A lot of the inspiration for Fae Farm comes from popular cosy game titles made by companies over in come as a bit of a surprise. “We’re all huge fans of all the games in the cosy
genre space,” continues Epp. “You can’t talk about cosy games without mentioning series like Harvest Moon and Animal Crossing, which we obviously adore, but we were also inspired by plenty of titles outside that space as well. One title that I like to bring up is Link’s Awakening, and the feeling of adventure and mystery imbued into the fabric of that story. We want players to feel that same sense of adventure when they play Fae Farm.”
FARMING MEETS FANTASY As we mentioned earlier, Phoenix Labs’ previous game Dauntless is an action game. In fact, it was more like a free-to-play version of Capcom’s action game Monster Hunter than anything else on the market at the time of its release. It might seem rather strange that the team would go make a cosy life sim game next, but Epp reckons that the studio was always equipped to do it. thematically, there are a couple things that they have in common,” explains Epp. “For one, fans of Dauntless know that we pride ourselves in our seamless multiplayer experiences, and we wanted nothing less for Fae Farm. We wanted to ensure that as they can in Dauntless.
allows them to grow more powerful over time, and the same can be said of Fae Farm - the more you progress, the more magical spells become available and more powerful tools open up, allowing you to delve deeper into the dungeons and access even more powerful materials. You may also notice overlapping artists’ hands in both.” When it came to the design process, it was and fun, iterating, and leaning into the surprises we come across is something that exists for both Fae Farm as well as Dauntless,” explains Epp. “That said, the entire premise and purpose is pretty Farm, we were constantly on the lookout for areas where the game would start feel more or less cosy, more or less welcoming, more or less charming, and we’d keep cosy, welcoming, and charming as we could. Dauntless was all about feeling like a badass with your friends and slaying behemoths together, so the through-line wasn’t all that close between the games there.
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