Welcome to Elderfield

[i]This is my hole! It was made for me![/i] For a long while now I've been looking for a farming game with a horror twist, and for a long while now I've been disappointed. All I was really expecting was a simple farm sim with a coat of spooky paint, but deep down I was hoping for something that embraced the horror genre more fully. When I saw Welcome to Elderfield I was intrigued by the art style and presentation as well as the premise; was it a farming sim with RPG elements, or was it an RPG with farming and life sim elements? I played the demo before release and had my answer: it's a quick and brutal survival horror RPG that is deeply entwined with its farming mechanics. Combat is fast and decisive—you will often be able to tell within a few turns how out of your depth you are. The inventory management is tight—you're going to be thinking carefully about what's in your inventory, how much you need it, and what you should hold onto, sell, discard, or store as you search for more inventory upgrades. The farming elements are crucial to obtaining resources—you're not going to get far if you're not growing enough in-season crops to craft healing items, equipment, and pay your taxes (Yes, really) You're going to be evaluating your decisions carefully at almost every turn, and you're going to be tested for your abilities managing a farm as well as dealing with challenging RPG encounters, and making the best of difficult odds. But frankly, all of that is exactly my cup of tea, and the exact kind of game I always hoped for but never dared to expect! This is a survival horror experience that caters to and veterans of classic and modern farm sim games like Harvest Moon and Rune Factory, games with challenging turn based combat like Lisa the Painful and Darkest Dungeons, fans of classic indie horror rpgs like Ib and Mad Father, and people who just really like games with a dark, mysterious atmosphere like World of Horror and Fear and Hunger. All the elements of this game are intertwined and balanced with great care. The music is varied and sets the mood beautifully, and the areas you're going to be spending the most time in have some of the longest loops and most enjoyable tracks. The art style has this wonderful gritty surrealism that makes you uneasy, but is so well made that you don't want to look away. The writing knows when to be forboding, when to be darkly funny, and both traits extend to item descriptions and background objects. The inventory management, random events, and frequent opportunities to have your stats buffed and debuffed feel like a natural fit to the type of RPG this is. All of these elements combined have kept me thoroughly engaged with the game's setting and cryptic mysteries. The odds are stacked quite high against you, with enemies having a lot more actions in combat and luck being a huge factor, both as a stat and as an element of the gameplay. Sometimes luck will be on your side, and sometimes it won't. But I think that as a survival horror game, that works wonderfully in Elderfield's favor. That all being said, there are some graphical glitches here and there, and the menus can feel a bit clunky at first. All of the mechanics working together is great, but it does mean you can easily feel lost or overwhelmed as you get your bearings. But if you're interested in the game, I highly recommend you try the demo and give it a solid chance. Take your time, get used to the mechanics, explore the environments, and let your curiosity kill you a few times—death is something you'll want to avoid, but the game's normal difficulty is balanced around dying a lot. This game asks a lot of you as a player, but it also gives you a lot; especially if you're also into two specific niches: survival horror and farming... And I love it!