'Maybe this new Stardew Valley-like game is pretty good' I said to myself after blearily noticing I'd played it until 2 in the morning

GamesLife Sim’Maybe this new Stardew Valley-like game is pretty good' I said to myself after blearily noticing I’d played it until 2 in the morningWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

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(Image credit: Akupara Games)

A village life sim

Big news: I’ve adopted a bee! That means it’s time to completely upend my entire life because this cute little bee needs a home. Well, technically, it doesn’tneeda home. It’s a bee, its home is outdoors, and I’m the one who came barreling along through the meadow maniacally swinging a little net at it and thus preventing it from continuing its natural existence. But now that I have this bee, I’m going tobuilda home for it so it can make me some honey.

Problem is, I can’t build a beehive because I need silk rope, and I can’t make silk rope because I don’t have any silk pods, and I can’t make silk pods because I don’t have a habitat for the silkworms I’ve alsoabductedadopted, and I can’t build a silkworm farm until I’ve made regular rope, which needs a spinning wheel, which I can only build if I have bricks, which means, well, making other stuff that requires other stuff.

Speaking of hooks, yes, there’s fishing. I’m living and farming and crafting on an idyllic island. Of course there’s fishing.

There’s not a whole lot of difference between Everafter Falls and a lot of the other Stardew-inspired farming sims I’ve played, but the few little twists are welcome. First, you haven’t inherited a farm from some relative and you’re not arriving in town for the first time ever. You already live there, you’ve just been plugged into a simulation game for so long you can’t remember your actual life as a farmer, sort of like how I was plugged into Everafter Falls all night and forgot I had a life that required me to get up at a reasonable hour. Everyone already knows you, but now you need to get to know them.

(Image credit: Akupara Games)

A village life sim

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(Image credit: Akupara Games)

A village life sim

The townfolk of Everafter Falls are pretty chill, too. I find these kind of games a bit grating at times because villagers always seem to be sending me mail or giving me quests or demanding my attention when I’m trying to focus on something else, like the troubling lack of bee housing on my property.

While that happens here it’s a lot more subdued, mostly leaving it to me to decide when to pick up new quests or engage in social interactions. Conversations are nicely short, too, something I appreciate because all I’m thinking when someone is talking to me is “Okay, fine, but is this in any way going to get me closer to having a house for my bee?”

(Image credit: Akupara Games)

A village life sim

There are events in town, but they’re pretty rare so far, which also suits me. There was a rubber duck race I was summoned to, which annoyed me because I was trying to spelunk for copper ore, but it turned out to be a lot of fun because I was allowed to throw rocks at my opponents ducks while they drifted down the river. I came in second place. My aim isn’t great.

Of course there’s plenty of familiar features, like an empty museum and aquarium to fill with the specimens you find, a farmhouse you can decorate and livestock you can adopt, different crops to grow as the simulated season change, and more of the usual type of Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley type stuff.

Everafter Fallsisn’t doing all that much different than some of the other Stardew-likes I’ve played like Coral Island or My Time at Portia, but the stuff it is doing, it’s doing pretty well. Definitely well enough to keep me up until two in the morning, and to have me keep checking my watch at work today because I really want to keep playing. I’m almost done building my bee house. Next stop: honey town.

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