I also like that knowing this takes care of the majority of your financial issues, enabling you to purchase any upgrade from Parker or uncommon ingredients and tree seedlings from Kai's shop as soon as you see them.
The controls for Wylde Flowers are straightforward. I was only able to test the Steam PC version before to its release, but I'm sure there weren't many differences between it and the Switch version. You can click where you want to go to walk about, click on objects to interact with them, and, you guessed it, click on individuals to speak with them. A basic map, a bag, and a diary detailing all of your missions, resources, and the degree of friendship you have with each townie are all that you have with you. That's all there is to it. And to be really honest? All it needs is that.
The surroundings have beautiful artistic qualities, particularly in the more enchanted locations. It took me some time to get acclimated to the character design, but eventually I think their looks and attire are a wonderful match for their respective personas. The game's stylized aesthetic, complete with rounded edges and vivid colours, was definitely a good choice since it makes Fairhaven seem friendly and inviting to everyone who chooses to give it a try.
Since Tara is the main character in this novel, you are unable to change her outfit—whether it be for work or the weather—and are thus limited to wearing her red miniskirt and sharp shoes. Nevertheless, I was able to develop a true affection for our amiable little witch, and looking back, I wouldn't have it any other way.
All in all, I absolutely like Wylde Flowers and am content with my stay in Fairhaven. It's an easy game with a great tale to tell, plenty of entertaining features, and interesting townspeople to get to know. This marvellously witchy world has lots of magic in its roots, and its peaceful, soothing vibe has become a genuine safe haven for me after a long day. It may be a touch too stripped-back and very short for die-hard lovers of the genre.