All the way back in the historical year of 2016, Eric “ConcernedApe” Barone released a game that would forever change the cozy gaming community. Stardew Valley burst into the lives of gamers everywhere with a relaxing, creative farming experience, with players taking over a dilapidated farm and bringing it back to life. ConcernedApe set out to make a fresh new experience, and to address his issues with other games of a similar genre, namely the Harvest Moon series, which he felt had gotten “progressively worse” after the instalment of Back To Nature.
Now, nearly a decade later and over 40 million copies sold, it’s safe to say that Stardew Valley has inspired a whole new generation of game designers to break out into the cozy genre. One of these devs goes by the name of Jenny, aka Laborious Lark, who claims Stardew Valley as one of her favourite games of all time. Jenny is a web developer by day, but had often thought it would be cool to make a video game, so make a video game she did.
Seeds of Calamity is a Stardew Valley-inspired experience five years in the making. Set twenty years after the Great Calamity, it’s your task as a young adventurer to help the community of your new home grow and experience the small quiet joys of life in a world healing from the past. While the influence of Stardew Valley is obvious, Seeds of Calamity also takes inspiration from franchises like Pokémon, Hades and The Legend of Zelda.
The question is, what makes Seeds of Calamity stand apart from Stardew Valley, and all the many games inspired by the success of ConcernedApe over the last near ten years? Honestly, quite a lot! A ton of these inspired games aren’t all that different from the source, and it can make it a bit hard to see the value in games that take direct inspiration after a while, but Seeds of Calamity does to Stardew what Stardew did to Harvest Moon, and directly addresses some concerns Jenny had and how they could be changed to accommodate a more inclusive player experience.
At the base level, Seeds of Calamity has its own story to tell. “I wanted to make a farming sim that feels like home — but in a world shaped by magic and memory.” All of the townspeople are unique and have their own quest lines to explore, and the world feels taken care of. As much as people enjoy helping rebuild a town in games like this, the world of Seeds of Calamity is already healing, with everyone working towards keeping peace and fixing the things that are broken, instead of the player shouldering all the weight.
“…Seeds of Calamity also takes inspiration from franchises like Pokémon, Hades and The Legend of Zelda.”
Players have the ability to change so much in terms of accessibility to fit their own personal needs, and that’s something to be appreciated. From full control remapping, changing colours, changing the difficulty, being able to craft with items in storage, all the way to choosing how long you want the day to last. The toolbar, which holds all your farming items like pickaxe, axe and hoe (tools that never break!), is also separate from your backpack, meaning those permanent items aren’t taking up any space which could be used for gathering resources.
I personally really dislike the fishing minigame in Stardew Valley (and I am bullied by my friends about it relentlessly), but the alternative fishing in Seeds of Calamity felt really comfortable. It’s an arrow rotating around a circle, and in that circle are a green box and sometimes a purple one if there’s an opportunity for a bonus reward. Simply click once while the arrow is in the colour, and you win! No fighting with the fish, managing a constantly moving bar. Just simple timing, which can even be slowed down in the accessibility menu, making fishing easier for everyone.
It’s all of these little quality-of-life changes and simple mechanic swaps that make Seeds of Calamity feel like a game that truly wants to be experienced by everyone. So often, I see people lament about wanting to play a game but not being able to due to certain restraints or personal ability, and it’s heartbreaking because gaming should be an experience everyone can enjoy. So big props to Jenny for ensuring her experience is one of accessibility and love for the craft.
As well as the usual farming and township elements, there are a few gameplay elements that make Seeds of Calamity even more unique. Things like fox spirits who have riddles for you to solve in order to obtain certain items, the ability to cast spells and level up through a skill tree for more abilities, a turn-based JRPG-style combat system, and a magical fluffy Spellbook companion who keeps track off all your important information like crafting recipes as well as having your back in combat.
Even now, as an Early Access title, Seeds of Calamity has a level of polish that is really nice to see. It offers Xbox-specific controller support (with the ability to remap all controls) and Steam Deck support, though unfortunately, no Cloud Saves at this point in time (which means no swapping between PC and Steam Deck to continue play), but hopefully, Jenny might look at incorporating that in a future update. Achievements will also be added in a future update, as well as new crops, new farm animals, more quests and even a new starting map.
Seeds of Calamity is available to play in Early Access via Steam, and the frequent updates and road maps from Jenny make it clear she’s planning to take care of this game for the long run. It’s not hard to see how much time and effort have gone into creating this experience from scratch, and if you want to support an independent female dev, Seeds of Calamity is a rewarding and unique enough experience that I think you’ll definitely get your money’s worth from.
About the Author
Hayley Louise
she/they
Hayley spends most of her time gaming, but when she's not doing that you can find her doing all kinds of nerd-adjacent things like playing board games, building Lego, reading books and talking nerdy to everyone who will listen.
