Moonfrost review codes popped into my inbox, and who am I to deny a cozy, magical farming simulator? The game is entering Early Access on October 12, and I have spent the last couple of weeks diving in and discovering all there is to learn about this world. The good news is that Moonfrost has all the makings of a cozy, time-sinking simulator, but for now, there are plenty of bugs that will still need ironing out.
Moonfrost begins by dropping players into a world with no idea what is going on. Your character doesn’t know anything about the world or how they got there. This two-mooned world brings meteor storms that destroy the world around us. Through quests, you slowly learn, or decide, that you are a Frost Hunter, someone brought to the town to help bring it back to life. Their mission is simple: “To rebuild the world, one shard at a time.”
As you learn more about the world around you, you join the Frost Hunters Association (FHA for short). This is how you primarily make shards and sil—and occasionally tickets, a rare bonus—which are currencies used for crafting and buying seeds and ingredients. There is a handy app on your phone where you can see what is in demand, and ship crops, meals, crafting materials and more to meet these requests.
“The good news is that Moonfrost has all the makings of a cozy, time-sinking simulator, but for now, there are plenty of bugs that will still need ironing out.”
One thing Moonfrost does that I find a bit weird is essentially create a tutorial quest for every tool, machine, ingredient and meal. I was 20+ hours into the game, still without a chest, hoarding carefully in my limited pocket space, running back and forth making one meal at a time, growing one ingredient at a time, harvesting one material at a time. This felt like the most drawn-out tutorial, where just learning to cook, make tools, etc., would have sufficed.
Even 30 hours in, I am still questing with one ingredient and one recipe at a time for Walter, and the stove you can build in your house doesn’t actually let you cook, so you constantly need to run back to the village to cook and then to your farm for ingredients, but you need his random outdoor stove to cook or see recipes, so if you forget, you need to run back again. It is very tedious.
I also found that if you focused on one of the two characters giving you missions, you would eventually be asked for something you haven’t heard of, with no explanation of how to get it. I had to give up and move on, realizing that somewhere down the line with the other character I would get the machine to make the item. I was searching frantically for a quest that the game really shouldn’t have triggered until I was able.
Moonfrost really does have a lot to love. First, the art style is so cute. It is somewhere in between games like Stardew Valley and Story of Seasons, and I love it! There is a large world to explore, lots of collecting, crafting, cooking, romance, and dungeons. However, I can’t help but question some of the choices. For one, farming crops vary in how long they take to grow, but it isn’t a day or two; it’s real-life minutes. Radishes grow incredibly quickly; onions and corn take longer, but it is all pretty much instant gratification that doesn’t make any of the FHA requests particularly challenging.
It has made hoarding easier, and of course, I have full stockpiles now. But when it comes to needing sil for crafting, or just wanting to complete requests, it is usually pretty simple. I was able to rack up currency quickly when in need. Which brings me to another issue: I hit a game-halting bug when a character named Ash went missing completely, but that wasn’t the worst of it.
I restarted the game with a new save, rushed through to get to the same point I was at, and learned that a lot of weird choices I thought Moonfrost was making were also actually bugs. I thought seeds were completely free in the first save, and didn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth, but it seemed odd. Turns out they are not free, and I was very spoiled the first time. Rain also wasn’t watering crops, which, again, is a weird choice, but in my second playthrough it usually did, and there was even a tip about how you get better crops if you water them yourself.
I was able to get stuck in corners on the map, and I believe I still am in the new save, but I am not testing it. There is also an issue where a number should appear when you craft to show how many it will make, but it reads zero more often than not, even when it is actually 10. I have wasted a lot of materials and inventory space because of this.
“Moonfrost is just hitting Early Access, so I have no doubt many of the odd problems will be solved, and I think there is a lot more that can be added over time to make the game something great.”
There are also some creative ideas in Moonfrost, like needing to complete a small puzzle the first time you craft an item. The FHA app is great, and I am looking forward to seeing more of the world open up. I also like that you need rest, but can do it when you want to, so I became nocturnal for a while. Moonfrost is just hitting Early Access, so I have no doubt many of the odd problems will be solved, and I think there is a lot more that can be added over time to make the game something great.
One of the first things I hope to see is more character options. It is extremely limited right now, including open shirts with nothing underneath, and very odd hair colours. A map with a bit more detail would be great, since the overview map is literally just squares. The ability to see how much of a crafting item you have before you craft, or somewhere to look for what you need for recipes when you aren’t at your station, would be a game changer.
Right now, Moonfrost is playable, though restarts may be required, but I have faith that it is early and the game will improve more and more over time. If you aren’t ready to jump into the trenches with Oxalis Games, you may want to give the title more time. For now, I am invested and really want to open up more of what the world of Moonfrost has to offer.
You can wishlist Moonfrost on Steam or grab it in Early Access now.
