Early Access code provided with many thanks to Critical Hit.
Moonfrost is an Early Access life simulation that is billed to be a magical mixture of Stardew Valley and Dragon Quest Builders. I got my hands on an early code, so let’s dive into what it does well and what needs some work before the full release.
All About Rebuilding
Moonfrost is a life and farming simulation. You begin a town that has been overgrown and long abandoned, but has recently shown some promise for rebuilding by the end of a catastrophe. There are only two residents left along with a pile of broken buildings, cracked streets, and decrepit infrastructure. In order to get this town back on its feet and get some need people, you will need to learn how to build, grow, tend, and fix as well as building relationships with those that remain.
Those that rebuild locations after the twin moons create all the destruction and havoc are called Frost Hunters, and they are part of the FHA or Frost Hunter Association. If you want to become a real part of the FHA, you will need to prove yourself by completing building challenges all around your farm and around town.
Moonfrost is an isometric, 2D game in a cartoonish, pixelated art style. The landscapes are busy and filled with colorful items, lending the whole game an air of a nicely animated kids’ movie. In a lot of ways, it reminds me visually of other beloved pixel art titles like Thrifty Business and Mina The Hallower.Â
After building an avatar, you are dumped into this post-apocalyptic world with nothing but the clothes on your back, and you will have to befriend the NPC Ash you stumble across early on in your exploration. This non-binary friend will help you to learn the ways of the FHA, take your exams, and tutorializes everything for you to help get your farm going smoothly.
The Pros of Moonfrost
Moonfrost is a beautiful game. It’s colorful, has amazing lofi music, and is a relaxing, chill time. You just collect items, build, grow food, and help NPCs. It does feel a lot like a Harvest Moon or Stardew Valley, with some delightful mysteries and magic to also investigate and explore. The map is pretty large, and the game seems to have a ton of things you can pour dozens of hours into if you want to.
I had so much fun learning the ropes of Moonfrost, building my little shack, and focusing on growing as many veggies as possible to build up a reserve of currency. While you always have a quest or two that need doing, Moonfrost does kind of just let you wander off to make food, build whatever you have the materials for, or just chat with your neighbors. Resources grow back very quickly, allowing you to waste all your copper or wood on whatever building projects you are interested in without worrying about soft-locking yourself or wasting your time.
The game is polished and runs very smoothly; I had no glitch issues at all. The only thing that you could maybe call a bug is that the walk cycle freezes up and gets real weird at one very specific angle. Saving appears to work as intended; all the side quests and main quests seemed to be functional, and I never had anything that crashed.
The Cons of Moonfrost
For the most part, Moonfrost is a fantastic game with a lot of beauty and charm. However, I did have a couple of small issues that came up during my hours deep diving into the story. My biggest complaint is the hand-holding. More than three hours into the game, I was surprised that the tutorial was still going. Until I realized that it wasn’t actually the tutorial, but the game itself holding my hand and guiding me along a set path to whatever end game Moonfrost has or will have.
I’m not sure if this game was supposed to be targeted to children, but I found the very linear nature of the interactions you have with the two NPCs to be a little much. Every time I got a new recipe, you could guarantee that there would be a quest to go with it. At no point did I get that feeling of freedom that other similar titles, like Valheim or Minecraft, have given me.
To be fair to Moonfrost, I haven’t come to the end of the current content. Perhaps the hand-holding lets up a little as your progress, but in my experience, it didn’t seem to have any intention of letting my hand go at all.
The other issue I had with Moonfrost is that you don’t immediately get storage of any kind. You can’t dump items on the ground to get them out of your inventory without destroying them, and I got piles of items more than I could hold very quickly. Since you can’t seem to eat food to replenish stamina, which seems like an oversight, I ended up with a bunch of meals in my inventory that I couldn’t do anything with but gift to people. What am I supposed to do with all these carrots that you made me grow, Moonfrost?
Also, the fishing mini-game was one of the worst I’ve ever interacted with. It was unintuitive, frustrating, and the least fun part about Moonfrost by a wide margin.
Final Thoughts
Overall, I really enjoyed my time with Moonfrost. It’s a gorgeous reminder of what amazing pixel art can look like, what amazing and chill music can do for an already relaxing game, and what some fun interactions can do for a life sim. Moonfrost is fun, well-polished, and filled with loads to explore, fun NPCs to meet, and a robust building system, even this early in Early Access.
I think the developers have done quite a great job at pulling all the pieces together to make a fabulous life sim, and I look forward to seeing what they do with the title next.
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