In my last Pumpkin Days post I mentioned that next on my agenda was to get a proper house built to replace the crappy little shack, install a kitchen, and get to work on helping the museum house their collection so that the evil corporation wouldn't be able to build their factory on this idyllic island.
In order to upgrade from shack to little country house, I needed 5000 gold and I also needed to provide my own wooden planks.
I still haven't worked out the best way to make money in this. Everything seems pretty equal, to be honest. If I sell a day's worth of crops, I might get anywhere between 400 and 600 gold; if I sell a day's worth of polished gems I might also get anywhere between 400 and 600 gold. If I fish all day, it'll be between 400 and 600 gold. So I'm under the impression there is no great thing that'll make me rich quick, sadly.
I did test selling a bunch of unrefined ore and a few ingots and got nearly 900... but I don't want to waste my crafting materials like that. 🤷♀
So I decided to focus on crops alone for the time being -- after all, I needed to get to work on donating various things to the museum -- and started exploring the map a little more.
The museum is basically the "win condition" of this game. You can still play the game if you don't donate enough things in time to stop the factory, or just not care and let the corporation build it's factory, but things will be polluted and I imagine the townspeople will be unhappy and will probably bitch about you not helping to stop the corporation. They seem like the type to whinge a lot.
I've also decided to recommend, if anyone decides to check out this game, to actually explore the map first, or as quick as you can. So you can get all the bus transport points earlier.
If I ever start a new game of this, that'll be my first priority -- getting the bus stops.
After my adventure out into the world to activate bus stops and to find some things for the museum, I found quite a few things to donate!
The next day I endeavoured to find a few more things, as well as unlock a few more bus stops, and this time I came across one of the other villages you can choose to move into at the very start of the game.
In this village are another 30 odd NPCs you can chat with, do quests for, and raise your relationship with. It's going to take a long time to make everyone in this game love my character, that's for sure! So many people. And the best way to make friends with people is to cook them their favourite food and gift it to them. I don't have a kitchen yet! 😱
One thing I really like about the museum donation system in this is that once you've donated something, it shows up somewhere in the museum. In this greenhouse are the flowers and butterflies I've donated.
It's a nice touch! 😊
After completing a whole whopping 10% of the museum (mostly a few flowers, a few insects, and spring lake fish -- still so much more to go!) I had enough gold and enough wooden planks to start building my new house.
And it turns out that I didn't need the gold, only the planks.
Apparently, once you have the planks you can build the house, and then you have a debt again and you can't build anything else until you repay your debt.
With that knowledge, I only paid off half my debt so I'd still have some gold to play around with! 😁
After all, I needed to buy that kitchen bench. Which is thankfully a prebuilt item I can buy and place rather than something I need to go in and out of debt to build.
Now my person no longer had to live in a small shack!
Instead she could live in a slightly larger shack. 😆 Or a small country cottage, if you will.
So far it's the middle of my first Summer, so I've played for a season and a half -- I've gotten most of the Pumpkinvale villagers to nearly one heart of friendship or just over, just by talking to them and doing small tasks for them. I like to think friendship will shoot up once I'm able to cook them their favourite foods and bribe them into liking me.
I've now gotten my small cottage, I'm making about 400-600 gold every day, I've found 5 bus stops, and I have 10% of the museum done. I'm only playing on one of the easier difficulties so I only need to reach 50% before the factory is stopped. If I were playing on normal or harder, I believe I need the full 100% completion.
I have no idea who my person will romance yet. Most of the male NPCs are dude-bros except for a couple. So obviously it'll fall between the few who are normal people. 🤣 Or lez out, either way.
One thing that's missing from this game is being able to level up your skills. I assumed such a thing was pretty standard with these types of games, but I guess I was mistaken. Instead of being able to become a better cook, or fisherman, or miner, or upgrading your stamina, you just craft better tools to use less stamina. That disappoints me a little.
But either way, skill ups or no, I'm progressing -- and now I have my lovely kitchen!! Everyone's friendship shall soon be mine! By the power of pasta, pattycakes, and various vegetable dishes!
Until next time! 😊🍄🌿
All screenshots in this post are courtesy of me, 