If you’re a fan of cozy games, you probably know that XD’s cute little “slow-life simulation” Heartopia was recently released. Like many cozy games, the player’s character is transported to a somewhat magical place, where he builds a new home and helps the more permanent residents complete tasks. Unlike many leisurely games, Heartopia takes players to a small town with eleven other players. Interestingly, these players are random, and since you’re not in the same instance every time you log in, you don’t have the same neighbors every time.
Honestly, you won’t even have the same lot for your house. One day I was in plot 4. The next I logged in and found myself on the other side of the map in plot 10. As players log in and out, you’ll see houses disappear from the map and be replaced by those of whoever logs in next.
However, you can still befriend the players on your map, and they will remain on your friends list so you can send greetings and emails to them. So they won’t just completely disappear from your life.
Rotating neighbors or not, the game wants you to interact with them. Every day you’ll be given different tasks from the game – little things you need to earn rewards and money – and some of them include, for example, watering your neighbors’ plants. The game will also encourage you to host parties and participate in various group activities, such as deep-sea fishing and popping bubbles on the beach. You don’t necessarily have to do them with other players, but that’s the idea anyway.
To make it easier to make friends, the game includes some of the typical social features, such as text chat and tons of emotes. Some of these emotes can be obtained as part of the game or experienced in the world. Others can be purchased from Annie’s Friendship Store using currency earned in-game.
Annie is also one of the NPCs who help you get started in the game and introduce you to other villagers as well as the DG member guild. The guild is more or less your progression in the game. You’ll need to increase levels to unlock new housing items, features, blueprints, and even the ability to learn new hobbies.
You also have the option to expand your property over time. Each player’s estate can consist of up to eighteen properties in total, meaning that once all properties are unlocked, there is plenty of room to expand. And of course houses can also have several floors. Stairs are also unlocked through the guild system.
In fact, the building system appears to be quite robust. Players start with a starting house of their choice, but it won’t be long before the game teaches them how to make changes. The houses are built from individual parts: wall and floor pieces, windows, doors and stairs. This can be done freely, or players can use blueprints that tell them how many items they need and create a room or room that can be placed as a set. How big the house can be. Well, I did say that players will eventually own fairly large properties, so the house can be quite large. That means. Leave some space for a garden.
What you’ll mainly be doing in the game… Well… Most people who know about leisurely games can probably guess. As mentioned, the game features “hobbies” that players can learn from the various NPCs. These include gardening, fishing, cooking, bird watching, insect catching, cat care and dog care. To learn these, you must advance through the DG Member Guild and purchase Hobby Expansion Tickets before seeking out the associated “mentor.”
Not surprisingly, fishing and gardening are the first hobbies you take up. Personally, I chose cooking as a third option because there is an energy system and you have to eat to stay active in the game. (Although there is a bed in the house and you can lie down on it, sleep doesn’t seem to be a way to regenerate energy.) Note that some hobbies require a long wait to unlock, such as caring for pets.
Once a hobby is acquired, players must remain active in it to improve it. However, it doesn’t simply advance to the next level once enough XP has been earned. To achieve this, Hobby Upgrade Tickets are required. Like the expansion tickets, these can be purchased through the guild. They can also be purchased as earning point rewards.
Other regular in-game activities include completing daily requirement quests, which usually involve acquiring specific items for NPCs, or “gossip” quests, which provide a bit of story content about the town and its operations. Additionally, there are general daily tasks for players to complete. These can be found in the game’s menu system.
It’s also worth noting that general collecting in the game doesn’t require a hobby association. In addition, some gatherings do not require energy consumption. Just pulling items from bushes doesn’t use energy. Chopping trees to get lumber or pounding rocks to collect ore uses energy. So you won’t go long without food.
You can easily find and travel to any location you need as the game almost immediately provides you with transportation in the form of a scooter. Additional vehicle options are available in the shop. There is also a bus you can take if you don’t want to drive.
Another important point to keep in mind is that the game is designed specifically for mobile devices, so the menus reflect this – especially the graphics of some elements, which can be pixelated when viewing the larger versions. I’ve actually seen some speculation that this is an indication that the game uses AI art, but it’s just as likely that the developers just took smaller images and didn’t think about what they would look like if they were enlarged. But if something like that can put you off a game, know that it exists.
