Koi Farm - A Charming Simulation

First off I’d like to give a huge thank you to the developers of Koi Farm for giving me a key to their game. It was an extreme joy to play this on my stream, It was lovely experiencing Koi Farm for the first time!

Koi Farm is a simulation/puzzle/farming sim game developed by Job Talle and 3xBlast. You can find their contact information on Steam, along with Job Talle’s twitter: @jobtalle. Their game is available on steam for a shocking $2.99 USD, which for what I experienced is well worth that amount. Your game starts as soon as you hit play, no cutscene or any story to mess with, just a short tutorial to start your Koi farming adventures.

The instructions aren’t hard to understand and though the font is easy on the eyes I’d still like it to be a bit larger, but other than that it was an excellent example of how you want tutorials to be. It displays what you need to do to progress without holding your hand, which lets you take the lead and discover different Koi naturally.

Koi Farm’s core gameplay is centered around placing two Koi in a pond and seeing what their babies look like after they…uh…hold fins for a short amount of time. You see when one Koi loves another Koi they swim next to each other and-

(What do you mean people don’t need to know those details? …Am I just supposed to actually say how fish breed? Because I CAN just say the fish release eggs and sper-)

Anyway, when the babies come they’ll either be the same solid colour of their parents, or perhaps a mix of them. The patterns that I saw during my playthrough were beautiful and all unique in their own way. Some Koi resembled Dalmatians, while others looked like they fell into paint. During your journey of discovering how many Koi there are you find that by selectively breeding your Koi gives you results that the book requires you to acquire. Getting these elusive morphs of Koi allows you to turn your book page and start on another journey.

There isn’t any background music other than the gentle sound of water being disturbed by swimming fish, and a light swoosh of any grass you happen to click on. Coupled with an occasional spot of rain and thunderstorms, Koi Farm’s sound design makes for a game that you can either absorb the subtle sound of nature, or replace it with any external song or playlist of your choice. I actually appreciate that because it allows the player to use their music with the game, letting you control the atmosphere based on what you’re feeling like that day.

Koi Farm’s graphics and replayability are last in this review not because they’re not important, but because they’re my favourite part of the game. Their graphics are simple flat colours with minimal shading and no real bloom or dramatic lighting (unless you count the darkening of the sky with rain and thunderstorms). I enjoy this art style with this type of gameplay because it really allows you to get fully into what you’re doing, almost like a hypnotic trance. You’re not distracted by in-depth shading or how light beams bounce off the water, your main focus ends up being the Koi and your tasks. My only note for the graphics is the lightning during the storms, having a feature to turn the flash on and off really helps people with sensitive eyes like myself, and only enhances the game with giving visually impaired players a choice which a lot of games don’t provide.

Whenever I purchase a game I always think, “is it going to be worth the money I spent? Can I get my money's worth by hopefully being able to finish and possibly replay the game”, and with Koi Farm I feel as if I can do just that. While there isn't a captivating story or characters to make you feel compelled to complete some quest, what this game offers is a charming atmosphere, peace, and relaxation that most games nowadays lack. Koi Farm is replayable for me simply because it can either require your full attention or if you’re feeling less involved, you can also play it on ‘autopilot’. I definitely see myself playing this again on stream and even in my off time.

The last little hiccup I have to say about Koi Farm (which there aren't many) is only a problem if you stream the game like I do. I stream on twitch using OBS (twitch.tv/Astralflamingo ;) ) ((sorry)), and for the majority of games I play I use a ‘game capture’ to be able to show only the game. However, Koi Farm isn’t capturable through the game capture, it’s captured with ‘window capture’. So for anyone who’s reading, if you’re a fellow streamer which first hi I hope your streams are going well you’re doing great! Don’t panic if you find that game capture doesn't work, just use a window capture and the game + sound will be streamed just fine.

My final thoughts on Koi Farm are warm and fuzzy, as I found a new game to just play when I’m feeling too overwhelmed for the face-paced life of FPS or MOBA’s. Again I’m very appreciative to have received a key for this game, and I thank the developers for giving me this opportunity to play, review, and fall in love with their game.