It’s nice when an indie game finally leaves Early Access, has a proper release, and is available on all the platforms! Kynseed, a game that entered EA late 2018 on Steam and was developed by PixelCount Studios (founded by ex-Fable devs) is one such game. At first glance, it looks like just another farm-sim, pixelated indie game, one that will inevitably be compared to the likes of Stardew Valley, but as a whole, the game is so much more.

Of course, because of how it looks and knowing the developers behind the game, comparisons will be made, though only at a surface level, because Kynseed is way deeper in its gameplay mechanics, narrative, and the genres it falls under than you can even begin to imagine.

We’ve Only Just Begun

How do I concisely describe what kind of game Kynseed is without using other games? Here we go: It is a sandbox, life-sim, story-driven RPG where your character and story progress across multiple lineages. Grow a family tree (pun intended lol), and while doing so, you can run shops or hire your family members or townsfolk to do them for you as you defeat monsters in a pseudo-turn-based, dungeon-crawling sort of way. The story and its chapters are non-linear, focusing on individual important events around the world, while progressing your renown and growing the Kynseed tree. 

Now, how do I concisely describe what kind of game Kynseed is using other games? The music, world building, and whimsy of Fable; the look of many other isometric pixel-based games, notably Stardew Valley; a life-sim game allowing you to role-play and perform many jobs like Fantasy Life. Combat reminiscent of… this one is tough, Sea of Stars, but add in dungeon crawling progression with rogue-lite elements? Family-tree and lineage system like Rogue Legacy (I’m just joking, I actually don’t know what to compare it to, leaving my gaming knowledge wanting); menu and tracking that looks like Hogwarts Legacy. Did anything I just came up with make any sense? In my head, it does!

In short, Kynseed is a narrative-driven RPG with heavy life-sim elements, set in a sandbox world, where you can be whatever you want; if that’s nothing, you can give up and let your kids carry on your legacy for you! It’s not the kind of game where I can give its systems enough justice without this review being over 3000 words. So instead, I want to focus on whether they delivered a good game you might want to spend lots of hours on, based on the genres it falls under. 

The Kynseed & The World of Quill

The story starts with you creating your character, one half of a set of twins. Your physical characteristics will not only determine the general look of your twin, but also the general look of your parents. Neat! You are a young kid, orphaned, and living with your Uncle in the world of Quill in the Vale region. Playing through the prologue, you’ll learn a harsh reality: the world is flawed, your parents died in unfortunate circumstances, and you won’t be able to change a thing, not in one lifetime, anyway. 

Luckily, you’ll gain the favour of Mr. Fairweather, and with that comes a bargain; one that will let your spirit “live forever” through your chosen family member through generations, in exchange for years of your life. It sounds complicated, but it’s definitely a problem for the future-you! 

As you tackle the non-linear storytelling of Kynseed, which is practically optional (if you don’t care about seeing the credits, but still rack up 100 of hours of game time), you’ll meet many NPCs who age along with you, create relationships with them, build a family, own and run a shopping empire, maintain a farm, fight hoards of Hobs, adventure, and rebuild the world. Each of these elements in Kynseed is as deep as the next, and you’ll find yourself poring over the tutorial often. 

Forgiving & Complicated all the same time!

With a game as complex as Kynseed, creating a well-balanced game with good quality of life and a good user experience, especially with a controller (I played it on PS5 with a DualSense), is one I want to focus on. 

There’s no secret that this game would probably control much better with a mouse and keyboard but, I am happy to report that it feels great to control using my Dualsense. However, unless you’re diving into the keybinding menu and/or experimenting (aka. pressing all the buttons until you figure out something on your own), some controller-based QoL features are hidden. Otherwise, every aspect of the controller is well-used. The game is information-heavy so whilst menu use will be unavoidable; there is at least easy access to that information. 

Kynseed is not a stamina-based game, which is great! Once you get past the prologue, you don’t even ever have to sleep! The game is forgiving in this regard because there’s just so much to do with so little time. Speaking of time, what in tarnation is a dandelion clock? Each strand on a dandelion represents an hour, but it doesn’t actually tell me what time it is! While it’ll be possible to purchase a real clock (using Mr. Fairweather’s life currency), this is such an odd thing to gatekeep, because you can technically go through the whole game using dandelions to tell time. I bought it as soon as I could!

Relationship building is a must in Kynseed. You will know nothing unless you interact with NPCs, gift them items and increase their hearts with you. You won’t know what they like or dislike, when their birthdays are, or how to get higher star quality of items, until others tell you about it. You won’t even know the characteristics of certain plants unless you’ve collected at least 15 of that particular item. This means that repetition is key. You’ll be backtracking and travelling through all places within Quill often! Luckily, there’s a way to track all that, which is great, and there are several ways to fast travel. 

At first, there will only be one way to fast travel; however, after spending some years with Mr. Fairweather, you’ll unlock others, like outhouse and root ways. 

Another interesting thing that Kynseed doesn’t focus on is the many aspects of farming. Having played many indie farming-sim games, Kynseed simplifies things a bit by removing the mundane tasks of tilling, filling a watering can, etc. This emphasizes the idea that Kynseed is NOT a farming-sim game. This is not to say that there is no depth to farming (you can have pigs, and a poop bucket to collect poop from, so you can fertilize your crops!), the depth is just evenly distributed to all aspects of the game. 

Overall, Kynseed can feel very overwhelming at first, especially if you push yourself to tackle every task given to you. However, the game feels great to control, and while it has a time system, it doesn’t have a strong sense of urgency that keeps you from taking your time.

Speaking of Overwhelming…

This game is a lot. But the gameplay loop is addictive. If this were real life, it would be considered unbearable stress, but in video game form, we call it cozy. It’s wild how that works, right? Well, by this description, Kynseed is the epitome of cozy. Take your pick: dungeon-delving, blacksmithing, cooking, farming, alchemy, or barkeeping. Each one of these jobs can almost be a game in its own, alongside Kynseed’s narrative-driven RPG aspect. However, you have the opportunity to do everything, everywhere, all at once!

Not only is performing each aspect detailed enough as is, such as creating different types of medicines, foods, weapons, and armour, but you can also run the corresponding shop to sell them all. This means figuring out its hours of operation, tending to each customer’s requests (that alone is already slightly different depending on what shop it is), what items to sell, the materials to make them, ordering stock, and hiring employees (or doing a shift yourself), employees’ schedule, wages, and happiness.

The cool part of all this is that maintaining and keeping track of them all is pretty simple. Aside from having fast travel (I highly recommend getting outhouse fast travel), you have access to every store’s ledger from any ledger! And you’ll be happy you can do this easily, because one store will easily turn into many, and soon, it can turn into a franchise with specific specialization across all of Quill! $$KACHING$$!!

As I mentioned, I could go into detail about how it handles each of its life-sim jobs; however, it’ll take too long, and it’s best experienced yourself! It’s ridiculous, it’s a lot, but you’ll love it!

Hitting the Sweet Spots

Kynseed has its grubby, overachieving, honey-soaked fingers in many pots. It looks fantastic, the world and its style suit it extremely well, and it sounds amazing. The menus, quality of life, and user interface make it an easy game to play, albeit having a deep, and steep learning curve. It has many jobs and social-building responsibilities that I would NEVER EVER want to do in real life, but I find them cozy in video game format. Not only that, but a combat system that completely took me by surprise! Like, what even is this game? The story is wacky, the NPCs are mean to me, and the jobs are stressful, but it’s a world that I want to be in, and if you take the time to learn it, a world you can be in forever. 

Kynseed was reviewed on PlayStation 5. Gamer Social Club would like to thank the Devs and Publisher for the code.