Sugardew Valley is a new cozy farming game coming to PC, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch later this year, with a focus on shopkeeping. Sugardew Valley takes visual inspirations from the more cutesy versions of Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons, with overly round cows with massive sad eyes. The steam page confirms much of what you would expect from the genre. Planting and harvest crops, caring for animals, and upgrading your farm and tools. All of this is done in service of the deserted island you find yourself on, which needs to be healed. How you heal the island is different from many of the other cozy farming game, since you need to run a successful shop.
Sugardew Valley Puts a Focus on Shopkeeping
What makes Sugardew Valley stand out among the many cozy farming games inspired by Stardew Valley and Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons is its shopkeeping mechanic. Instead of just dropping your goods in a box and waiting to get paid out the next day, you need to sell directly to your customers. The forest folk will shop at your store, which is how you acquire Harmony, the magical currency needed to heal the island.
Not only does Sugardew Island still include all of the farm management and town improvement systems that one has come to expect in games of this ilk, but it also has this unique mechanic. While the Steam description doesn’t provide too many details about how the shopkeeping works, it does say that you can, “sell items in your shop and negotiate with the Forest Folk for prices.” This does imply that not only will you control what items you sell each day, but you will also have control over the prices for each item. This implies some depth to the shopkeeping, letting you try to maximize profits while also not upsetting all of your customers.
Sugardew Valley is currently listed as releasing in Q2 2024, which is typically considered April to June, although the developer could go outside of that window. The currently announced platforms on the official website are PC via Steam, Nintendo Switch, and PlayStation 5. The Kickstarter page for Sugardew Valley does have an Xbox logo, but it has a question mark on it, implying it could come to Xbox later.
Sugardew Valley is coming to PC, Nintendo Switch, and PlayStation 5 later this year.
