The life sim subgenre, made popular by games like Harvest Moon and Animal Crossing, has seen a slight resurgence these past couple years with the success of Stardew Valley. Beth and Andy Korth, stewing on an idea for their own addition to the genre since 2014, would finally hunker down and give life to Verdant Skies, simultaneously a love letter to the games that have come before and a trailblazer for the genre as it moves into the future.
Once you navigate the expansive character creation suite, rich with a variety of hair styles, skin tones, and no requirement to establish a particular gender, you are let loose on the beautifully hand-drawn alien landscape of Viridis Primus with a singular task — make this foreign land inhabitable. This starts by doing things genre veterans will immediately be familiar with: fishing, gathering, planting crops, etc. But as time goes on and you develop your colony’s capabilities, you’ll start genetically modifying flora to plant, along with 3D printing tools and materials necessary to achieve new tasks. Isn’t the future wonderful?
The more stable and hospitable you make the colony, the more people you’ll attract to it. The diverse cast of characters will help tend your farms and complete jobs around the Viridis, but they can also be lovers and friends, something you’ll have the option to explore thanks to Verdant Skies deep and expansive dating sim qualities. Dialogue is true to life, with complex and nuanced characters. There is a lot to dig into here, should you choose to .
Here’s the game in motion:
Verdant Skies is available now on Steam for both PC and Mac. For more information on finding love and ecological balance in deep space, visit our Official Verdant Skies Wiki.