I Was Getting A Bit Bored Of The Traditional Life Sim Routine, But

I've played a lot of life sims but, as much as I love the routine of setting up a new life in a small town, I've started to find myself getting bored much faster than I used to. If there isn't something to immediately sink its hooks into me, like a unique mechanic or a particularly whimsical world I can lose hours to, there's a much higher chance of me bouncing off. Given how many life simulators are churned out each year it's unsurprising but, for someone who has dedicated so much time to this one genre, it's disappointing to feel that way.

Fortunately, the pastel-coloured, My Sims-esque world of Heartopia came along just as I felt myself disconnecting from life sims entirely. And, while it's by no means perfect and there are a number of bugs (like the fact it keeps snowing inside of my house) I keep coming back each day to check in with my little avatar and see what quests are waiting and what daily rewards I can redeem. But, one feature of the game above all else is what keeps me so captivated in its world: the introduction of hobbies.

In a lot of the life simulators I've played in the past, you're usually given the same few tasks to pass the time with: gardening, fishing, decorating, and cooking. You know, most of the things you'd do each day in real life to relax you, though I can't say I'm particularly laid back when I have to cook. Heartopia on the other hand takes these activities one step further, adding seven different hobbies for you to make your way through rather than the usual suspects.

These do of course factor in the more traditional life simulator mechanics, so fret not: you still have fishing, gardening, and cooking. But, you've also got insect catching, cat caring, dog caring, and birdwatching—the hobby that made me exclaim quite loudly in excitement when I realised I could birdwatch as part of the game rather than walk around and point them out to myself and never do anything else with that information like I have in games in the past.

As you get set up in Heartopia, you're given short tutorials involving one or two quests around these hobbies by various characters around the map. These introduce you to what the general activity involves and how you can get started, before leaving you to work away in your own time and upgrade your hobby when you fancy it. There's no real rhyme or reason about which hobbies you should prioritise either, which gives you the freedom to only focus on the ones you like rather than having to slog through

Source: PC Gamer