Demo Time: Back to Hearth (VSD)

 

Back to Hearth
Systems: Windows, Linux
Release Date: TBD
Publisher: Marevo Collective
Developer: Podoba Interactive
Time Spent: 33+10 Minutes

Yes, I know how to add.  I first played Back to Hearth on the Steam Deck for this article, but then I downloaded it on my laptop to grab a couple of additional screenshots.  On the second playthrough, which also happened a few weeks apart, and apparently, between those two dates, at least one major mechanic added to and improved the overall experience of playing this game.  But we will get to that shortly.

Back to Hearth was an interesting title in that even with the description on Steam's store page, I still wasn't 100% sure what I was getting into.  The description does mention repairing a house, but the back of my brain continued to ask, "but what does that mean exactly?"  The genre is listed as "casual" while the visuals look like if Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing were played in first-person perspective if they took place in Ukraine after a nondescript disaster has displaced a significant portion of the population; although the demo doesn't specifically state Ukraine, but the developers are Ukranian and there is a character named Oksana, so I might be generalizing.  I really couldn't make out what it was that I was going to be doing, but the title and the visual aesthetic drew me in, so I downloaded the 188.5 MB demo and jumped in.

The premise of Back to Hearth, the game tells you right up front.  That you need to, "Clean up the yard and house, then start a fire at Home."  So you're essentially doing chores.  Before the update, all you would do was find something highlighted in yellow, and click on it (or press A) and the chore would be performed.  In this first area, you had to pull weeds, repair an outhouse, repair a greenhouse, upright wheelbarrows, etc while outside.  Inside, you have to make beds, right chairs, fix a beaded necklace (that I thought was a rosary), curtain rods, and the one that threw me for a good five minutes, was righting a bunch of clear mason jars on a shelf.  Again, all you had to do was find the object that was highlighted in yellow and click/press a button.

Since the update, you still perform the same actions on the same things, but now you might need an item or two to perform the task.  So to take care of the weeds, you need a hoe, but thankfully the items seem to be permanent and are not consumed, so you don't have to find a new hoe every time you have to dig up weeds.  Or to fix the greenhouse you need a hammer and [REDACTED] (Because we want to avoid spoilers, at least to some extent).  What I really liked about this addition was that it does lengthen the gameplay a bit, but it doesn't do it artificially.  You could just pull weeds (old corn stalks?) with your bare hands, but a hoe would make the job easier.  You could repair a greenhouse with your hands, but a hammer would make reattaching pieces of wood more sturdy; although I guess that the [REDACTED] could be used to handle the broken glass?

Once you think you are done with your chores, you find the wood next to the fireplace and select it, and this is when the game likely tells you that you still have tasks you need to complete.  Thankfully Podoba Interactive are not sadists and actually tells you if your uncompleted tasks are inside, or outside, or just a general statement about finishing tasks if they are things still to complete inside and outside.  Granted my first time playing it took me a long time to find the jars on the shelf that needed to be put right side up, likely because they are somewhat transparent and when I did first notice them, it didn't register that they needed to be cleaned up; but then they were highlighted in yellow when I approached them.

After completing your tasks and lighting the fire, people return to the house in a cutscene.  I think the choice for the look of the people is rather odd and doesn't entirely fit within the rest of the look of the world.  My first thought was of amusement and of a giant-headed Shia LeBoeuf.   I wonder if they would look strange or uncanny if there weren't any faces or significantly fewer facial features?  Maybe something like Lonely Mountains: Downhill?  I think it's just that there's too much detail attempted for how large the polygons are on the character models.  But, if each stage ends after completing a handful of simple tasks with a sit by a cozy fire with some world-building exposition, then I am all here for it.

I get the impression that in the full game, there will be more information about the disaster as you travel from to each homestead bringing families back to their homes, as well as who exactly you are as a character within this world.  In the original demo, you could argue that you play as an omniscient force making repairs, but with the update and now needing tools to complete repairs and tasks, that doesn't seem to be the case.  I am interested to see how much development and building there are in the mechanics as you progress from homestead to homestead and if tasks become more complicated, or if it is just more of the same.  Either way, the Back to Hearth is now on my Steam wishlist, if that tells you anything about how I feel.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian

She's Gone to Heaven, So I Got to be Good