Farlands

UPDATE: The developers have now addressed the issue, released a hotfix, and communicated with the community. I am very happy to change my review to recommended.
I follow and genuinely like the creator behind it, and the game has a lot of charm. The cozy farming/life sim concept, the art style, the atmosphere, and the overall idea made me want to support the project from the beginning.
I originally left a negative review because of a serious bug that caused the blacksmith to disappear, blocking access to tool upgrades and preventing normal progression. This was not a minor visual issue or a small inconvenience. It affected one of the game’s core mechanics and could effectively softlock a player’s save.
At the time, the situation was especially frustrating because several players had been reporting the same problem for months, and there had been very little clear communication about whether the bug was recognised or being fixed.
However, the developers have now contacted the community, acknowledged the problem, apologised for the lack of communication, and released a hotfix addressing the issue.
I am genuinely happy that they listened to the players and took action. Since the problem has now been addressed, I think it is only fair to update my review and recommend the game.
Farlands is still in Early Access, so bugs and unfinished systems are understandable. I never expected the game to be perfect. What matters most is how serious problems are handled, especially when they affect core progression. I really appreciate that the developers ultimately responded, apologised, and worked to fix it.
The game has a lovely atmosphere, a charming visual style, and a lot of potential to become a truly special farming and life simulation game. I am excited to continue playing and to see how it develops from here.
I hope the team continues communicating openly with the community, because Farlands is a project that many players genuinely want to support.
For now, I am very happy to change my review to recommended :)

I'm recommending Farlands because, after 13 hours, I still want to keep playing. That's usually the biggest sign that a game is doing something right.

That said, Farlands is a game still searching for its identity.

It borrows ideas from a lot of other titles, farming, crafting, exploration, progression systems and while none of these elements are bad on their own, they don't always come together into something that feels uniquely Farlands yet. At times it feels like it's trying to do a little bit of everything instead of fully committing to what makes it special.

Despite that, there's a charm here that's hard to ignore. The art style is cute, the world is pleasant to spend time in and the constant easter eggs and references to games, books and internet memes gave me plenty of laughs during my first few hours.

There are also some genuinely nice quality-of-life ideas that could be added. Unlocking a portal to the ARK at your base, for example, would save a lot of backtracking and would show that the developers are thinking about player convenience.

My biggest frustrations are with the lack of guidance and information. I'm still looking for basic features like a calendar, a proper world map etcetera and I would love to see more quests that introduce mechanics naturally and help players understand everything the game has to offer. The current wiki and in-game explanations feel fairly bare-bones and could definitely use expansion.

Space exploration is also an interesting idea, but early on it feels more like a chore than an adventure. Even with a full tank of fuel, getting around can become tedious.

The thing is, even with these criticisms, I still find myself logging back in. I still want to unlock achievements, progress further and discover whether there's an ending waiting for me.

Farlands 1.0 feels less like a finished masterpiece and more like a game with a lot of potential that's still growing into itself. If the developers continue refining its systems, adding guidance and finding the unique identity hidden beneath all of its inspirations, I think this could become something truly special.

Farlands has a solid foundation and a gameplay loop that kept me engaged. The ship travel system is one of its stronger points—it feels different from a lot of other farming/life sim games and does a good job of making travel between locations feel like part of the adventure rather than just a loading screen.

That said, the game feels like it reached 1.0 before it reached its full potential.

The core systems are enjoyable, but many of them are very bare bones. Throughout my playthrough I kept finding myself thinking, "This would be a great place to expand the mechanic," only to realize there wasn't much more to it. The framework is there, but a lot of the depth never materializes.

The biggest disappointment is simply the length. Just as it felt like the game was opening up, it was over. It gives the impression that the developers were eager to cross the 1.0 finish line instead of letting the game develop more naturally.

Overall, I still recommend Farlands because what's here is fun, and I enjoyed my time with it. I just can't shake the feeling that it could have been so much more with additional content and deeper systems. Hopefully future updates continue building on what is already a strong foundation.

I'd only recommend for fans of the farm sim genre.

Recommended but with warnings.
The game was enjoyable for the 50+ hour gameplay it gave, it filled a gap I was missing in the very specific genre of space farming/management (a gap that was left by another promising game that basically got abandoned) I like that the romancables do have their respective storyline and I like the main quest. I did also like some features like the sprinkler not being in the middle which is standard for games of this genre and I love all the sci-fi media references.
However, there are definitely still a lot of things I want them to fix and improve. Off the top of my head, with the bugs, there are a lot to be found with the farming which they need to fix in the next update though I've been informed they're already known bugs. There are also bugs where icons for the relationship status with NPCs suddenly disappear once you reach a certain level with them. There is also one bug where for a cutscene with an NPC, the sprites of the other characters don't appear so you end up looking like a crazy person partying by yourself despite having dialogue where you're talking o people. Tool usage is also quite clunky and hope it improves. And the item stacking in this game is dreadful while item sorting is basically nonexistent. Selling items also doesn't compute your profit correctly so you end up with less money than expected. Also, why on God's green Earth are there no maps? I don't even remember the last time I've played a game with absolutely no maps
For things I want them to improve, the farm feels so desolate that I wish you could "hire" or "build" droids that will help you automate things on your farm like taking care of barn animals or have a "butler" droid for your house. Or even have a companion droid for space travel that you can also task with things like gathering resources while on another planet. I think it would be cool too if instead of building or hiring droids you "invite" them to help you out on your farm planet upon meeting them on other planets. There should definitely be more things you can place on your farm too other than a bit of decor and barn buildings. And while I appreciate the bit of dialogue especially for cutscenes, it does get to a point where it feels really repetitive and it certainly doesn't help it uses the generic 'Talk, Joke, Flirt' mechanic. And I'm not sure if I missed this but the character customization is very very limited. I also feel there aren't enough characters to build relationships with since only progress with romanceables matter in the game and I also think it needs one more planet with life and a proper town/community.
But overall it was still quite fun. It definitely has a lot of potential and I want to see what else the Devs will do with it.

First of all i think its very obvious this Stardew Valley heavily influences the game but with that said i felt that the game does enough different things to feel like its own game an not a simple clone of SV, the cozy atmosphere that goes with this game gets absolutely nailed by the devs along with a good OST to accompany you along your journey, all but one of the marriage candidates i thought were good and overall is all you would want in a game like this, a fun and cozy adventure to play and relax for a bit and finally a relatively easy 100% to get

A mediocre game with minor to no new innovation on the already well established formula of the genre.
Pros
Art style
One of the best pixel art styles out there. Colourful and simplistic yet detailed. It makes people happy just by looking at it.
The resource management induced by its travel system
The worlds in the Farlands are separated into different planets: farm planet, NPC town planet, mining planets, etc. Players have to go to different places via spaceship, which consumes a lot of supplies, both time and fuel, mainly duration per trip. In the early game, your spaceship is relatively slow and fuel inefficient, so commuting from your farm to the NPC town planet takes half a day. This makes the time management much tighter than in similar titles, where the time needed to travel from your farm to the NPC town is only 1 in-game hour at most.
Heaven for xenophiles and furry lovers
The romanceable bachelors and bachelorettes consist of many races: humans, furries, and even downright aliens. It can really suit that niche if you are into that kind of thing.
Cons
No real innovation – just a reskinned Stardew Valley
Nothing in particular stands out. The space setting is just a backdrop; it does not play any differently compared to traditional farming sims. Basically, the developers simply scatter the standard worlds of other titles across different worlds of the solar system. The seemingly refreshed experience dies extremely quickly, and it feels like yet another farming sim with default systems.
Tedious crop cultivation and animal husbandry
The automation level in this game is low. The only automation components are splinters, which auto-water plant tiles. That's it. No auto planter, no auto harvester, no auto feeder for animals. Players have to click the same button all day if they want to mass-produce valuable crops and make big money. It is very monotonous.
Tiresome NPC relationship management
NPCs' favor towards the players decays over time if left unattended for too many days. Realistic yet tiresome. Sometimes you wish to dedicate a season to cultivate as many crops as possible and earn big money. The NPC system forces you to visit NPCs from time to time, which is extremely time-consuming in this game, especially early on, and disrupts your farming plans.
Annoying Mining and combat
The player will encounter invincible mobs mid to late game.It is super annoying that you keep getting harassed by unkillable monsters when you are mining/managing the oxygen bar.
Summary
It is a mid to decent farming sim with traditional settings and features, nothing really new. Yet its very pleasant art style and minor gimmicks make it at least worth trying for farming sim enthusiasts.
For more reviews similar to this one, feel free to check out my curator page RPGs ENJOIYERS. (English)

Bien para ir de chill sin limites de tiempo de nada, completamente a tu bola. Tiene algunos bugs que los devs van arreglando de a poco aunque tampoco eran bugs serios los que me cruce.

Lo unico que avisaria a alguien que lo este pensando en comprar es que la parte de granja es justamente eso, una parte. Le podes dedicas mas o menos tiempo e incluso pasar la historia sin plantar ni un solo cultivo.