Adorable Stardew Valley style farming sim reveals post launch plans

Following a successful launch, new farming game and life sim Echoes of the Plum Grove has plenty more to come in the weeks and months to follow. With an adorable papercraft presentation but a willingness to tackle tough topics such as sickness and death, Plum Grove has already landed to a ‘very positive’ Steam reception, and developer Unwound Games reveals what’s currently in the works as it thanks players for their support.

Echoes of the Plum Grove mixes the farming, ranching, and building elements of Stardew Valley with the generational progression and harsher realities of colony sims like Rimworld, wrapped in an incredibly cute and charming papercraft style reminiscent of Paper Mario. Along with all the normal elements you’d expect from the best farming games, you’ll also raise a family, and eventually, as your original characters pass on from old age or sickness, the younger generation will rise up and take over the homestead.

“We cannot thank you enough for the overwhelming support since launch,” Unwound Games writes in a post on the game’s Steam page. “With over 400 reviews already [boasting an 89% user rating] and a bunch of wonderful people sharing their feedback and passing along bug reports, this has truly been an amazing few days. We wanted to make sure to take some time to address a couple of the bigger concerns and share our plans for the coming weeks with all of you.”

First up is an update coming “next week sometime,” which is set to include more pet options – two new cats, one dog, and a pig – along with bug fixes and improved controller support. Beyond that, more pets are on the way, including birds, with Unwound teasing a preview of a beautiful rainbow-colored parrot “even though they’re not flying into the next update.”

Beyond that, the team outlines some of the other upcoming features and updates, which include new furniture and decor for walls (including paintings and hanging pots and pans), the ability to inoculate family members or give them medicine, new NPC quests to help out sick members of your town, and a family tree menu to help you keep track of your lineage. Unwound is also discussing how to offer more large-scale watering solutions for large farms, but in the meantime, you’ll be able to buy a cheap potion from the town witch that causes rainfall the next day as a quick-fix solution.

“Given that we’re a small team of two, we’ll be working hard to deliver as many of these features within the first month [as possible],” Unwound says. Beyond that, it includes a note of the Kickstarter stretch goals still planned for the future – thunderstorms, three songbirds for your house, a new character called Old Man Rickett, and an NPC painting hobby with the ability to buy unique designs from the characters who have it.

Echoes of the Plum Grove is out now on Steam, with a 10% discount still available through Monday May 6. That means you can expect to pay $17.99/£15.07 if you buy it now, or $21.85/£16.75 after the sale has concluded.

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