Recently, it has become popular to make games that either don't feature combat, or in which combat takes a back seat as crafting, building and farming take the lead. This is a positive trend, to me, but like all trends in gaming, it's one that also often goes wrong, with designers failing to understand player motivations for the genres they're working on and, in this particular trend's case, creating games where the chore part is treated as the goal of the experience. This usually only results in a bland, boring game that you forget about as soon as you're done playing -- it wasn't until Forager that one of those managed to really offend me.
Forager is a mix of adventure and builder that does a lot of things, none of them well. It is also number-go-up taken to an extreme: the chore for the sake of the chore, the grind a means and an end. There is no story, there is no quest, there is no motivator for the player whatsoever. You expand your land so you can get more money so you can expand your land further. You collect stuff because it's there and you might as well, not because there's a reason to. It's an utterly joyless experience with nothing to offer but the cheap dopamine rushes from a game saying you accomplished something.
The real kicker, though, is that Forager is all that, and it's one of the most self-aggrandizing pieces of media I have ever seen. The game's synopsis cites inspirations from Zelda and Terraria, and... I can see the Zelda part if I squint, but "Terraria" is baffling -- Forager is as similar to that game as it is to any other with a crafting system. I doubt the creator understands what makes Terraria fun. Speaking of him, though, he makes several appearances in-game as some sort of in-universe god-figure, and every time he bores you with terrible jokes and with him going off about his own interests. It's like a bad Tinder date you paid a $20 Uber to be at.
And it looks hideous, especially in the late game where some of the art was apparently crowd-sourced. And it's buggy: it's been out for three, nearing four years already, and you still can't trust it to not crash or present game-breaking bugs.
So, thinking of buying Forager? How about you spend your hard earned money on an Excel course instead? It will probably take less of your time, the spreadsheets you'll work on will be more charming and engaging, and by the end, you'll even have a new, marketable skill! A much better investment than this garbage.
Forager is a mix of adventure and builder that does a lot of things, none of them well. It is also number-go-up taken to an extreme: the chore for the sake of the chore, the grind a means and an end. There is no story, there is no quest, there is no motivator for the player whatsoever. You expand your land so you can get more money so you can expand your land further. You collect stuff because it's there and you might as well, not because there's a reason to. It's an utterly joyless experience with nothing to offer but the cheap dopamine rushes from a game saying you accomplished something.
The real kicker, though, is that Forager is all that, and it's one of the most self-aggrandizing pieces of media I have ever seen. The game's synopsis cites inspirations from Zelda and Terraria, and... I can see the Zelda part if I squint, but "Terraria" is baffling -- Forager is as similar to that game as it is to any other with a crafting system. I doubt the creator understands what makes Terraria fun. Speaking of him, though, he makes several appearances in-game as some sort of in-universe god-figure, and every time he bores you with terrible jokes and with him going off about his own interests. It's like a bad Tinder date you paid a $20 Uber to be at.
And it looks hideous, especially in the late game where some of the art was apparently crowd-sourced. And it's buggy: it's been out for three, nearing four years already, and you still can't trust it to not crash or present game-breaking bugs.
So, thinking of buying Forager? How about you spend your hard earned money on an Excel course instead? It will probably take less of your time, the spreadsheets you'll work on will be more charming and engaging, and by the end, you'll even have a new, marketable skill! A much better investment than this garbage.