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You’ve been dreaming of owning your own farm all of your life. You’ve been saving for years to make this dream a reality. With a little help from your parents, you can finally make this dream of yours a reality. You’ve carefully selected you future home. Orange Town is where your vision will be fulfilled. Orange Season is a farming simulator developed by Innerfire Studios. It is published by SOEDESCO, who are also known for the Adam Venture series. The game has been available in early access for a while now, but has been officially released on the 24th of October.

Orange Town is a cozy little village full of friendly people, and this is where your journey starts. You play as a young person who’s always dreamed of owning a farm, and can finally realize their vision. You initially buy a small plot of land with a modest house already built on it. You can eventually upgrade your house by visiting the carpenter and also expand your land by buying the plot of land that are beside yours. Beside farming your land, you can also mine, fish, raise several animals, and even cook.

https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3371529618
There is a big cast of characters, and each of these characters have different quests you can help them with. The first quest you’ll be asked to fulfill, ‘meet your neighbours’, requires you to meet 30 different characters. This quest seems fairly easy and is used in concert with a few other as a tutorial of sorts. However because of the way the map is constructed, it ended up taking me many in-game days to complete. The other introductory quests are pretty straightforward, harvesting five turnips for example. At this time, the game doesn’t offer marriage options. There is still a friendship system where you build up your friendship level with each character by talking to them and offering them gifts. Each character has likes and dislikes to take into account.

In a farming sim a good map is important, and Orange Season’s map is missing many important features which makes finding anything overly complicated. When you open the map, you’ll be presented with many different circles. Each circle is an illustration representing a different area of Orange Town. They are not a good navigation tool. The only information offered on each of these is which characters are in which area, and if they are home or not. It doesn’t show you where they are within this section. Additionally, It doesn’t show any of the main buildings, where they are, or where you are within the area. If you are looking for a specific store or character, good luck finding them. This map is a map in name only and lacks almost all functionality. I really don’t understand why this this choice was made, but it makes the game more complicated than it should be, especially when it comes to the quests.

https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3371540755
Visually the game is beautiful. It would be hard not to mention the similarity with Stardew Valley. The colorful look is stunning, and it is what drew me initially to the game. The backgrounds are lovely. Despite the pixelated style, the creators have managed to make detailed environments and characters. However Orange Season is not a Stardew Valley clone, and if this is what you expect you will be sorely disappointed. I had fun playing Orange Season, but it is not in the same league as Stardew Valley.

The controls are your typical WASD navigation, but the action ones can be a little finicky. When you are farming a target will appear around the area you are tilling, but not for watering, planting the seed, or harvesting. It’s the same with foraging. You have to be facing the item you want to pick just right otherwise it won’t work. Personally it didn’t bother me too much, but it might frustrate some players. The mining, fishing, and cooking are straightforward. The fishing is really easy. You simply drop your line in the water where you see the fish’s shadows. Then when you see a ‘!’ appear on top of your character’s head, you click ‘E’ to reel in your line. Most of the time you’ll get a fish, but once in awhile it’ll come up empty. It seems to be randomized.

https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3371529787
Despite showing great promise, Orange Season is missing some core features like a functional map, some marriageable characters, and better targeting controls. I still enjoyed my time with this game. If you don’t go in expecting a Stardew Valley 2.0, Orange Season can be a fun way to spend a couple of hours regardless of the issues I mentioned. I think that this game has the potential to become a fan favorite, and I will keep an eye out for updates.

• Beautiful pixel artwork
  
• Relaxed and cozy atmosphere

• The map is not functional
  
• The controls are finicky
  
• No marriage candidates

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