Games like Stardew coming out soon?

Harvest Moon will always be the safest bet. Back to Nature (PS1), 64 (Guess) and Friends of Mineral Town(GBA) are considered the best of the series, the ANB for the 3DS is pretty awesome on my opinion, but you need some guides to play it, since there is a heavy hoarding aspect.
I didn't really find any similar game to those that was worth the time (except this one :1). Most of these one getting funded sounds more like cheap attempts of cloning, haha.

Now, about another thing people discussed here, the people that play those facebook farm games are hardly interested in games like these, HM has been around a decade before and I still have to hear about any fan of those games migrating to, or even taking interest in HM.

 

for anyone still interested, or looking into harvest moon games....(and if you havent visited ushi lately to see the kerfufflle)

recently theres been a split going on in the harvest moon / monogatari games.
see, Marvelous make the japaneese language game (the bokujou monogatari series, which translates as roughly 'farm story') then Natsume would bring the english language version to the USA and EU ect. since at the time, 'Farm Story' was allready owned by someone else out here in the west, they patented 'harvest moon' as the name for the western release.

recently, Marvelous decided to change localisers. from Natsume, to XSEED (the company that localized the last rune factory 4, you know the one that apparently will never make it to the EU unless you buy a usa 3ds and copy of the game...bah humbug. yeah you know what contry i live in now lol)
since Natsume owns the rights to the Harvest Moon name....XSEED cant use the tital Harvest Moon now in the west.

so...what is available in japan, the latest Monogatari game, the one with the subtital of 'connect to a new world' is going to become a new name.
Story of Seasons.
its the exact same game more or less, as the one they get in japanese. but now in english, and called Story of Seasons. looks the same, plays the same ect.

however...at the same time...Natsume is going to relase its *own* Harvest Moon game.
this one you might see listed as Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley.

its a totaly new game, however its also very very inspired by harvest moon that we are used to.
far as i know, BOTH games have been showwng at E3 this year (2014), so head over to anywhere that gives info to see more.

HM:TLV has a slightly strange plot (according to the info posted at ushi-no-tane..be aware there is a lot of malease at the fogu form over the new changes)
about you finding yourself snowed in by a storm, and helping a harvest spite that asks you to help save the valley. somehow, the seasons have been taken and only winter remains. thats the bare bones of the plot, bringing the other three seasons back to the valley.
style wise, if you hate chibi-ness you are going to be dissapointed.
its very much like harvest moon: magical melody. huge head and tiny body style.

while the Story of Seasons version is the same rune factory and harvest moon 3d style art.

so while its bad that the Harvest Moon name will now be used by natsume (they did patent it themselves back when the very first HM came out, so i guess its their name, and if they want to not sell it, or if no one ever offered to buy it from them..meh *shrug* politics lol)
we get 2 games this time around. this feels like a win/win to me, even though the names change.

in future the monogatari games will continue (far as we know they will still continue, no one has said otherwise, so dont worry)
but in the west, they will carry the tital 'Story of Seasons' and later titals will be 'Story of Seasons: <sub-tital goes here>'

anything Natsume makes will now keep the 'Harvest Moon' primary tital. unless they choose to sell it to Marvelous/XSEED
(and yes, XSEED are a subsiduary of Marvelos, so its cheaper for them to use XSEED to localize)

both games have allready said they will make it to the USA (think they both said 4th quater usa, but im not 100% so take that as an estimate)
Natsume says they are 'confident it will make it to PAL teratories' but have no ETA at this time for europe.
if memeory serves, there is no ETA for europe ether for SoS, but again, i may remember wrong.

also. if anyone was reading about a japanese game called 'Fantasy Life' and getting mad it wasnt going to come to the USA / EU....REJOYCE
its apparently also comming to use in the west.

this year is going to be fairly decent for HM style games to keep us going till we get Stardew

 

And to add to that the games that got showed at E3 are being discussed and covered in the Harvest Moon subbredit (no way )http://www.reddit.com/r/harvestmoon/

 

if anyone wants a sandbox game, and doesnt mind (or even prefers) the sci-fi genre, check out spacebase df-9

 

Heeeeeeeeeres another! http://www.fieldsoferagos.com/

 

I just stumbled upon "Our love will grow", here's a short bio.
It seems very similar to HM, I'm currently downloading and will report back shortly.
You can also watch some gamepley here;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPJXtrFAoDY

 

You're so right. He looks like he's missing his entire jaw. I cannot un-see.

 

this is too funny

 

I think some of you are being unfair about Wild Season. I backed them on Kickstarter and I've been extremely impressed. Frequent updates (almost 100 to date), some deep RPG systems, good character design, and a broad pool of inspired ideas that go way beyond Harvest Moon, including some of my favorite oldies like Legend of the River King.

 

retracting this. they went from alpha to release almost instantly because the company went under. whats left is a game that isnt finished and will never be updated. i feel sorry as hell for people who preordered it

 

Rune factory 4 is great for the 3ds. Its bascally harvest moon but with added combat and dungeon crawling and such. Its bascally what stardew valley will be.

 

i can second the rune factory 4 (now available to the EU via the nintendo Eshop finaly. while we wont get the physical copy, the DL version is the same and its only £24.99)
i have Spacebase DF9, and while i am somewhat grumpy that it may not ever be properly finished, i was lucky enough to grab it very cheap in a sale. i have had a decent (to me) amount of enjoyment out of it. the surprising moments when named characters arrive (like when i receved a Garribaldi surnamed guy who was good at security ) and then die faster than an extra in game of thrones lol (he lasted about 10 mins in game lol. was killed by space parasites of all things)

if you dont mind eating your animals (and have a ds/3ds) then Shepards crossing 2 is also a fun diversion. its rather basic in looks, and has very few locations (ie, your farm and the village page where you go to interact with anyone else) but is strangly addictive in that each new crop grown or animal reared to adulthood unlocks more in that section. there is also a PsP version called shepards crossing (the first one) unlike harvest moon or rune factory games, to marry in SC2, you just pay off the family of the one you want to marry you give sheep to marry a girl and girls give woolen blankets to marry men.

and, if you happen to be into minecraft, there are two mods there that can be used to make your game feel a little more harvest moon/rune factory like.
Pams Harvestcraft (has lots of crops and LOTS! of food recipes) and (i think it was called) Runecraftory (has all the rune factory plants and stuff) though im not sure if the runecraftory has been updated past 1.5 or so, i havent checked on that for a long time