The Indie Informer

Grave Seasons is a cozy farming sim mashed together with a tense horror visual novel. Think “Stardew Valley meets Danganronpa” or “Hello Kitty Island Adventure meets Doki Doki Literature Club.” It’s a mashup that might sound like a contradiction; however, in my 30-minute preview session at Summer Game Fest, Perfect Garbage sold me on the idea that a game can be both relaxing and tense, soothing and creepy, cozy and horrific.

Grave Seasons’ premise is as simple as any other cozy farming game: after living a mostly stressful life, you end up owning a farm under mysterious circumstances and are tasked with living simply off the land by taking care of crops and livestock. While other games in the genre often frame a mysteriously gifted farm as some incredible good luck, Grave Seasons examines such a generous gift with the type of skepticism that’s probably required if such a thing happened in real life.

“Why, exactly, did the previous owner want to get rid of this place so badly?” the game asks. “What’s up with the weird contraption in the creepy, locked basement?” it makes you wonder. While my preview session didn’t even begin to come close to answering those questions, I wasn’t expecting it to, given the pace that farming sims tend to tell their stories. Players are clearly meant to feel intrigued by the various horror elements, like finding a severed hand in the field with your crops, as the story unfolds over the course of several in-game months or even years.

As a batch of local hotties show up to try to woo you, the new farmer in town, I started putting together the pieces of how the game’s flow would go in my head. “Got it, so I’m going to find a husband or wife by giving these people various flowers I pick from the garden or goat cheese I make from my livestock and we’re going to unravel the mystery of this farm together,” I thought to myself as one of the locals was inviting me to the woods that night. “What a cute idea for a game.” Cut to ten minutes later and, after meeting her in the woods, my potential wife was ripped to graphic, pixelated pieces in front of my very eyes. “Got it. Not an option anymore. Noted.”

The final minutes of my time with Grave Seasons were spent reeling from whiplash. For the first twenty-five minutes, I was exploring my new property, collecting honey and flowers, and getting to know a few people who had wandered into my yard. Then, out of nowhere, someone was violently murdered. Grave Seasons pulls off this trick immaculately by lulling you into a sense of relaxation punctuated by a handful of light horror elements. It makes you think that there aren’t going to be any major scares, instead, focusing on being creepy as opposed to terrifying. Then, it’s nasty and terrible and violent, which is made all the more shocking by everything that came before. Everything is turned on its head. Now, nobody’s safe. I have no idea where this is going anymore.

Grave Seasons is almost exactly what you’d expect it to be based on its pitch until the moment it’s not. Perfect Garbage clearly understands what appeals to fans of cozy farming sims and horror games and isn’t interested in compromising for either audience. If it were simply a farming simulator with some creepy storytelling tacked onto it without the more intense scene at the end, it wouldn’t have left quite the same impression on me. Blumhouse Games has, so far, done a great job of publishing titles that push the boundaries of what it means to be an indie horror game, and Grave Seasons seems to be poised to be another strong, early entry in the publisher’s burgeoning library.

It remains to be seen if Grave Seasons will be able to keep up the shock value after the initial incident for its full release, but given the number of mysteries I began uncovering as I explored the farmhouse and surrounding area in my first in-game day, it feels safe to think there are plenty more tense moments hidden up Perfect Garbage’s sleeve. I’m just hoping that the game keeps at least a few local hotties alive long enough for us to get married. Who knows? Maybe that’s just the start of the horror, and Grave Seasons begins taking inspiration from the Corpse Bride.