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I consider myself a pretty well-rounded gamer, but while I dip my toe into every genre, I have a soft spot for all things cozy. This is especially true for farming-based life-sims, and I’m always looking for the next adorable escape-from-reality to add to my collection. In Doloc Town, released into early access on May 8, I think I’ve found something truly special.
(Technically, my fiancé found it. Shout out to him for his expert eye, obsession with endlessly clicking through his Steam queue, and his instinctive understanding of what I love.)
The formula for many a would-be cozy pixel life-sim is, more often than not, pretty much identical across the board. Inherit a run-down farm, befriend the locals, grow crops, rear animals, rinse, repeat. That’s not a bad thing by any means, but it is all a bit… “samey”. The formula makes it hard for anything to be truly unique, but Doloc Town breaks the formula wide open, with a post-apocalyptic twist.
Farming in a 2D platform world
For starters, it throws the top-down perspective out of the window and instead opts to be a side scroller. Yes, you read that correctly – Doloc Town is a 2D, side-scrolling, farming-based life-sim. That’s a bit of a mouthful, admittedly, and you’d think it would be difficult to adjust to, but it’s not. True, the map takes some adjustment, and you’ll find yourself feeling incredibly lost until you figure out where on earth you’re supposed to be going, but that’s half the joy of starting any new game, isn’t it?
With that 2D side-scrolling style comes a new feature that I haven’t seen in any other farming-sim: the ability to build upwards. Rather than having a limited amount of space to work with at ground level, you can build endless sprawling platforms to provide yourself with more space for machines, storage, buildings, and crops. Every platform or item you come across can be jumped on and walked across, allowing almost endless expansion that’s only halted by the top of the game screen.
Crops done differently
Growing crops is also a break from the monotony experienced in most other games of the genre. Rather than digging, hoeing, planting, and watering, Doloc Town offers up a new challenge: The ground is unsuitable for planting thanks to the recent apocalypse. Instead, you need to construct various types of planter boxes and use them to grow your crops, with the boxes breaking after a certain number of uses. You also need to research new types of crops, rather than simply purchasing seeds, which is an interesting mechanic that really adds to the gameplay loop.
The weather also has a massive effect on your crops and gameplay, as well, particularly rain. When it starts to pour, there are two things you need to be wary of: Acid rain and lightning. If the rain is acidic, you need to wrap your crops in plastic to protect them, and lightning can absolutely fry anything you’ve got growing.
Reduce, reuse, recycle
Crafting is a treat, and everything is made using trash that’s picked up around the town of Doloc and the surrounding areas, and there’s a lot of trash to collect. This would be an absolute nightmare with the limited storage, but you can craft boxes and put them in your inventory to expand it, with no need for a bag upgrade. Like everything else, these boxes are limited in their use and will be destroyed after you’ve opened them 15 times, but that’s half of the joy.
And, as though all of that wasn’t enough to make Doloc Town stand out from the rest, you also get your very own gun-equipped drone to follow you around and help during combative encounters. This drone has its very own build, with customizable attachments allowing you to fine-tune its behavior to suit your combat style. The battery of the drone is limited, but then so is your own internal battery, so that shouldn’t come as any big surprise.
Doloc Town is, at its heart, a cozy life-sim
Despite the unique aspects of Doloc Town, it is recognizably a farming-based life-sim, and it does have the staple features that all games of the genre share. There are various local residents to befriend and give gifts to, stores where you can purchase a bag upgrade, a fishing mini-game, and everything else you’ve come to expect. There are quests to complete with many of the residents, and all of them have unique personalities to explore and understand as your friendships grow.
Although the art style and story are wildly different from any other life-sim I’ve ever played, there’s so much charm and joy within this platform-based world that it’s hard not to enjoy the experience. You gradually uncover the history of Doloc, both pre- and post-apocalypse, and learn how this town built upon broken-down trains came to exist.
If you love cozy games like Stardew Valley or Fields of Mistria, then there’s a high likelihood that you’ll enjoy Doloc Town, provided you can adjust to its platforming nature. If you can hop over that small hurdle, then you’ll fall in love with the experience and find yourself lost in the post-apocalyptic world, mysterious history, and bright future that awaits.
