Palia

Not for introverts but extroverts will enjoy. I've played this game almost 100 hours now and while I did enjoy playing it I probably won't play for much longer. Once I got to Exquisite Level Tools it got unplayable for me personally. I am extremely introverted and I like solo playing games. I don't like talking in game chat and will do everything I can to avoid it so once you reach the stage where you need an insane amount of Flow Wood Planks then I can't really enjoy playing anymore. I don't want to have to constantly call out for help to grind flow trees that are uncuttable without a group to make cute furniture. Clothes cost ~$30 or more a set, pets are something like $15 and you can't get them any other way but through the premium shop. Crops take at least 3 hours of real time to grow with watering in between and if they aren't watered their growth pauses so no planting and logging back in later to collect. Takes an hour to process a single crop to increase it's value and you're limited to 9 plots of soil (9 plots w/ 9 spaces so 81 crops total) so you can't really grind crops for money quickly. There is also no way to trade other players or give things away to another person. You can make a request for an item you've already obtained but not one you haven't gotten yourself before and you can't ask a specific person to fill the request. Overall it's cute and a fun game to kill some time but I don't want to be forced to interact with people just to continue playing.

Daybreak bought Palia studio Singularity 6 and aims to bring the game to launch and I thought this would be a good time as ever to leave my review. ♥
First, a little background.. I have been active in the Palia community on discord since June 2021. I have met so many awesome people! *waves* hi guys :3 I was also a part of the Alpha 2 the testing. I had 150 hours easy before the public launch. I only just recently started playing on steam, but you can see by the achievements, I have closer to 500 hours in game between PC and the switch.. give or take. lol I brought several friends to the game and even my sister. I have purchased store items and unlocked all the Palia cat skins from my purchases. Just so everyone understands.. I do love this game... like a lot! HOWEVER, I also want to be honest, this game has a lot of bugs and issues with support and communication.
Bugs that have plagued this game in Alpha are STILL in the game. OGs know what I mean. The broken party system, getting stuck in walls... Endless falling from the ground and yet getting stuck in the sky..... Resources disappearing... Just to name a few. Most of these can be ignored and aren't a huge deal when you factor in the game is *free*. But others make the game unplayable. Like the build bug....
Myself (and others) have had rooms stuck in the "build" stage on our plots for nearly a year. I am talking the Public launch of the game in Aug 2023. The bug happens after giving the supplies (wood and brick) to build the room... it just gets stuck. It never builds. It can't be destroyed (because the game reads it as "building"). I put my first bug report in the fall of 2023. I put in another in December. These bug reports went unanswered. In January I saw a reddit user mention they finally got through to someone by requesting to open a ticket. So I opened a ticket and kept reopening it until I finally got a response;
"I'd like to inform you that our team is aware of this issue, and this typically happens when a hallway is constructed right before the launch of an update patch where the server goes down for maintenance. Unfortunately, we have no workarounds for this issue. Please construct a Harvest House on an unused corner of your Housing Plot, and connect the bugged Narrow Hallway to it for the meantime. I have forwarded your report and the information you've provided to our dev team for their investigation. They may need additional time for a definite fix for this bug, but rest assured that this will be resolved as soon as possible. We humbly ask for your patience and understanding on this matter. I will now be closing this ticket, but once the patch is made available, it will be announced on our official Discord server and News page."
That was six months ago. (And yes, I have lots of receipts) Mind you, we have had two patches since then..... I personally only have the one room stuck (a hallway) but a quick look through the discord and reddit you will find users with multiple buildings stuck.
The next big patch is supposed to come with a new system that allows users to visit our plots for house tours. They just added new plot landscapes that can be purchased in anticipation for the new system. The beach one is SO COOL (I mean that, it's beautiful!!!) and I was so excited like "yessss please take my money" until I remembered... Oh yeah... um my plot is still broken... I have an ugly open room just sitting there like an eyesore. Why buy a cool landscape for my plot or invite people to see it?
That's just the bugs... I'd also like to talk about some of the things they promised but have yet to follow through on....
The community system. One of the first talks they did about the game in phase two was the promise to set up a really nice community (guild) system. It was supposed to be ready by switch launch. To their credit, there is a community system in the game of sorts. From beta launch we have been able to create the community, add our friends and a motto. But that's all you can do. There used to be a cute little messaged that popped that said "coming soon" on the community tab. But at some point they simply removed the "coming soon" and stopped talking about it. lol what?
We were promised a cozy community sim mmo that we can have adventures with our friends. In reality, there are NO quests that can be done together. It took them an entire year to add loot sharing when hunting or mining together. (Seriously it was just the last patch this was added lol) You can't even do the temple quests with friends. You phase completely out. We still can't openly trade with friends... You can't craft things to give to people.
You can play the HOT POT mini game with your friends... and that is.... Fun? But the game needs more.
The story is fun, the world is BEAUTIFUL. The characters are unique and well done... But we can't deny it's not in a good state right now. It always feel like any criticism towards this game is always met with "but it's free" And I take that into account when making this review.
Steam's rating system is only Recommend or Not... This game has lovely bones that I put a lot of hours in...(and over $30 of real money fml) So of course I won't down vote it. But it needs help. Like 911 someone please save this game! lol
I really hope Daybreak (as they just bought the game) sees this review and takes the kindness that myself (and others) have given by not down-voting and just asking for them to do better.

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☑ Beautiful
☐ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS
---{ Gameplay }---
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't
---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf
---{ Audience }---
☑ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☑ Grandma
---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☑ Potato
☐ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer
---{ Game Size }---
☐ Floppy Disk
☐ Old Fashioned
☑ Workable
☐ Big
☐ Will eat 10% of your 1TB hard drive
☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it
☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data
---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☑ Easy
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls
---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☑ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding
---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☑ Good
☐ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life
---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☐ Average
☑ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond
---{ Price }---
☑ It's free!
☐ Worth the price
☐ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money
---{ Bugs }---
☐ Never heard of
☑ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs
---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☐ 8
☑ 9
☐ 10

I have been playing this game since June 2023. (not on steam)
It has come a long way in that time, I do enjoy this game but as much as I want to say everyone should play this game, you should know a couple things.
Once you finish the quests/friendships/relationships/collected everything there is nothing to do except redecorate your 5 plots over and over again and try beat the tower... that pretty much it.
There isn't enough things to spend your renown on, so once you've bought everything, and you hit your cap of 1,000. The rest is just wasted (so you wont want to progress)
there is a gold cap of 300,000 and a storage cap of 10,000 items. - With this, once you hit either or both caps, you wont want to play as everything after that is wasted.

This is a good game. It really is. But my god, they try SO hard to stop you progressing too quickly.
- 9 Farm Land, even though I can buy 5 housing plots and have to share the 9 farm land over 5 plots? Give me 9 per plot... or just unlimited...
- The storage and gold caps are purely there to stop you from hoarding too much gold or items so when they do put out an update you're held back a bit. (Which is dumb)
- no trading between players, only gift requests (and players can only request what they've already collected/unlocked) (Also, you can't gift star quality items)
- Honestly. Think Clash of Clans, but 3rd person and on PC. You'll be waiting hours for things to smelt, pickle, grow, and build... as well as waiting 24 hours to gift people or NPC's, an hour to use the black market.
Oh and if you happen to be running round mining, you best hope you're close enough to the person in front, or all the ores you want will vanish before you get a chance to mine them, and you'll be waiting for those to re-spawn.
- There are many other complaints, but you're best off looking at the Palia Discord for the most up to date issues.

TLDR.
Yes, its worth playing.
You will spent a lot of time waiting in this game.
You're forced to play slowly.

(Excuse the “time logged”, as I usually play on my switch and not steam, but wanted to give a review!
---{Graphics}---
☐ You forget what reality is
☐ Beautiful
☐ Good
☑️ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS
---{Gameplay}---
☐ Very good
☑️ Good
☐ It‘s just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't
---{Audio}---
☐ Eargasm
☐ Very good
☑️ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf
---{Audience}---
☐ Kids
☐ Teens
☐ Adults
☑️ All
---{PC Requirements}---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☑️ Potato
☐ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer
---{Difficulity}---
☐ Just press 'W'
☑ Easy
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls
---{Grind}---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isnt necessary to progress
☑ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You‘ll need a second life for grinding
---{Story}---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☑️ Good
☐ Lovely
☐ It‘ll replace your life
---{Game Time}---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☐ Average
☐ Long
☑ To infinity and beyond
---{Price}---
☑ It’s free!
☐ Worth the price
☐ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money
---{Bugs}---
☐ Never heard of
☐ Minor bugs
☑️ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ Cyberpunk 2077
---{?/10}---
☐1
☐2
☐3
☐4
☐5
☐6
☑7
☐8
☐9
☐10

I decided to do my review to explain in as much detail as possible what game Palia is.
I've been playing this game since long before it was put here on Steam.
I'm sorry to see so many negative reviews, especially made by players who have played for a few minutes or a few hours or simply don't know how to do/craft some things and therefore decide to put negative reviews.
Palia has a well-organized wiki where you will find everything you need or don't understand during the gameplay.
I won't talk about any bugs and glitches that the game has at the moment since I personally have never had any major problems.
For whoever wrote that this game is a survival game, no, that's not true.
This is not a survival game, you only have to eat so you can have energy to continue gathering, crafting or working, you don't have to sleep, you have no health bar, there are no enemies and there is no combat.
You cannot die. You can stay away from home even during the night.
The only combat there is when you go hunting animals with your bow.
I personally really like the audio (especially the sounds of nature, the sounds of the animations, etc.) and the graphics.
The animations when cooking and crafting are very nice (obviously this is quite subjective).
I've read reviews where people say you have to spend $50 for a skin, that's not entirely true.
With €8.50 you can buy 850 Palia coins with which you can buy a skin and you will also receive 1 pet.
The only thing you can buy with coins are skins.
It's not a game where there are rankings or you have to feel forced or in a hurry to do/get everything right away.
You can play at your own pace whether it's a few/many hours a day or during the week.
There are many things you can do: skilling your skills (8 skills in total at the moment), you can dedicate yourself to quests, friendship/romance relationships with NPCs, explore Kilima Valley and Bahari Bay, build and decorate your plot and your house.
The skills are: cooking, hunting, foraging, furniture making, bug catching, gardening, mining and fishing.
You can choose the way you want to play, whether to play with your friends and/or random people you meet in the game or do things on your own with your own pace and commitment.
I recommend this game to all people who love this genre.
If you are a new player or are about to try the game you can send me a friend request and ask me for the info you need.

Have you ever wanted to play Animal Crossing: New Horizons, but for free, and with romanceable humanoid NPCs? I did. If you're like me, then this is the game for you.
The characters are extremely lovable (even the ones that aren't really supposed to be) and their quest/friendship dialogue is surprisingly quite compelling. Everyone's motivations and unique perspectives, personalities and backstories keep me from spam-skipping dialogue - even the repetitive filler lines, because those are really charming, funny and/or sweet, too. You can even romance a very fun robot, so there's a love interest character out there for every kind of person (if you want it - it's certainly not required).
If you make mistakes, it doesn't really hurt anything; I have yet to run into a subtraction of friendship progress with a character for picking a "bad" dialogue option, and if you try to give a gift the character doesn't care for, they simply tell you (usually very politely) and you can just try again until you give them something they'll like.

Palia even made me not hate fishing as much - which is rare for me in games like this. I am a certified pretend-fishing hater but Singularity 6 somehow makes it work.
This game has a social aspect, but it's not very prominent and not required for most things. If you prefer to do things alone, you can! However, there is an emphasis on being considerate of others in-game, and working together to accomplish things. Some things (like chopping a special kind of wood from rare trees) require multiple people to chop together unless you have a very special axe, for example - and even then, it's encouraged to alert others and wait for them, so they can join you; it will be considered rude to hog these resource nodes.
Mini games, like those in the Maji Market, are also team efforts! Teamwork is handsomely rewarded with bonuses for doing some things with other players, so you all benefit from the group effort more than you would if you were alone. You can also request items and fulfill requests; there is no cost for requesting, and the reward for fulfilling is pretty much negligible. This isn't a bad thing - It encourages a strong sense of goodwill in the community.
Coming to Palia is a delightful reprieve from crappy experiences with other highly competitive MMOs that have more of a "you snooze, you lose" vibe. I look forward to seeing this game grow, and growing with it.