Harvest Island is a lovely farming sim with no horrifying undertones whatsoever
Just, don't forget the gods
It's a beautiful day on the island. The waves are nibbling playfully at the shoreline, the farmyard animals are shuffling about happily in their pens, your little sister is bouncing around being a perfect nuisance like always. Time to get busy, then. The cows need to be milked, the eggs need to be gathered from the chicken coop, the seeds need to be sowed and watered.
You might find an hour to do a bit of scavenging, here and there - gathering mussels from the rocks at low tide, or putting aside some wood for that pier your dad asked you to build. Just, don't forget the gods. The gods have needs too. Today it's crabs. Tomorrow? Who knows.
It's best to read the carvings on their statues early in the morning, in case they ask for something elaborate. Meet their requests in a timely fashion, and you'll earn Bless, a resource that can be put towards the prosperity of your farm. Leave them too long, however, and oops! They'll ask for something else.
Crabs won't cut it anymore - now it has to be crabs plus a side of raw meat. Where are you going to find raw meat? Will that raccoon over there do? Ah, but your little sister doesn't want you to kill the raccoon. She's getting upset. And now it's getting dark. And your dad gets so mad when the gods don't receive their due.
This is Harvest Island, out this week, which the lads are calling Stardew Valley, But A Horror Game. I've been playing the demo, and so far, it's enticingly dreadful.
The 2D pixelart ambience is too-nice, so nice it must be hiding something foul, like honey stirred into arsenic. The statues of the gods creep me out, especially the ones that are only revealed when the tide goes out. The main character's relationship with his needy little sister is sufficiently well-written to make this brother of three feel protective and anxious. When the question of killing the raccoon arose, and she started to well up, I felt a genuine pang.
Steam user reviews paint an overall Positive picture, with the caveat that this is much more of a farming simulator than a horror game (and not a genre-leading farming simulator, at that). I'm kind of glad to hear that. I feel like this could really do a number on me, if it gets too nasty. Weird statues on islands are not to be trifled with, though I wonder if the real danger here is the father - his expression doesn't change much in dialogue.
If you find the trailer more chillaxing than chilling, you can probably find an alternative on our list of the best horror games.