Village in the Shade Preview – Preview

I had the pleasure of being invited to a preview event for spooky farming sim Village in the Shade, developed by NIS, makers of the Yomawari survival horror games. The reference is a fitting one given the way Village in the Shade is leaning into the darker side of the life simulation genre with a distinct day and night cycle where you work on your farm and then explore the village and its mysteries at night. The demo we were shown took us through a single day of the spring season about two weeks into the game’s story. In addition to familiar farming mechanics like planting, watering, harvesting, and foraging, we were given a stark impression of the types of unsettling encounters to be found in the Shade.

My first impression was of the attractive hand-painted art style, which suits the eerie atmosphere and definitely calls to mind Yomawari. While the UI is a little barebones in terms of presentation, there is a level of detail to the environments that makes them feel more lifelike and eye-catching. The top-down, slanted perspective from which you view Village in the Shade is a nice trick for making the world appear disjointed and perhaps more fraught to navigate. That said, the NISA rep running the demo had no trouble moving the character around the farmstead and into a cavern to mine for rocks and minerals. While the singular night-time phase we were shown featured a scripted story beat, others apparently involve random ghostly encounters. For the demo, the character picked up a shoddy flashlight to follow the apparition of a chicken that had been found dead on the farm the night before. Not long after giving chase, a larger than life spirit began hounding us at a rapid pace as we ran through the village, and the tension was palpable as other ghosts appeared around almost every turn.

Boasting multiple endings, Village in the Shade also has a starting option that may appeal to the more faint-of-heart among us. Village in the Sunshine is a mode that can be turned on to alleviate some of the spookiness of the adventure, with some altered dialogue and less anxiety-producing night-time segments. We were also informed about a fox that shows up at night to lead you to shrines and missions that allow you to upgrade your character, such as by increasing the precious stamina meter. Of course, there’s a constant tension associated with going out at night given that such an act is breaking one of the cardinal rules of Kagatsu Village, of which you are reminded when you wake up at midnight and leave your home to explore.

Another noteworthy mechanic was that of the milestone system whereby you are rewarded for completing various achievements, like foraging a certain number of materials, with money and other rewards. I love learning about systems like that that help to make the sometimes monotonous work built into farming sims a little more palatable and fulfilling. It appears that almost every in-game day brings some time of event or message to your door, and I’m eager to see more of Village in the Shade when the game releases right around Halloween this year: October 27th.