Disclosure: I received a free review copy of The Home County from developer Swanwoth through https://www.keymailer.co
Cozy games have become a dime a dozen in the years since Stardew Valley‘s release, which is a statement I don’t really want to make, but feel I need to. Despite this being a very strong year for them, to some degree, even I have started to feel fatigue setting in, having bounced between around 12 in just the last few months. The home County, perhaps due to that, feels like it might be a day late and a dollar short to the scene, as unfortunate as it is to say. Thankfully, it is in early access now, which means complaints I might have, or lackluster features, might be on a path to correction as we speak, but as it stands now, my metric for cozy games is, will this game compel me to boot it up over every other choice I have, and I geniunly don’t think that it will.
You play as a character who has relocated to a small and quaint slice of the English countryside, a local who could benefit from being more pronounced. There are some elements that here, like the church and lighthouse, manage to evoke this region, but the map is small and devolves largely into the traditional areas you farm resources to craft with, keeping it from feeling as unique as the promised setting implied. The world is also pretty small at this point. Again, could we see more areas added, or the ones that are in here get fleshed out, sure, but until then, it’s hard to feel excited by all of that.
Your character, at least from what I created, looked pretty good with the options on offer. This is in contrast to the characters you will meet around the world, which can be a mixed bag. Sometimes the characters and the music can be charmingly basic, with The Home County clearly feeling like a smaller budget offering than its competitors. The seasons are well represented and crafted, and the landscape and buildings are well depicted. On the flipside of the coin, character models can be very lacking in personality, and the game currently features a ghost enemy model in the mines I really hope is a placeholder. An interesting addition that is as of yet unavailable is the inclusion of titles for your character. Basic prefixes are available, but titles like Lord are locked for the time being. I would be interested to see, given that characters are barely referred to with titles, why these are locked currently, but the hope is that you can create characters with more depth of dialogue as they update.
As it stands, character interaction is a little confusing to get used to, as most characters have one a day, then the option to give gifts, which largely seem to revolve around one specific option. Hearts are capped at two currently, which is not an uncommon choice for cozy games in early access. There are only a few characters, and talking to them can be a bland affair, as currently nobody really has anything of value to actually say. There is a built-in board of tasks, though, with some generic tasks, but other characters have legitimate missions to complete that at least help to break up the monotony of country life, and so you can earn some coin. That being said, despite some stuff requiring serious finances to achieve, most things, especially those meant to further the town’s progress, are actually not that hard to achieve.
This is to say that the core progress of The Home County, as it stands, is two-fold. One is the series of objectives at the museum you are also filling with the items you collect. The other is building up the town by bringing in more people. This second one is pretty interesting, as you are given a lot of space to add buildings as you bring in new citizens. You, as a character, can’t grow crops, but the farmer can, and you largely bring them the seeds, and they do the work, then you reap the benefit. A blacksmith to refine your ore can also be brought in. Buildings require basics like wood and stone, plus a little finance to improve. The shame of this is that these buildings, for all the people you bring in, lack much distinction at a base level, but even now, there are a lot of customization options to give almost every space some flair.
One thing that became a massive part of my loop was painting. You have a few fun little side diversions that made the game stand out more than anything else, like painting. I would paint, then go into somebody’s house, then hang the painting, and run away, which is the right thing to do. Some citizens have a happiness meter that getting things like a sink or lighting can improve, so always check what people want and act accordingly. It’s just a little weird; you can see this desire, but you can’t interact with the character about it, you just need to place the item and be done with it. Other diversions, staples of the genre, are here as well, such as fishing and mining. Fishing isn’t the best or worst version of the experience, but the leveling of it makes it very easy, very fast, even without upgrading your rod. Since Fishing right now can pretty much earn all the money you need to accomplish everything, this will become very apparent. Mining is less fun, another massive twist on a staple that doesn’t need it, that took far longer than I care to admit for me to actually figure out the gimmick.
Right now, The Home County is $13.99, and compared to others I have played in that price range, it is actually pretty recommendable. At least it feels well-rounded, with a design that has paths of improvement visible. The issue is the usual one with Early Access: you are banking on the developer moving in that direction, and even with fan surveys regularly, there is no guarantee a developer will do so. Even then, I could list out a number of games that do the same thing that I have spent 100 hours in, and I question if I could do the same here. This being said, that’s exactly the point of Early Access: very few games achieve that sort of loop right from the get-go, so I am interested to see where it goes. This is a genre of commitment, though, each slowly earned amenity justifying the house that came before, and The Home County didn’t sell me on it, at least not yet.
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