Recent updates
January 25, 2024: The developer has now announced the official name Sunkissed City, which you can find and wishlist on Steam.
While the list of games like Stardew Valley just keeps growing, the list of games made by Stardew's creator is still percolating. Eric "ConcernedApe" Barone's own next game Haunted Chocolatier is still deep in development, but it turns out that a former Stardew contributor is also working on a new life sim that may even arrive this year. The as-yet-untitled game definitely looks like a Stardew descendant, but this one's set in a city and has a lot of its own neat ideas on expanding the typical life sim script.
As spotted by RockPaperShotgun, freelance game developer Arthur Lee (who's credited as part of the Stardew Valley team during development of the 1.5 update) is working on an untitled new life sim and sharing weekly details about development on X. Though it remains untitled at the moment, he's expecting it to involve the name "Apollo City" after the game's main setting.
Though it's definitely set in a city, with a ramen shop and city blocks and so on, it's still very much a farm sim where you're tending your own rural-looking property adjacent to the downtown hustle. There also appears to be usable farm space in a downtown dirt lot and rooftop gardens above an apartment building. Don't worry about the urban planning of it all; just believe.
From what Lee has shown off on social media, Apollo City appears to be hitting the farmlife sim highlights: crops, livestock, fishing, home customization, and lots of skills to level. It will also be multiplayer at launch, a feature Lee finds important after doing lots of work contributing to local multiplayer in the Stardew Valley 1.5 update.
What I'm actually psyched about is just how many weird and interesting other systems Lee's teased for Apollo City. The apple really doesn't fall far from the Harvest Moon tree with most modern farmlife sims but Apollo City has a lot of elements I've not really seen elsewhere. Here are a few fun tidbits that Lee has shared in the last couple months:
- Crops that spread as they grow, like watermelons, which take over adjacent spaces, meaning you can cultivate a patch from a single seed
- A skill for reading which you can also use to pass time waiting for friends to complete their day in multiplayer
- An in-game camera with its own photo quests, which you can use to hang custom photos in your home
- Working at a warehouse as an optional activity for extra cash where you can learn some automation tips
- Customizing food recipes with your favorite ingredients
There's quite a lengthy skill list including eating, recycling, and socializing. Hilariously, sleeping is its own skill too. Going to bed early earns you faster XP and leveling it up will increase your maximum energy. If only I got buffs like that in real life.
Though I wasn't able to find concrete mention of romance or marriage in Lee's development posts, he has confirmed to me that they're definitely planned features. Lee has personally enjoyed the dating elements of life sims since the early Harvest Moon days, he says, and that as with most other modern life sims, marriage in Apollo City will not be gender-locked.
"Ultimately, of course, a lot of the relationship building will be centered around delighting people with raw ears of corn and things like that that're the norm for the genre," Lee says. "But I've already got some fun little wrinkles to the format that I've put in the game, and I'm positive I'll come up with some more by the time the game is finished!"
Spruced up the audio of the Old Apollo area of the city. I've added the ability to specify "zones" that play music as you get closer to them. In this video, you can hear Ramen-ya ATSUI!'s theme play as I pass by. pic.twitter.com/bNtDZNsbTfSeptember 18, 2023
In addition to the classic Harvest Moon inspirations, Lee has also referenced the Mother series (to which his moniker "Mr. Podunkian" is a reference, he says). And though I'm not too studious on my Mother lore, parts of the city design like its weird billboards definitely give Earthbound vibes.
And before you look at Apollo City crossways, Lee mentions getting Eric Barone's blessing to make a new farm sim game with the engine he was developing while working on Stardew Valley and that "we met up in person to put any remaining uncertainties to rest!"
At the beginning of January, Lee shared hopes that Apollo City will launch sometime this year and plans to have a Steam store page available (and presumably final title) very soon.
