Summer in Mara

It's a fun game once you get used to the mechanics, but it doesn't have cloud save. This is one of the type of games I think it should since there's many quests and takes you a long while to complete.

This game was a gift from a dear friend, Kiki Cakes!

This game has some bugs, could use an option for adjusting screen resolution for those with wide monitors and needs some tidying up in the spelling department, but it's nothing that will break the game or ruin any enjoyment. I love the art style, setting and characters and even after the end of the story, I was wanting more and will be playing again for the sandbox mode.

This is a mix of being a farming sim, fetch quest and adventure. All positives!

After the tutorial you can see right away something incredibly sad happened, and then a cute little creature named Napopo appears, and so the journey begins. It's incredibly satisfying to see the island come back to life and nothing bad happens if you take days just tending to the island and sailing around exploring. On that note, the fishing can be a little hard at first but it does get easier and it's worth to upgrade your fishing rod when the time comes. Upgrade the wells as soon as you can too, it makes a big difference!

For chickens, sheep and pigs- two of them you are given in the story but you get chickens and more of the other two by rescuing them out at sea and bringing them to the island, but be careful. It's easy to wind up with too many. I'm not 100% sure on this one, just from personal experience, I got other critters chilling on my island after feeding ones like them on the other isles. Rat, seals, duck, etc.

Going and getting what other characters need is a fun way to explore Mara and doesn't make it feel like a drag. There's a nice variety of characters of all kinds and you want to learn more about them as you go(Akaji is one of my personal favorites). The story does have depth to it and doesn't fall flat at any point, they got pacing down nicely. The controls are also fine as well!

For items you need to make things, the devs thankfully give you two options for this; you can grow/craft it yourself or see who sells it. Always make use of selling certain items to certain people to get the bonus of them paying more for things they want/use. Do that and it's easy to build up some money in the game.

On the main story you're playing as Koa, going around helping others and figure out what's going on so you can protect Mara. It also contains valuable lessons on taking care of nature and giving back when you take something. I don't want to spoil anything, the beginning and end of the game are very emotional.

I do recommend this game to kick back relax with!

Summer in Mara is a cozy adventure and farming sim. You play as Koa, a girl who was raised by her adopted grandmother on a tiny island where they live in sync with nature.

Before I continue: At the start, the game recommends using a controller, and from what I've read, the mouse and keyboard controls are pretty rough. So if you don't have a controller or don't want to use one, this probably isn't for you.

After a short tutorial you're on your own, and your island is a bit of a mess. The fields are overgrown and blocked with stones and branches, all buildings except the main house are damaged, and even grandmother's ship is nothing more than a wreck. You can plant trees and bushes freely on your island (some need to be on higher ground or near water though), but main structures like animal coops and farming plots are in fixed locations. You also have a limit on how many trees you can have on your island (the limit can be raised, but I don't know where it caps).

Like most farming sims you can craft, cook, and farm vegetables and fruits. You can also raise animals like chickens, pigs, and sheep. For me, this part was far too short and got overshadowed by all the fetch quests and constant sailing back and forth.

Everything you do costs stamina, which refills completely at home but only half when sleeping in a sleeping bag or on your ship. Difficulty is very low overall (passing out just respawns you the next morning with half stamina and no penalty). You also need to eat every few days or your max stamina drops.

Once you repair your ship and start exploring, you meet all kinds of different characters living on neighboring islands. Most of them are some sort of fish-human hybrid, though there are also aliens mixed in. The characters are fun, if a little bizarre, and I found interactions with them cute enough. The graphics are very bright and colorful, and the character portraits during dialogues are really well done. I genuinely liked a few of the cutscenes too. That said, the story itself is very tame and feels like it's aimed at a much younger audience.

The world is laid out on a 6x6 grid with short loading screens between sections. You start with access to just your home island and the main island, but more unlock as you complete quests. Your ship upgrades twice during the story to reach the rest of the map. Discovering new islands was enjoyable, and so was finding different fish species. Fishing itself uses a simple minigame that was okay but very easy, while diving had awful controls where you could barely move (it felt sluggish the entire time).

Fetch quests dominate most of the gameplay, and I mean A LOT of them. The main island is quite large, poorly laid out, and pretty empty. You're constantly running from one end to the other. Most NPCs just stand in place (only a few dogs roam around), and the same character models get reused multiple times. You can sprint and jump pretty high, but it still eats up time, and invisible walls and weird hitboxes pop up where they shouldn't. You also have to keep sailing back to your home island to build something or gather materials and then return to the NPC.

Fast travel is available when you're on your ship (but only to the main island), though it costs gold and you're pretty broke early on. Some quests are locked behind others, and the log will tell you when you need to advance a different quest before continuing.

What annoyed me more than the fetch quests was not knowing what was safe to sell. I sold some seashells early on only to need them for a quest minutes later. And since autosave is the only option, there was no way for me to reload. Item respawning was also really inconsistent. According to the wiki, certain fishing bait found in buckets (or occasionally in random barrels floating in water) respawns after three days. I tried everything: staying on the island for three days straight, visiting the island daily for several days, avoiding it completely for three days and then checking again. Nothing worked. Even the bait bucket on my own island never refilled during my entire playthrough, which lasted around 100-150 in-game days. Fishing for certain species became incredibly frustrating, especially the angelfish since I needed three of them and that bait wasn't even buyable. Trees and bushes were similarly unreliable. I hoped that leaving my home island untouched for twenty days would mean every tree and bush would be full of fruit when I returned, but most had nothing or maybe one piece. Only the orange trees and blackberry bushes seemed to work consistently.

The game was free on Fanatical in August 2025. It's a cute game, and I can see it working well for younger players. It just dragged on too long. I spent around 20 hours finishing all quests and achievements, but so much of that was unnecessary backtracking. It could've easily been 10 hours, and I would've liked it better. Still, it was free and not the worst game I've played, so I won't give it a negative review.

Wasn't sure if I should give it a positive or negative review but I spent over 20 hours in this and got all achievements done. Why would I lie to myself and say "don't play it!"!?
It was relaxing, cut, summery now when it's dark and cold outside. Easy quests, relaxing farming and lots of exploring to do.
A lot of conversations in text, since there's no voices, so I can admit that i fast forwarded like every quests because I got no patience to read it all. I yet found the game interesting enough and still able to understand the story line.
Decent asking price with 20 euro. Got it in a bundle so even better. It looked like a short, small game, but it was bigger then expected, wich is a positive for me!

I was a bit put off by this game at first, thinking oh it's a game for kids, and it probably is, but I don't give a hoot because it's fun as hell. I felt it was very addictive as I could not stop playing it. Chill game, beautifully crafted, controls are brilliant. Most of the game is pretty intuitive, but I still had to YouTube a couple of things as I suck at games. Navigating this gorgeous world reminded me of N64's Super Mario, with lots to do engaging in tasks and puzzles. I liked it so much I bought the PS4 version to play on the big screen and hopefully get my wife to play it. Chinbig, thanks for this awesome game, looking forward to more like this. Plays perfectly on my Steam Deck.

A very heartwarming story enveloped in a cozy casual farming and sailing game.
Summer in Mara made me forget about my real world problems for a while but also made me tear up a little bit here and there with its story, even though I felt it could have used a little more time developing some scenes and dialogues, the story beats were very solid.
Quests were mainly fetch quests with a bit of crafting here and there, the game does not hold your hand about its mechanics and in the early game, I really struggled to figure out some of its systems and some quests were vague on what to do or where to go, making me go to the internet for help, but it was ok.
As for music, the game's sound design was very strange, the first few hours had only like 2 or 3 tracks lopping over and over and it was very annoying but as you continue playing, new tracks are added and it isnt as bad.. but yeah, music in the game needs rework to make it acceptable.
As far as achievements go, pretty simple, just complete all storylines with a few special achievements requiring exploration here and there, no missables, just a little bit of fetch quest grind. You should be able to 100% this title in a week or so.
The main character is adorable and her attitude is commendable, I liked her best out of everything else in the game, brave, outgoing, hard working and reliable, they really made her super likeable.
Summer in Mara gets 31 seashells I compulsively picked up at every chance out of 47 times I went bananas looking for bananas so I can make home-made gunpowder. An enjoyable title!

This is a truly lovely and family-friendly game. It deals (gently) with themes of environmentalism, death/loss/memory, neighbors and community, and more.
The gameplay loop never grew tedious to me, although at times figuring out what I needed to do next from cryptic quest log text ("Something interesting will happen soon! - meant I had to sail to a specific map spot, as one example) required me to check a guide online. It is only loosely a farming/lifestyle simulator--more emphasis on finding and delivering certain items in the later parts of the game over the farming elements. So don't come here looking for a Story of the Seasons clone, but don't be driven away by assuming the farming will be cumbersome!
The game is beautiful and bright, and the characters have more personality in them than many AAA rpgs.
I have a lot more quest content ahead of me and I'm at 13 hours played. I imagine without checking guides too often that I'll get at least 20 hours to complete the story and maybe most of the sidequests, but beyond that there are also collectibles to find.
I think Chibig tells great small(er) stories. I'm glad I bought this game and will probably pick up Mika at some point as a result of my positive experience with this one.