I am notably obsessed with Stardew Valley. For me, it was the closest thing to playing the original Harvest Moon games on SNES, DS, and N64. Every time I buy a farming sim (and I own a lot), I’m chasing that high of discovering Stardew Valley for the first time.
If any game could possibly be “the next Stardew Valley,” I would give the honor to Roots of Pacha by developer Soda Den.
Roots of Pacha is a farming and life sim set in the stone age. You will live with your clan, decorate your tent, romance the bachelors and bachelorettes, inspire new “ideas” and technology (think: ground water well, tools), tame animals, and breed better quality crops. Everything is centered around being tool- and resource-lite. And I don’t mean because you start with nothing. It’s because the things you take for granted have literally never been invented yet.
It’s up to the player to contribute to the clan, inspire new ideas, and collaborate with other movers-and-shakers to make it all happen.
The premise is amazing and totally unique. I’ve never seen a farming sim setup like this before. The game takes full advantage of the time period to add additional challenges for the player to tackle, like making due with a lesser tool because a better one hasn’t been conceived of yet.
Soda Den sticks to this theme so well. There is no “money,” after all, what would you do with it? Instead, you add crops and animal products to the community pool and in return you get “contribution points” that you can spend around camp. This is because there is no “economy” as we know it. In a collaborative, familial society, you get back what you give. It totally flips the “farming sim” concept on its head.
So why did I say not to play it yet? Well, that was a half-truth. I would love for you to buy the game and support the developer. I own it and have played my fair share. (Can’t wait for the Switch port!)
But the game is still growing and Soda Den has a roadmap of features and mechanics they still want to add. In two or three years, it will be a totally different game.
One thing to remember about Stardew Valley is that it started out with less than we see in-game now. Developer ConcernedApe (AKA Eric Barone) continues to this day to make upgrades and push through new features. I think Roots of Pacha is on this same path.
The ideas they are coming up with are incredible. If you do end up playing the game now (which I still highly recommend), you should also consider coming back to it when it’s fully fleshed out.
But what do I even mean by “the next Stardew Valley?” Both games are distinct and there will always be room for new indie farming sims in my heart. But I think Roots of Pacha is positioned to cover ground we haven’t seen in a while: a unique and interesting setting, rich and complex characters, new gameplay ideas, and tons of potential future content.
As I write this, Soda Den is writing in their dev log about new romanceable characters, more cutscenes, and new animal types. And further future planning suggests animal and plan evolution mechanics, so the prehistoric critters you catch progress closer to the animals we know today as you breed them. The potential here is incredible. And there really isn’t anything like it on the market today.
We need more “dare to be different” approaches to well-worn genres. Roots of Pacha epitomize this in spades.
You can buy Roots of Pacha now on Steam or wait for a tentative console release later in 2023.
I welcome you to join me on this ride (get in early, if you dare!) and watch an amazing game become something truly unstoppable.
Stay cozy, gamers!