Chop it Real Good!
It's that time again for a new episode of Chichuki Plays, the show where I go hands-on with upcoming games and show them off. We usually play about an hour or so but the way things were going, it felt like an episode that was close to two hours would show the game off better. This time we're looking at April Grove on Steam so settle in as it's a long one.
You arrive in April Grove as the new Forester and it's your job to take care of the forest. Sounds simple enough right? Well some of your fellow neighbors need to be shown you are the real deal and can be trusted. You don't start things off on the right foot as you don't have an axe to use. You will need that axe to cut down trees and logs. Lucky for you, April, the guardian being of April Grove gives you one. You will need to cut down trees and sell the logs to make money. It will be a grind because you can only have 15 logs in your inventory at one time and you don't make too much money from selling them. If you get lucky and get a sparkle/flashing log, you will make a little more money from selling. You'll gain experience from cutting trees and the higher level you are, the better at tree cutting you'll become. So much so that if you reach certain levels, you'll be able to cut down different trees and in turn make more money.
You'll want to get to know Maple, who owns the store in town. She can sell you all kinds of goods to help make your task easier to do. She sells things like running shoes and better axes. The only catch is that when you buy something, the price of other items goes way up. It takes a long time to make money so be really sure you want to buy something. The running shoes makes things easier because you will be going back and forth between trees to cut them down and make sales. You'll also want to get to know Daisy, who is a badger. She can build things for you like crates to put logs in to sell. If you thought the shop was a rip off, Daisy is charging an arm and a leg for her services. It's the age old story, everything costs money so start saving up now. There will be other tasks that you can do while working on the forest. The mail carrier will need help and you can deliver letters. The restaurant owner will need wood to cook things for you and those dishes can help you perform better.
Graphically, April Grove looks like a love letter to classic games. I really like the character designs too. The grind it takes to make money and do things in the game also feels like it's in an old school game. You'll find yourself dancing to the soundtrack if you can get through all the wood farming. It's an interesting take and fans of Colorgrave, the developers, won't want to miss this one.
Make sure you check out the hands-on video below!