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Farm life sims (also called farming sim or farm sim) are a subgenre of life simulation games which fuse social simulation, dating sim and farm simulation elements. The games generally feature a protagonist going out to a rural setting and taking upon a farm, oftentimes because of an inheritance from a deceased relative, or because of urban boredom. The player-character grows crops and raises livestock to make money, and can interact with a wide cast of characters who are inhabitants of the town, and work toward the main plot's objective, if one exists. The game plots often featured dying ghost towns that must be revitalized by the player's actions.[1] The games tend to feature simplified and less realistic farming as opposed to a simulation, such as Farming Simulator.
The genre origins were in the original Story of Seasons series (previously called Harvest Moon in English) which was almost the sole series in its genre up until Stardew Valley, a successful indie game inspired by it, popularized farm life sims as a distinct genre.[2]
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The first game ever in the genre was Harvest Moon, which released in the later stages of the SNES console lifespan. Inspired by his childhood in the countryside and the game series Derby Stallion, producer Yasuhiro Wada wanted to make a rural setting "role-playing" game without any combat.[3] The game starred Pete as he moves out to the country to take upon a farm he inherited from his grandfather. The player could explore the town and interact with its inhabitants. As a bonus, the player could bond with and marry eligible bachelorettes in town, making it one of the earliest examples of a dating sim.[4] A later influential game in the Story of Seasons series was the spinoff Rune Factory which married farm life sim games with the Japanese role-playing game (JRPG) genre and featured dungeon crawling. JRPG fusions are now a noted variant of farm life sims.[5]
The series was the only series in its genre until fairly recently, and would often market itself as a role-playing game because of this. The series remained a stable, consistent property but did not sell in great numbers for many years.[6][3] In 2016, Eric Barone released the self-developed game Stardew Valley which exploded in popularity, becoming one of the most successful indie games ever. The game heavily popularized this type of game, and made it into a genre itself. Use of the phrase "farm life sim" started appearing after this.[2][7]
After Stardew Valley's success, the genre experienced a massive boom in popularity, and more farm life sims would release, many of which were also indie.[7][1][8] Square Enix would put out Harvestella, a JRPG fusion in the vein of Rune Factory.[9][10][11]
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Joining in on the genre's boom, the 2.0 update of popular social sim Animal Crossing: New Horizons (2020) added the ability to create a farm and grow produce.[15]
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