Forager is a superb retro-style open world game “inspired by your favourite exploration, farming and crafting games” – for that you can read “Stardew Valley”. You gather resources and gradually build things and better equipment, and earn money to buy more islands, which you join to your existing landmass with bridges, and eventually terraform if you want.
Most of the islands hold some sort of secret or puzzle, or a character with a couple of quests. The game is quite grindy-challenging as you progress: getting the highest level materials is hard, but when you finally get the top couple of levels of pickaxe and bows, you’ll feel more than sufficiently rewarded. Instantly blasting through swathes of forest and rock is sheer joy after the slog with earlier versions.
There are some controller issues for touchscreen. It’s very hard to lay certain tile types, and the game is oddly inconsistent with the methods of doing this. Some tiles can be laid precisely with the cursor from the inventory menu, others need to be in the toolbar and you’ll be walking in circles trying to get the cursor to land on the spot you want, and others can be done by either method.
One tip: buy every legendary crystal you can, from early on. Even if you’ve got hardly any money, if the Merchant is selling them, buy them. They are almost impossible to obtain later on, they only drop from ultra high levels quite far into the Void zone, but you’ll need them to make the best level tools.
Features include:
- Gather, collect and manage resources.
- Craft useful items & structures.
- Build and grow a base out of nothing. Buy land to expand and explore.
- Level up and learn new skills, abilities, and blueprints.
- Solve puzzles, find secrets and raid dungeons!
- Achieve anything you want! The choice is yours, you set your own goals to work towards!