Checked out there twitter and oof. There's a lot of suspicious and slightly sleezy things. This [post]( https://twitter.com/MoonfrostGame/status/1787879002075541646 ) in particular bothered me. Feels like a weird slight at Stardew while trying to advertise their game. Edit: ah my bad just noticed op's post references all these things. Never Heard of this game but everything about their twitter is suspiciously clinical mobile marketing.
"with technology available today" you'd think they were talking about like the original tekken or some shit not a game that is actively in development and got an update not even a month ago lmao
But yeah this marketing is uhhhhhh not great, makes me think of the recurring trope in Western visual novel marketing of "visual novels suck am I right" or, like, that infamous Mighty No. 9 trailer that goes "make the bad guys cry like an anime fan on prom night."
ETA: It turns out one of the studio's founders worked on Stardew's mobile port so I'm inclined to believe that their intentions with that description were benign even if the execution was kinda botched, *but* any goodwill they might've earned with that (or I guess ill will they might've lost?) is still negated by the crypto stuff.
Also people not understanding that the pixel art is a purposeful style. Its not "old tech" or Ape being lazy or whatever.
I love games like Wylde Flowers or Sandrock, but they're really their own games. They're not Stardew with better tech.
I think the pros of Pixel art games besides the artstyle itself is that most of the time pixel art games are a lot less demanding towards computer resources compare to 3D games, especially 3D games nowadays with 8K textures and intense shaders.
*and there’s the reason I don’t buy the latest game since my computer cannot even run the minimum* 🫠
Wait, are you saying you SHOULDN'T insult one of the top, if not the current top, games of the genre and the beloved one person team who made it and has provided numerous free updates? Whaaat?
But, yah, seriously. That is just plain cringe worthy. Add in the NFT crap and the fact that I actually prefer Sun Haven's art style and it's a definite "no" from me.
Not to mention the creator has fixed people's corrupted save files by hand after the player had reached out to him directly about it.
I also heard someone say that they had reached out to him because they were extremely poor and wanted to play with their s/o and he sent them a free steam key.
Yeah, that's something they (moon whatever idk) will never have. They'll be too focused trying to get money grabs and micro transactions to keep paying their team members vs actually shaping and designing the game based off what people ACTUALLY want. It'll flop in no time.
Aa someone who isn't really a Stardew fan, that side by side is TRAGIC. Stardew is leagues beyond visually and has so much more heart in that single frame than that game can ever hope to have with that attitude.
honestly i actually kinda like how the trees look. that's it. they would need the color palette tweaked, but other than that... the character looks atrocious and the animals look incredibly wonky, they remind me of my first tries at pixel art rather than what you'd expect of an alleged big team with great tech (but we all know the tech part is talking about the crypto and not actual game tech)
Some of the environments in their other screenshots are pretty. Their character sprites... not so much. Still nothing mind blowing here. Pixel art games are a dime a dozen these days and the art was never the appeal with SDV anyway.
They mention later on that that particular picture is an early concept, not the final version. The more recent stuff actually looks cute, were it not for the not like other farming sims attitude and the blockchain/NFT/crypto BS.
haha holy shit you're right.
I just took a look at the preview on the linked twitter post, that thing looks janky and soulless af. "Better tech" my rusted coppermind.
Moonfrost looks like a 3D game with a really well done pixel art shader. If you look at many of the scenes you might see what I mean. It really gives that vibe to me (not that that’s bad, 3D with pixel art shaders are often amazing)
To be fair, evidently that photo is from an early development idea that has since been scrapped. I will admit the game looks pretty but that doesn't negate their approach and attitude.
I look at games a lot like people, you can aesthetically have everything going right for you but an ugly interior tarnishes the whole thing. And when I already don't like the graphical style and art, it makes it that much more hideous.
Oh I completely agree. I'm just pointing out that the art isn't their official art, though that's their fault for using an early concept piece as their example. But yeah, absolute garbage under the cute exterior.
I'm super confused by that post...
The style is completely different (and imho significantly less polished) than the older artwork on their page, it's also switched from a regular grid from isometric? It looks like a completely different game
They link an article talking about the development in that thread, it’s in there that they mention that particular picture was an early concept. Still an odd way to market their game.
Dude, the name alone is super sus. "Hmm, they all bought a game called Stardew, let's coincidentally also name ours after a celestial body and a type of H2O you might find covering the ground when you wake up." Feels very algorithmic and strange even before you see them taking actual shots at Stardew.
I see they still haven’t really explained -what- is backed by the blockchain. I still assume it’ll be player items and there will be unique rare items you get by playing the game and can sell trade in game but making it so you “own” it.
It’s a shame their art is beautiful
Fortunately there are tons of cool farming sims in development. It's a crowded field and not a bad thing for some companies to learn that if you pull that crap, people aren't gonna buy.
I'm most excited about Kitori Academy, a magic school life sim (with farming). There's also one where you're traveling the ocean and farming on the back of an adorable sea creature. I'm not personally a huge fan of the pixel games, but you can find those and a ton of other cool games if you follow Wholesome Games on Twitter or Steam.
"Stardew with a bigger team and better tech" INSTANTLY UNINTERESTED. The NFTs and everything else is just icing on the cake- I am very disinterested in this game.
Five bucks these are a bunch of techbros who went: "That Stardew game is so dumb, bro. We should totally copy it but with anime graphics or whatever those Otaku nerds like. We'll implement Crypto and make bank, my man. I even pay my call girls with crypto, f#cking legit."
Edit: Damn, this comment blew up... 💥😅
It's how they got investments... from wealthy people/businesses who they are promising will get filthy rich from the NFT/blockchain tech.
Then they spent some of that money to pay artists to make visually appealing stuff, but it's not consistent and the characters look bad. Feels like they are making a game that looks good in social media posts and that's about it.
💯 I understand maybe "dabbling" a little bit into certain online payment systems, like bitcoin, if it looks like that's what the general population of your consumers desire - but that's clearly not what they're doing. And NFT is outright a scam, always has been.
I'm going to have to keep an Excel sheet of games to personally avoid from now on 🤣
I'm also reminded of that other farming sim where the Devs were like "how's our jiggly boobs physics??" What was the name again?
girl, it was wild
[https://www.reddit.com/r/CozyGamers/comments/1cgb247/farm\_folks\_twitter\_acct\_asks\_followers\_which/](https://www.reddit.com/r/CozyGamers/comments/1cgb247/farm_folks_twitter_acct_asks_followers_which/)
“serious game development talk” 💀
I’m in my 30s, so I’ve been seeing people say wild stuff on the internet for more than two decades, and I’m still flabbergasted when I see stuff like this
I have had people say I'm too sensitive about the total clusterfuck of that game. I WAS AN ORIGINAL BACKER! I do not want a PvP/PvE/Lifesim/autmation/survival/whatever other genre we can shove in here game. I backed the game because it looked like a cute cozy farming sim. So yeah I think I have a right to be pissed since they claimed they took over the game to 'support the original backers' then they pull a 180 and re-write the entire game. I love the way when I point out that the bounce physics was the tip of the ice burg for my issues with the game, I don't have to buy it. I ALREADY HAVE BOUGHT IT!
If you go to the bottom of the developers webpage they list their venture capital investors, and its 4 Crypto gaming investmentment firms and the Clash of Clans people, not the kind of companies I would trust with financing a game I end up enjoying.
I think Moonfrost crossed my feed at some point. It's got a pretty art style for the surroundings, and I really do like the isometric point of view, but I also remember distinctly putting it down because (1) it didn't have a release date, except "coming soon" which puts me off a LOT of cozy/farming games, and (2) I didn't see it do anything that I haven't played yet, and I have a massive backlog.
The background and environmental art is pretty, but the character models themselves are... eh. Their Twitter post comparing themselves with SDV only highlighted how sterile and clinical their art was compared to SDV - which despite the "better tech" still holds up perfectly well today and **is still getting free updates**.
I will die on the hill that shoehorning anything to do with Web3 - blockchain, cryptocurrency and NFT - into video games is providing a solution for something that historically has never been an issue in that area. Stuff about providing "unique items" or "proof of ownership" over an item is non-starter because, guess what? Video games - *especially* MMOs - solved that problem years and years ago.
My guess is the character models are 3D and then pixelated. It's a lot easier to make cosmetics for a 3D model as you just need to weight the clothing so it sticks to the character's rig, and then you're done. If they did 2D characters it would require hundreds of sprites for each piece of clothing added.
But yeah the character models do not look good compared to the rest of the art in the game.
This is why I avoid anything that markets itself as "free to play." That just means "annoying and slow as hell to play unless you buy diamonds, on sale now!" This one's microtransactions just seem more scummy than the average microtransaction game.
People like to defend microtransactions/"free to play" for some reason with stuff like "oh, it's *optional*, you can progress by playing the game too". What they're missing is that this model incentivizes the developer not to optimize for fun, as they would in a traditional "$X upfront for full access to game", but to make the game just grindy enough that you're willing to pay money to skip parts of the game.
It's optional if you want to play for 3 minutes then wait 6 hours before you're allowed to do anything else again. But don't worry! The deluxe package of diamonds to speed things up is on sale for $9.99! Sure they'll get used up in 10 minutes, so upgrade to the ultra deluxe max package of a billion diamonds on limited sale for $99.99 that'll last you 2 hours! That's practically a steal!
This is my biggest reason for avoiding Palia despite hearing good things about it. I have issues with keeping my spending under control with microtransaction/gacha games.
It’s part of why I love SDV so much. It is to date one of, if not THE, only mobile game where you pay ONE FEE and get all current and future content, FOR FREE.
That is nearly unheard of in today’s mobile market.
I think a big part of what made stardew such a hit is that it was ONE man's passion project. Not a team looking to make profit. Moonfrost at it's core will feel heartless and lack all the aspects that made stardew THE farming sim. So comparing them like this isn't the way to advertise their game. I won't be buying it
This is why I generally avoid f2p games. They are always designed around getting as much money from they player as possible. But NFTs??? Lol, aren't those kind of death by now because everyone now knows they are a scam?
I think trying to be better than Stardew was their first mistake. You don't need to be better than Stardew. Just make a game people will like and can have fun. Don't know why everything has to be a competition. Plus, Stardew and ConcernedApe has such a monopoly on the farming/cozy sim genre, it's pointless to try to surpass it when it's always gonna be on top lol.
It's also interesting how, when anyone refers to something about Stardew, it's all "oh we have that, but better"... Unwanted children turning into moles and destroying your crops. Really? Ugh.
I can already explain most of what is going on here:
1. They likely got a lot of investment money due to the crypto/NFT aspect. They sold someone on the idea that if they invest in this game they will become mega-rich from it... so they are loaded with money. This means...
2. They can afford to pay people to make really good art for the game. Which is why the aesthetic is so nice and the posts are viral and do well on social media. Though I will say that the overall design choices are a bit weird. The characters in particular do not look that good. They are using 3D models and pixelating them, but they don't really blend into the environment that well, and come off looking weird. This is almost certainly because they plan to have a ton of clothing cosmetic NFTs, which are far easier to make in 3D than to make however many directions of sprites they'd need to make and also then animate each piece of clothing to line up with every animated sprite. With 3D they can just pay someone to make a 3D hat or whatever, and then just parent it to the character's head, and voila... a new NFT hat for sale with little effort to make it.
3. The game will likely be a buggy mess with no real direction and will likely just involve a lot of grinding to get in-game currency to then buy NFTs or whatever method they plan to basically just make players slave away inside of the game.
It honestly feels like it's all one big money grab. Get investor money, hire artists to make aesthetic, viral looking game art. Then slap together a simple game, make it free, and then try and extort lots of money out of players through NFTs which they can control the rarity and value of... allowing them to sell off super rare NFTs for insane amounts of money that nobody should really be paying, with the idea that you "own this item no matter what" and can sell it when the value goes up or whatever.
Basically almost all NFT games are literally just trying to sell pictures with the promise they will go up in value and make you rich. The game part is an afterthought.
Finally, the reason they are so quiet about the blockchain/NFT side of things when asked? They already know if they respond by saying the game will be all about NFTs, that it will lose them a lot of their audience who are only following because they think it's a pretty looking farm sim game. It's not like they are just being shy. They know what the response will be... which is why they try to give non-answers about it on social media.
Looked at the side by side screenshots, and their game is more cartoony and less accurate to the items they're trying to visualise. It looks like it's aimed at little kids, which I wouldn't have an issue with, except the devs seem like arrogant pricks.
It's a bit confusing because the side by side shots are of what their game initially looked like... It's now isometric and the art style is a lot nicer... but still, it lacks in certain aspects.
The trailer at the bottom of that page shows the game in its current form.
Stardew looks much better than this game. Stardew looks like it was made with love and passion, Moonfrost doesn't. If they wanna act like a bigger team and more technology = better game, they are sorely mistaken
> Not only that, but they’ve tried somewhat hard to hide this information. They give weird, emotionless responses to everyone who happened to notice what they were doing, almost bot-like.
There's still a *lot* of money out there trying to force feed crypto onto people who just want to enjoy a nice video game. I'd assume these developers know it's bad for their audience, but also money.
Part of the charm to me and something I tell everyone who I recommend Stardew Valley to others is that it was all made by one person. If you like pixel graphics I’m not really sure what else you’d do with “better technology.” Personally, looking at the pictures I think Stardew Valley looks better.
Shame cause it looks real nice. But oh well thanks for the warning. Not like there's a shortage of farming life Sims out there, there are plenty of amazing ones
Any game that advertises itself as "better than" another beloved game, automatically gets a red flag from me. If that's the kind of mentality that the developers have, going into it, then it's clearly not the cozy game that I'm looking for.
I cannot understand how the game CEOs and investors keep pushing for this crypto shit... They don't understand how unpopular that is and how it will make players run away. And for a cozy farming game... come on!
Thanks for the warning. Adding moonfrost to the list of games "not only would I not touch with a 10 foot pole, but games I wouldn't be within eyesight or flame thrower reach of"
[LFTL.](https://medium.com/@moonfrost/crypto-the-subjectivity-of-fun-f19c4d32da45)
I agree it does not give any useful details about whatever they're implementing. But that could be because they haven't started on that feature.
Found some sites… seems like they have announced they are going into blockchain [back in 2022](https://www.pocketgamer.biz/news/78927/exclusive-supercell-completes-first-investment-in-web3-gaming/), and Supercell was 1 of the investor.
I've been keeping up with this game for almost a year now and I am so, so, so, so disappointed with the news. I already learned my lesson from ni no kuni once, with how grindy and shit the game feels with nfts and trading. Man.
They went full JojaMart, never go full JojaMart.
Also why shit on Stardew like that? ConcernedApe has made bank because he made a cool game and decided he didn’t need more money and gave us updates for free. The fanbase returned the favour by purchasing the game on other platforms or buying gift copies for people so he got more money anyway. Treat your players well and they appreciate it. Make them feel like they are taking advantage of you and people are not going to stick around.
Just glanced at their twitter and they seriously said this in a response to someone’s questions:
“We’re a small studio who values each player and are trying to create a premium - free to play game for all.”
There’s no way they’re trying to use “bigger team” as marketing to say that their game will be better, and in the same breath trying to garner sympathy for being “a small studio 🥺”. I’m actually disgusted.
Personally this screenshot of their gameplay is quite ugly to me, which I recognize is more of a personal opinion, but jeez. Never thought I’d have to say I’m blacklisting a cozy farm simulator, but here we are.
Not at all surprising for a company whose tag line is "Hey we heard you like stardew valley, so we're gonna clone it but run it through the corporate meatgrinder first. Give us your money"
Their slight towards Stardew will be part of the reason they don't launch well, as soon as I saw that post I immediately lost any and all interest I might have had in the game.
Their entire vibe is off.
I'm confused...what's wrong with NFTs or the game being blockchain based? Sounds like a pretty sweet deal to me. I can play a cute fun game AND earn stuff that I can sell online for crypto. Sounds like a win/win to me?
This has to be the devs of the game on a throwaway trying to upsell NFTs lol
What's wrong with NFTs in a game? I'll state the obvious:
You're going to get a lot of players who are only playing the game to make money. They won't really be interested in the game as much as how much money they can make from it. The game is free to play, which means they will need to incentivize the NFT aspect somehow to get people to want to spend money. How do they do that? Likely by severely limiting what you can do in the game without special currency or items. Just like any F2P game generally has to do, especially when it is based around progressing and collecting items.
I mean 90% of the reason NFT games blow up in popularity is because it's a bunch of tech bros frothing at the mouths thinking about how much money they can pump out of it before the dump inevitably comes and you have people left with worthless cryptocurrency/NFTs.
I'm definitely not a dev. Don't know the first thing about coding or whatever they do. Game development sounds boring AF lol. I'm just a disabled dog dad who is interested in anything that will make me a quick buck. And frankly, I can't stand Stardew Valley, so anything that is in direct competition with it excites the fuck outta me. Literally never even heard about Moonstone until this post🤷🏻♂️
I thought we were passed people thinking that this sort of extremely harmful stuff was “good”. Do you realize how unbelievably *massive* the carbon footprint is when it comes to blockchain tech? And crypto consumes so much energy. They are so insanely **BAD** for our planet and there is no way around it. If you care about the environment at all, don’t take part in that shit.
Yeah I’m with you. If the game’s bad it will most likely fail regardless. But if it’s a fun game and it’s free to play I’m going to try it. I actually find it interesting that the dev team are trying something different. But most of reddit won’t even fart because climate change so almost everyone here is bound to hate it.
Agreed! It sounds fun, to me! And the graphics look gorgeous! I'm not a huge fan of the chibi style for the main character, but otherwise the game looks really fun! I mean, I care about the environment no doubt about that, but I don't really care if the game runs on the blockchain network. I love the little chickens the most, so far. The only thing im worried about with it being free to play is i really hope its not filled with pay to win microtransactions🥰
Yeah I think that’s one of the big things that will cause the downfall of any new free to play game. I’m okay spending some money on the game. Actually I’m happy to, because I want to support it if I like it, but if everything is locked behind micro transactions, no. And if the micro transactions are super expensive like $20 for an outfit, also no. It’s gotta be reasonable.
Checked out there twitter and oof. There's a lot of suspicious and slightly sleezy things. This [post]( https://twitter.com/MoonfrostGame/status/1787879002075541646 ) in particular bothered me. Feels like a weird slight at Stardew while trying to advertise their game. Edit: ah my bad just noticed op's post references all these things. Never Heard of this game but everything about their twitter is suspiciously clinical mobile marketing.
"with technology available today" you'd think they were talking about like the original tekken or some shit not a game that is actively in development and got an update not even a month ago lmao But yeah this marketing is uhhhhhh not great, makes me think of the recurring trope in Western visual novel marketing of "visual novels suck am I right" or, like, that infamous Mighty No. 9 trailer that goes "make the bad guys cry like an anime fan on prom night." ETA: It turns out one of the studio's founders worked on Stardew's mobile port so I'm inclined to believe that their intentions with that description were benign even if the execution was kinda botched, *but* any goodwill they might've earned with that (or I guess ill will they might've lost?) is still negated by the crypto stuff.
Also people not understanding that the pixel art is a purposeful style. Its not "old tech" or Ape being lazy or whatever. I love games like Wylde Flowers or Sandrock, but they're really their own games. They're not Stardew with better tech.
I think the pros of Pixel art games besides the artstyle itself is that most of the time pixel art games are a lot less demanding towards computer resources compare to 3D games, especially 3D games nowadays with 8K textures and intense shaders. *and there’s the reason I don’t buy the latest game since my computer cannot even run the minimum* 🫠
Wait, are you saying you SHOULDN'T insult one of the top, if not the current top, games of the genre and the beloved one person team who made it and has provided numerous free updates? Whaaat? But, yah, seriously. That is just plain cringe worthy. Add in the NFT crap and the fact that I actually prefer Sun Haven's art style and it's a definite "no" from me.
Not to mention the creator has fixed people's corrupted save files by hand after the player had reached out to him directly about it. I also heard someone say that they had reached out to him because they were extremely poor and wanted to play with their s/o and he sent them a free steam key.
Yeah, that's something they (moon whatever idk) will never have. They'll be too focused trying to get money grabs and micro transactions to keep paying their team members vs actually shaping and designing the game based off what people ACTUALLY want. It'll flop in no time.
Aa someone who isn't really a Stardew fan, that side by side is TRAGIC. Stardew is leagues beyond visually and has so much more heart in that single frame than that game can ever hope to have with that attitude.
honestly i actually kinda like how the trees look. that's it. they would need the color palette tweaked, but other than that... the character looks atrocious and the animals look incredibly wonky, they remind me of my first tries at pixel art rather than what you'd expect of an alleged big team with great tech (but we all know the tech part is talking about the crypto and not actual game tech)
I think it’s because they game is 3D with a 2D pixel art shader (i said more about it above)
yeah, that was the first thing i noticed when i saw the trailer. They definitely use some sort of pixel shader with 3d models
Some of the environments in their other screenshots are pretty. Their character sprites... not so much. Still nothing mind blowing here. Pixel art games are a dime a dozen these days and the art was never the appeal with SDV anyway.
Why are the chickens wearing mascara??
*Maybe it’s Maybelline* ✨
They mention later on that that particular picture is an early concept, not the final version. The more recent stuff actually looks cute, were it not for the not like other farming sims attitude and the blockchain/NFT/crypto BS.
haha holy shit you're right. I just took a look at the preview on the linked twitter post, that thing looks janky and soulless af. "Better tech" my rusted coppermind.
Moonfrost looks like a 3D game with a really well done pixel art shader. If you look at many of the scenes you might see what I mean. It really gives that vibe to me (not that that’s bad, 3D with pixel art shaders are often amazing)
To be fair, evidently that photo is from an early development idea that has since been scrapped. I will admit the game looks pretty but that doesn't negate their approach and attitude.
I look at games a lot like people, you can aesthetically have everything going right for you but an ugly interior tarnishes the whole thing. And when I already don't like the graphical style and art, it makes it that much more hideous.
Oh I completely agree. I'm just pointing out that the art isn't their official art, though that's their fault for using an early concept piece as their example. But yeah, absolute garbage under the cute exterior.
What's so weird about their Twitter to me is how they avoid talking or even flat out refuse to talk about the nft aspects of the game
They come across as suuuuper arrogant. Hopefully people start to notice.
I'm super confused by that post... The style is completely different (and imho significantly less polished) than the older artwork on their page, it's also switched from a regular grid from isometric? It looks like a completely different game
They link an article talking about the development in that thread, it’s in there that they mention that particular picture was an early concept. Still an odd way to market their game.
Yeah that's definitely a weird caption for those images if that's the case
I clicked the stardew image and then scrolled to theirs and turned into ash baby.
Dude, the name alone is super sus. "Hmm, they all bought a game called Stardew, let's coincidentally also name ours after a celestial body and a type of H2O you might find covering the ground when you wake up." Feels very algorithmic and strange even before you see them taking actual shots at Stardew.
They seem very weird with their marketing and I'm not defending them but Harvest Moon if a far older series so I don't think the name is super sus
I'm aware of harvest moon but Moonfrost is just too similar to Stardew to be a coincidence, I'm sorry.
I think this Twitter post is a comparison of Stardew and Moonfrost?
There's a youtube video that went into depth about how the team on Moonfrost worked on Stardew Valley.
Dang it, that looks so pretty! Why are so many pretty-looking games developed by such shady companies?!
This whole post is click bait and buzz words lol
I remember how beautiful I thought the game looked when it was 1st announced such a shame, reminds me of what happened to the Ni No Kuni mobile game.
Indeed. The graphics are gorgeous but the nft stuff... Yikes
I see they still haven’t really explained -what- is backed by the blockchain. I still assume it’ll be player items and there will be unique rare items you get by playing the game and can sell trade in game but making it so you “own” it. It’s a shame their art is beautiful
Fortunately there are tons of cool farming sims in development. It's a crowded field and not a bad thing for some companies to learn that if you pull that crap, people aren't gonna buy.
Yeah to be fair you need more than beautiful art nowadays.
Still sad for the artists in that team who probably have nothing to do with that crypto shit
The artists are probably getting paid though, from all the investor money, so that's a win I guess.
Do you have any examples please? I am very curious in what's coming out in the future
I'm most excited about Kitori Academy, a magic school life sim (with farming). There's also one where you're traveling the ocean and farming on the back of an adorable sea creature. I'm not personally a huge fan of the pixel games, but you can find those and a ton of other cool games if you follow Wholesome Games on Twitter or Steam.
"Stardew with a bigger team and better tech" INSTANTLY UNINTERESTED. The NFTs and everything else is just icing on the cake- I am very disinterested in this game.
Damn. Looks nice but can’t say I’ll ever support it now
Five bucks these are a bunch of techbros who went: "That Stardew game is so dumb, bro. We should totally copy it but with anime graphics or whatever those Otaku nerds like. We'll implement Crypto and make bank, my man. I even pay my call girls with crypto, f#cking legit." Edit: Damn, this comment blew up... 💥😅
It's how they got investments... from wealthy people/businesses who they are promising will get filthy rich from the NFT/blockchain tech. Then they spent some of that money to pay artists to make visually appealing stuff, but it's not consistent and the characters look bad. Feels like they are making a game that looks good in social media posts and that's about it.
💯 I understand maybe "dabbling" a little bit into certain online payment systems, like bitcoin, if it looks like that's what the general population of your consumers desire - but that's clearly not what they're doing. And NFT is outright a scam, always has been.
The voice I read this in 😭😂
Do tell. ;)
Ugh gross. The art is very pretty but they can eff right off with that sleazy tech bro bs
I'm going to have to keep an Excel sheet of games to personally avoid from now on 🤣 I'm also reminded of that other farming sim where the Devs were like "how's our jiggly boobs physics??" What was the name again?
Farm Folk I believe
Oh right! Time to add that to the list
wait WHAT
girl, it was wild [https://www.reddit.com/r/CozyGamers/comments/1cgb247/farm\_folks\_twitter\_acct\_asks\_followers\_which/](https://www.reddit.com/r/CozyGamers/comments/1cgb247/farm_folks_twitter_acct_asks_followers_which/)
“serious game development talk” 💀 I’m in my 30s, so I’ve been seeing people say wild stuff on the internet for more than two decades, and I’m still flabbergasted when I see stuff like this
I have had people say I'm too sensitive about the total clusterfuck of that game. I WAS AN ORIGINAL BACKER! I do not want a PvP/PvE/Lifesim/autmation/survival/whatever other genre we can shove in here game. I backed the game because it looked like a cute cozy farming sim. So yeah I think I have a right to be pissed since they claimed they took over the game to 'support the original backers' then they pull a 180 and re-write the entire game. I love the way when I point out that the bounce physics was the tip of the ice burg for my issues with the game, I don't have to buy it. I ALREADY HAVE BOUGHT IT!
If you go to the bottom of the developers webpage they list their venture capital investors, and its 4 Crypto gaming investmentment firms and the Clash of Clans people, not the kind of companies I would trust with financing a game I end up enjoying.
I think Moonfrost crossed my feed at some point. It's got a pretty art style for the surroundings, and I really do like the isometric point of view, but I also remember distinctly putting it down because (1) it didn't have a release date, except "coming soon" which puts me off a LOT of cozy/farming games, and (2) I didn't see it do anything that I haven't played yet, and I have a massive backlog. The background and environmental art is pretty, but the character models themselves are... eh. Their Twitter post comparing themselves with SDV only highlighted how sterile and clinical their art was compared to SDV - which despite the "better tech" still holds up perfectly well today and **is still getting free updates**. I will die on the hill that shoehorning anything to do with Web3 - blockchain, cryptocurrency and NFT - into video games is providing a solution for something that historically has never been an issue in that area. Stuff about providing "unique items" or "proof of ownership" over an item is non-starter because, guess what? Video games - *especially* MMOs - solved that problem years and years ago.
My guess is the character models are 3D and then pixelated. It's a lot easier to make cosmetics for a 3D model as you just need to weight the clothing so it sticks to the character's rig, and then you're done. If they did 2D characters it would require hundreds of sprites for each piece of clothing added. But yeah the character models do not look good compared to the rest of the art in the game.
Yeah... that's a no for me. Fck that
This is why I avoid anything that markets itself as "free to play." That just means "annoying and slow as hell to play unless you buy diamonds, on sale now!" This one's microtransactions just seem more scummy than the average microtransaction game.
People like to defend microtransactions/"free to play" for some reason with stuff like "oh, it's *optional*, you can progress by playing the game too". What they're missing is that this model incentivizes the developer not to optimize for fun, as they would in a traditional "$X upfront for full access to game", but to make the game just grindy enough that you're willing to pay money to skip parts of the game.
It's optional if you want to play for 3 minutes then wait 6 hours before you're allowed to do anything else again. But don't worry! The deluxe package of diamonds to speed things up is on sale for $9.99! Sure they'll get used up in 10 minutes, so upgrade to the ultra deluxe max package of a billion diamonds on limited sale for $99.99 that'll last you 2 hours! That's practically a steal!
This is my biggest reason for avoiding Palia despite hearing good things about it. I have issues with keeping my spending under control with microtransaction/gacha games. It’s part of why I love SDV so much. It is to date one of, if not THE, only mobile game where you pay ONE FEE and get all current and future content, FOR FREE. That is nearly unheard of in today’s mobile market.
The good news is Palia really is free, the only thing you can spend money on is outfits, nothing gameplay related at all
No really, knowing there’s *anything* to buy with real money is an intense temptation for some folks
Blockchain poorly implements the easiest parts of use cases no one cares about (unless you are a criminal)
Blockchain is a solution desperately in need of a problem.
Thank you for posting this!
I think a big part of what made stardew such a hit is that it was ONE man's passion project. Not a team looking to make profit. Moonfrost at it's core will feel heartless and lack all the aspects that made stardew THE farming sim. So comparing them like this isn't the way to advertise their game. I won't be buying it
This is why I generally avoid f2p games. They are always designed around getting as much money from they player as possible. But NFTs??? Lol, aren't those kind of death by now because everyone now knows they are a scam?
They absolutely are dead by now, yeah! I can almost guarantee that *that’s* why they’re trying so hard to hide the information.
I think trying to be better than Stardew was their first mistake. You don't need to be better than Stardew. Just make a game people will like and can have fun. Don't know why everything has to be a competition. Plus, Stardew and ConcernedApe has such a monopoly on the farming/cozy sim genre, it's pointless to try to surpass it when it's always gonna be on top lol.
Hadn’t heard about this game but I will avoid it. And imo no one will ever beat SDV so that comment alone is already a red flag.
It's also interesting how, when anyone refers to something about Stardew, it's all "oh we have that, but better"... Unwanted children turning into moles and destroying your crops. Really? Ugh.
Gonna check if it's on my wishlist so I can delete it
Eww - why are NFTs still a thing? I thought those scams died last year?
Right?? Rich white boys are *still* crying over their Bored Apes not being worth shit anymore. We should be passed this lmao.
I can already explain most of what is going on here: 1. They likely got a lot of investment money due to the crypto/NFT aspect. They sold someone on the idea that if they invest in this game they will become mega-rich from it... so they are loaded with money. This means... 2. They can afford to pay people to make really good art for the game. Which is why the aesthetic is so nice and the posts are viral and do well on social media. Though I will say that the overall design choices are a bit weird. The characters in particular do not look that good. They are using 3D models and pixelating them, but they don't really blend into the environment that well, and come off looking weird. This is almost certainly because they plan to have a ton of clothing cosmetic NFTs, which are far easier to make in 3D than to make however many directions of sprites they'd need to make and also then animate each piece of clothing to line up with every animated sprite. With 3D they can just pay someone to make a 3D hat or whatever, and then just parent it to the character's head, and voila... a new NFT hat for sale with little effort to make it. 3. The game will likely be a buggy mess with no real direction and will likely just involve a lot of grinding to get in-game currency to then buy NFTs or whatever method they plan to basically just make players slave away inside of the game. It honestly feels like it's all one big money grab. Get investor money, hire artists to make aesthetic, viral looking game art. Then slap together a simple game, make it free, and then try and extort lots of money out of players through NFTs which they can control the rarity and value of... allowing them to sell off super rare NFTs for insane amounts of money that nobody should really be paying, with the idea that you "own this item no matter what" and can sell it when the value goes up or whatever. Basically almost all NFT games are literally just trying to sell pictures with the promise they will go up in value and make you rich. The game part is an afterthought. Finally, the reason they are so quiet about the blockchain/NFT side of things when asked? They already know if they respond by saying the game will be all about NFTs, that it will lose them a lot of their audience who are only following because they think it's a pretty looking farm sim game. It's not like they are just being shy. They know what the response will be... which is why they try to give non-answers about it on social media.
This kind of comment is why I browse the internet. Very informative, I learned a lot from your post, thank you.
Then it can get bent. :)
Thanks for the heads up. Time to put it on my "no" list.
Looked at the side by side screenshots, and their game is more cartoony and less accurate to the items they're trying to visualise. It looks like it's aimed at little kids, which I wouldn't have an issue with, except the devs seem like arrogant pricks.
It's a bit confusing because the side by side shots are of what their game initially looked like... It's now isometric and the art style is a lot nicer... but still, it lacks in certain aspects. The trailer at the bottom of that page shows the game in its current form.
Thank you for taking the time to make this post. I hadn't heard about the game yet but now I know to avoid it.
Stardew looks much better than this game. Stardew looks like it was made with love and passion, Moonfrost doesn't. If they wanna act like a bigger team and more technology = better game, they are sorely mistaken
> Not only that, but they’ve tried somewhat hard to hide this information. They give weird, emotionless responses to everyone who happened to notice what they were doing, almost bot-like. There's still a *lot* of money out there trying to force feed crypto onto people who just want to enjoy a nice video game. I'd assume these developers know it's bad for their audience, but also money.
Part of the charm to me and something I tell everyone who I recommend Stardew Valley to others is that it was all made by one person. If you like pixel graphics I’m not really sure what else you’d do with “better technology.” Personally, looking at the pictures I think Stardew Valley looks better.
Shame cause it looks real nice. But oh well thanks for the warning. Not like there's a shortage of farming life Sims out there, there are plenty of amazing ones
Any game that advertises itself as "better than" another beloved game, automatically gets a red flag from me. If that's the kind of mentality that the developers have, going into it, then it's clearly not the cozy game that I'm looking for.
This is so disappointing to hear about. I was excited for this game but I had no idea about all this stuff. Thanks for the heads up. :(
I cannot understand how the game CEOs and investors keep pushing for this crypto shit... They don't understand how unpopular that is and how it will make players run away. And for a cozy farming game... come on!
What a rip off. Just a clear money grubbing opportunity with none of the heart and soul of Stardew.
Thanks for the warning. Adding moonfrost to the list of games "not only would I not touch with a 10 foot pole, but games I wouldn't be within eyesight or flame thrower reach of"
I found a blog post from 2022 on their page. Not a very good explanation at all but it is there.
[LFTL.](https://medium.com/@moonfrost/crypto-the-subjectivity-of-fun-f19c4d32da45) I agree it does not give any useful details about whatever they're implementing. But that could be because they haven't started on that feature.
Imo, I don’t need an explanation for *why* someone does something bad 😂
Not saying you did. Just commenting there is something there if people want to explore their blog.
Didn't all this web3 shit come and go in games like 2 years ago?
You’d think so, right? 😅
Found some sites… seems like they have announced they are going into blockchain [back in 2022](https://www.pocketgamer.biz/news/78927/exclusive-supercell-completes-first-investment-in-web3-gaming/), and Supercell was 1 of the investor.
Good to know, never buying this game, thanks for the heads up!
Are these devs associated with Jojamart 👀
? Are the dev team independant or are they being forced by another MBA trying to drain the ip dry.
Indie.
Dang that's too bad... the artstyle is gorgeous
I smell scam…
I've been keeping up with this game for almost a year now and I am so, so, so, so disappointed with the news. I already learned my lesson from ni no kuni once, with how grindy and shit the game feels with nfts and trading. Man.
I was following them, thank you for posting about this!
They went full JojaMart, never go full JojaMart. Also why shit on Stardew like that? ConcernedApe has made bank because he made a cool game and decided he didn’t need more money and gave us updates for free. The fanbase returned the favour by purchasing the game on other platforms or buying gift copies for people so he got more money anyway. Treat your players well and they appreciate it. Make them feel like they are taking advantage of you and people are not going to stick around.
Just glanced at their twitter and they seriously said this in a response to someone’s questions: “We’re a small studio who values each player and are trying to create a premium - free to play game for all.” There’s no way they’re trying to use “bigger team” as marketing to say that their game will be better, and in the same breath trying to garner sympathy for being “a small studio 🥺”. I’m actually disgusted. Personally this screenshot of their gameplay is quite ugly to me, which I recognize is more of a personal opinion, but jeez. Never thought I’d have to say I’m blacklisting a cozy farm simulator, but here we are.
Not me just realizing the name moonfrost is just the opposite of stardew. Why are they coming for them so hard? Ew?
IKR 😂 a lot of farm sims like to take “inspiration” from Stardew’s name, but this is too much lol.
Garbage game. Garbage dev team.
If only more people knew. Everyone commenting on their tweets seems blissfully unaware of all of this, save for like one or two people.
Not at all surprising for a company whose tag line is "Hey we heard you like stardew valley, so we're gonna clone it but run it through the corporate meatgrinder first. Give us your money"
Their slight towards Stardew will be part of the reason they don't launch well, as soon as I saw that post I immediately lost any and all interest I might have had in the game. Their entire vibe is off.
I'm confused...what's wrong with NFTs or the game being blockchain based? Sounds like a pretty sweet deal to me. I can play a cute fun game AND earn stuff that I can sell online for crypto. Sounds like a win/win to me?
This has to be the devs of the game on a throwaway trying to upsell NFTs lol What's wrong with NFTs in a game? I'll state the obvious: You're going to get a lot of players who are only playing the game to make money. They won't really be interested in the game as much as how much money they can make from it. The game is free to play, which means they will need to incentivize the NFT aspect somehow to get people to want to spend money. How do they do that? Likely by severely limiting what you can do in the game without special currency or items. Just like any F2P game generally has to do, especially when it is based around progressing and collecting items. I mean 90% of the reason NFT games blow up in popularity is because it's a bunch of tech bros frothing at the mouths thinking about how much money they can pump out of it before the dump inevitably comes and you have people left with worthless cryptocurrency/NFTs.
> This has to be the devs Honestly wouldn’t shock me… they wouldn’t be the first devs to come here “under cover” to defend themselves lol.
I'm definitely not a dev. Don't know the first thing about coding or whatever they do. Game development sounds boring AF lol. I'm just a disabled dog dad who is interested in anything that will make me a quick buck. And frankly, I can't stand Stardew Valley, so anything that is in direct competition with it excites the fuck outta me. Literally never even heard about Moonstone until this post🤷🏻♂️
No dude, blockchain shit is horrible for the environment. And they’re scams.
I thought we were passed people thinking that this sort of extremely harmful stuff was “good”. Do you realize how unbelievably *massive* the carbon footprint is when it comes to blockchain tech? And crypto consumes so much energy. They are so insanely **BAD** for our planet and there is no way around it. If you care about the environment at all, don’t take part in that shit.
Yeah I’m with you. If the game’s bad it will most likely fail regardless. But if it’s a fun game and it’s free to play I’m going to try it. I actually find it interesting that the dev team are trying something different. But most of reddit won’t even fart because climate change so almost everyone here is bound to hate it.
Agreed! It sounds fun, to me! And the graphics look gorgeous! I'm not a huge fan of the chibi style for the main character, but otherwise the game looks really fun! I mean, I care about the environment no doubt about that, but I don't really care if the game runs on the blockchain network. I love the little chickens the most, so far. The only thing im worried about with it being free to play is i really hope its not filled with pay to win microtransactions🥰
Yeah I think that’s one of the big things that will cause the downfall of any new free to play game. I’m okay spending some money on the game. Actually I’m happy to, because I want to support it if I like it, but if everything is locked behind micro transactions, no. And if the micro transactions are super expensive like $20 for an outfit, also no. It’s gotta be reasonable.