PEGBRJE: Wishing Sarah and Speed Farmers
Small.
Wishing Sarah is a small yet surreal intermediary adventure created by Asteristic Game Studio, the indie developer from Brazil that brought us Dreaming Sarah earlier on. Incidentally, this is the title that bridges the gap between that title and the upcoming Awakening Sarah, and delves back in to Sarah’s weird dreams once again.
Once again players will delve in to the supernatural thrill that is Sarah’s dreams and reality, attempting to uncover what exactly is going on in her current environment after awakening in a hospital. Unlike before, Sarah has appeared to have broken free from whatever dream-state that she had been in that caused the first game’s bizarre state, but as soon as she begins to explore the world begins to catch her in a loop resembling a dream once again. Just like in the previous title, players will be searching for items that are in the environment, usually ones that are simple in nature that may have strange utility thanks to the situations she finds herself in. These items are stored away in her inventory, only used when interacting with the necessary object, and instead much of the time spent in each region will be to uncover exactly what kind of puzzle Sarah has gotten herself stuck in.
Unlike the previous title, however, the entire aesthetic of the game has been altered; gone are the coloured pixel graphics in favour of a GBA-style approach, complete with a brand new top-down camera angle reminiscent to old RPGs of the era. This will alter once to a first person camera for a labyrinth puzzle to give flashbacks to old exploration games of the past; whether those flashbacks are good or bad is up to personal experiences. Now this aesthetic alteration isn’t completely just for ‘fun’, as the game does come with a GB-ROM version, meaning that it can be played on an emulator just fine to replicate the old nostalgic feeling. However, I also found that the design change was more to put on display the size of the game itself, as Wishing Sarah is not meant to be a long game. It’s a bridge title, one to dive deeper in to the themes of the game in a small vertical slice and keep players enticed while the sequel continues to be built in the background.
I must say that I also had a bizarre feeling of deja vu whilst playing Wishing Sarah. Upon playing, I immediately was able to harken back to the ending of Dreaming Sarah, even though that had been months ago (it was on page 6). The detective segment alone made that feeling the strongest, as I was able to solve it almost instantly as if I already had, yet I have no solid memories of where I did so, nor do I recall if it had been in Dreaming Sarah. Perhaps this is part of the game itself to invoke such feelings — after all, dreams are fleeting yet can give the strongest emotions. If you too wish for a small adventure in preparation for the sequel, give this a whirl.
Speed Farmers is a small yet quick farming simulator created by JAT Games, an indie duo based out of Belgium. Take on the roll of a farmer trying to ensure their survival in a fast paced field, going against the traditional convention that farming is a patience game; we’re not here to wait, we’re here for fast turnover.
Players are armed initially with absolutely zero dollars to their name, an infinite water trough, a toilet, a hoe, and a determination not to be broke by the end of a day. Dirt and grass tiles can be worked by grabbing the hoe with the SPACE bar and interacting with the ENTER key, which wasn’t entirely explained — the game is in a rough alpha-like state, so this can be written off relatively easily. Once the ground has horizontal lines to indicate it is ready, water can be dropped on the tile to moisten the soil before dropping one of the ten starting seeds in the plot. Fertilizer can be used prior to the seed’s placement to speed up the growth, but since the player is the only creator of ‘fertilizer’ in this game, that is in limited amount depending on how many times nature calls. Once planted, players can wait until it is grown to put in one of the baskets for sail, and after a short amount of time a money sound will go and the bottom bank will have cash. This process is repeated until the player finishes a day with the inability to purchase anything (usually because they have zero dollars) which ends the game.
Much of the joy that can be gained from this style of speedy Harvest Moon is in the title itself; speed. Since everything is at a rapid rate, players are constantly running from place to place to ensure efficiency in their activities lest they leave crops just sitting there for too long; that’s their money, after all. It also adds to the issue that the items required by the player are only sold at the bottom, while their water is at the top and cannot be moved. The constant back and forth is inevitable, even if players compromise and setting halfway. There’s also some light terraforming that can occur between purchasing stone tiles to create fun walkways if one has enough time to invest in to non-crop related activities.
It isn’t a large game, nor will it take up most of your time, but Speed Farmers is a neat little proof of concept for a title that bridges the worlds of efficient speed demons and relaxed farming simulators. How it expands in the future is up to it, but I’m definitely curious to see where it goes. If you too wish to inaccurately farm fast, then this is definitely a title to try out.
