After half an hour with Forager, I can already really feel its compulsion loops getting their hooks into my mind. Developed by HopFrog and launched as we speak, it’s a cute single-player game about a little bit pixel-person mining and crafting and looting in perpetuity, frequently escalating spirals of numbers, tools and ranges. There’s land to purchase (filled with assets), dungeons to delve (filled with gold to purchase land) and monsters to blat (filled with elements to craft into different issues to make issues sooner). If the launch trailer (and free demo) under is any indication, these loops stretch on a good distance.
From the little I’ve performed to date, Forager seems like an unholy mixture of loafer, clicker and action-RPG, with some notes cribbed from Vlambeer on satisfying screen-shake and different ‘juicy’ UI results. Initially, it’s gradual and easy – mine stone, make furnace, mine ore, make metallic, use metallic to make forge to make instruments. Simple sufficient, however judging by the screenshots and trailer, it steadily escalates into hyper-capitalist hell, reminding me in equal components of Cookie Clicker and Factorio. Row after row of furnaces churning out gadgets appears to be the way you fund your adventures.
The game feels a little bit self-aware, too. One of the primary NPCs I met grumbled about “jerks with pickaxes” despoiling all of the pure assets, which endlessly respawn round you, retaining you consistently buzzing round to collect stuff. There appears to be quite a bit to do, with extra different biomes showing as you buy extra islands round you, dungeons to search out, some huge bosses to struggle and a magic system I’ve not even glimpsed at but. It’s low-intensity (to date), however I really feel I may lose days to this. There’s quite a bit it, and there’s going to be much more sooner or later, apparently.
Originally developed throughout a two-week dev jam (the unique prototype-turned-demo is here on Itch), HopFrog’s tiny crew of 1 designer/coder, three artists and one musician nonetheless have plans to develop Forager. The in-game roadmap says the subsequent two updates are ‘Farm Life’ and ‘Combat Update’, with slots for an additional six additions. It appears to be like like if this one will get its hooks into you, there’ll be new causes to return to its little procedurally generated pixel world in future. Personally, I’m tapping out now – I’ve received sufficient on my plate for the weekend with out this devouring my thoughts.
Forager is out now on Steam, Humble and GOG for £15/€20/$20. It’s printed by Humble Bundle.
