Since its initial appearance last year at the Nintendo Direct, Since its debut, there seems to be a natural rapport between Nippon Ichi Software's "Silent Pastoral" and its core audience. This rapport can basically be summarized as:"I'm just saying, you're just listening." "Don't disbelieve what I say, but don't take it all as gospel either."
In its first trailer, "Silent Pastoral" seriously billed itself asa "pastoral idyll" life simulation game—it appears to be a traditional 2D ranch management simulation game. The player, a young boy who got lost in the mountains, stumbles into an old Japanese village called "Bijin Village." Taken in by kind people, he begins a self-sufficient, peaceful farming and herding life. The game adopts a watercolor-textured picture-book style, with every scene seemingly carefully crafted...
But the problem lies precisely here.
Your picture-book-likeWhy does this "country life" look so familiar? Why do I feel like it's so similar to that game where you're constantly chased by monsters and demons?
That game is—
For players familiar with the background of "Silent Pastoral," every depiction of the Japanese countryside in the trailer seems to hide terrifying dangers. So, when "Silent Pastoral" presents an innocent facade, players react with such sensitivity—Everyone knows deep down that you're Nippon Ichi Software, the creator of "Yomawari." Isn't catching players off guard your specialty?
As it turns out, I wasn't wrong to suspect it. "Silent Pastoral" didn't lie; its core gameplay is indeed a traditional ranch management game, but...no one said that slow-paced ranch management gameplay can't include scary monsters and demons, right? In traditional Japanese literature, "countryside" and "folklore ghost stories" are often linked. Even the progenitor of this genre, "Harvest Moon," has several terrifying urban legends. Friends who have been to rural areas know: even a peaceful village that looks serene during the day can become eerie and spooky at night. The coexistence of these two states is not contradictory.
But as a"video game," "Silent Pastoral" inevitably raises questions—how can the "slow life" simulation management gameplay and the "Yomawari"-style horror action gameplay, one pursuing a leisurely and natural slow life and the other emphasizing tense, pressing experiences, be combined into the same game.
Thus,带着对《静谧田园》玩法上的疑惑，我们参加了一场由云豹娱乐主办的抢先试玩活动。这也是自云豹娱乐宣布与日本一达成合作关系后，《静谧田园》中文版的首次线下Bring to Light。所以，本次体验的内容依然处于开发阶段，无法代表游戏的最终质量。
And here, one thing needs to be clarified in advance: although I came with questions, this demo event did not resolve my doubts. The version we experienced in this demo had"Peaceful Life Mode"—this is a feature previously announced. As the name suggests, it's a mode for players who want to peacefully enjoy country life without any "horror events" or unexpected dangers.
But as a trade-off,Once "Peaceful Life Mode" is enabled, it cannot be changed arbitrarily. Therefore, you won't be able to experience another important element of this game—the terrifying consequences of breaking "village rules." In the game, "Bijin Village" maintains certain ancient and unsettling traditional rules. To live peacefully, you must strictly adhere to these rules.
Eight Village Rules
Upon enablingWith "Peaceful Life Mode" enabled, players are forced to abide by these rules.
For example, there is one most basic village rule in the game—Do not wander outside alone after 11 PM.
In what we experienced this timeIn "Peaceful Life Mode," this village rule manifests specifically as: when the time reaches 11 PM late at night, players cannot leave their house. If the character is outdoors at this time, the system will forcibly teleport them back home.
Conversely, only by actively breaking this village rule will players encounter those indescribable, terrifying entities—It seems that the existence of village rules creates a dual-nature state for "Silent Pastoral," bridging the "ranch management" framework and "horror action" gameplay. However, since we haven't actually experienced this part yet, we'll refrain from commenting further for now.
What is clear is that upon enablingWith "Peaceful Life Mode" enabled, "Silent Pastoral" behaves more like a traditional ranch simulation game, hiding the aspects of its lineage that belong to "Yomawari."
And an hour or so is only enough to experience the basic life systems of this game. Therefore, in this demo report, I will focus on using what I saw to verify another thing—What kind of ranch simulation gameplay will the "Yomawari" team, known for favoring "ambushes on first encounter" and "bullying little girls," design.
Of course, the underlying logic of modern Japanese-style ranch simulation games was already established in the early 2000s. Essentially, they are mostly a combination of resource management tasks and RPG elements. Therefore, in these games, how to allocate resources to maximize profit has always been the greatest source of fun.
The resources here include not only money and items for trading, but also time, which constantly slips away each day—Although such games rarely set fixed goals or deadlines for players nowadays, efficient time management is still linked to the development status of the ranch.
So, players of Japanese-style ranch simulation games will always have this kind of gaming experience—You'll almost memorize with your body the energy and time each task consumes, know exactly when shops, hospitals, and other facilities in the village open and close, and where to gather resources... Calculating and managing stamina and time becomes second nature—the brilliance of this logic lies precisely in the natural formation of daily habits, prompting players to actively adapt to the world's workings and become part of it.
"Silent Pastoral" naturally adopts these familiar design patterns as well.
In the game (at least in"Peaceful Life Mode"), the protagonist wakes up in their cabin at 7 AM every day to start the day's work.
There is no clear regional division between the ranch where the player lives and Bijin Village—Starting from the ranch, passing a fork in the road and a stone bridge, you can reach the village's only general store. The game does not deliberately separate the ranch and the village on a systemic level.
In-game time also progresses in real-time. Although "Silent Pastoral" uses the2D isometric perspective, but as game time progresses, you can see very clear and distinct changes in sky color and weather. Surprisingly, "Silent Pastoral" doesn't just simply adjust the overall color tone; instead, it meticulously adjusts lighting and shadows while maintaining the original picture-book style, making the flow of time each day in the game feel more realistic and reasonable.
Also contributing to the functioning of the game world are the village andthe NPCs' lives.
Although our hands-on time was short, within that limited period, we got a simple glimpse into the true face of this remote mountain village—The superficial peace and tranquility, along with the underlying oppression and eeriness.
To give a specific example: during the demo, in order to quickly experience the game's special"hunting" content, we immediately rushed to the village hunting station, hoping to obtain a hunting license from the hunter—to clarify, besides the common farming, mining, and fishing gameplay found in similar games, "Silent Pastoral" also features a seemingly less "peaceful" hunting mechanic.
Players can use bows or traps to hunt wild animals like squirrels, rabbits, and wild boars, selling animal materials or crafting them into items.
The prerequisite for hunting is that players must possess a license for each animal—One license corresponds to one type of animal. Therefore, you need to find the village hunter, "Komako," and purchase the corresponding license from her.
But in actual gameplay, I was turned away for two days in a row; the village hunting station is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. When it's not open, you can't even enter the building.
However, suchThis sense of "inconvenience" is exactly what this type of game needs. The sense of distance between characters also corresponds to two of Bijin Village's rules: do not approach strangers, and people should not casually pry into others' secrets—perhaps this is also why players cannot freely enter others' homes. In the game, you hardly see villagers visiting each other's houses.
The people of Bijin Village have standard daily routines. They take walks, work, and gather in the cafeteria for meals, but once night falls, they return home early and stay indoors.
Due tothe mandatory influence of "Peaceful Life Mode," we also had to abide by such lifestyle habits.
Fortunately, if you just want to enjoy a leisurely ranch life, then"Peaceful Life Mode" is completely sufficient—even, it might be more free and diverse than many similar games.
As mentioned earlier, "Silent Pastoral"'s portrayal of daily ranch life isn't limited to simply plowing, sowing, watering, and then placing harvested goods in the shipping bin. Even for the most common gameplay mechanics in similar games, it seems to want to create its own unique characteristics.
Taking the in-game"fishing" gameplay as an example.
In many similar games, interactions with"fish" are designed similarly across the board: players go fishing by the water to catch fish corresponding to the location and time—"Silent Pastoral" has a similar design, but it deliberately adds depth to this simple system: to obtain fish resources more efficiently, players can scatter bait near the fishing spot before casting, greatly increasing the chance of a bite. But if you think that's too much trouble, you can directly place a fishing net in the river—the rest is just waiting for the prey to walk right into the trap.
In fact, even in the earliest stages of the game, you can see many things that are bound to be time-consuming but can greatly enrichthe "ranch life" experience.
Maintaining farmland and surrounding facilities works just like this.
I'm not just talking about clearing weeds, stumps, and rocks from the fields, but using fences, paving stones, and wooden planks to build neat and orderly farmland facilities, enhancing the ranch environment both functionally and visually—In addition to preset houses and terrain, "Silent Pastoral" also supports custom ranch construction. Once you have a workbench and corresponding crafting recipes, you can start fencing off farmland to prevent weeds from growing wildly, install sap collectors on idle trees, or set up pickle barrels by the fields, waiting to turn your first harvest of vegetables into pickles.
Keep in mind, these contents are unlocked for players early in the game. If you try to do Everythinggj, your early character resources will definitely be insufficient.
All labor actions in the game, including crafting, consume stamina. Stamina can be restored with food from your inventory, or you can go to the village cafeteria and spend money on a proper meal. Generally, the better the meal, the more stamina restored.
Interestingly, players seem to only be able to enjoy three"proper meals," which makes stamina management even more significant in the game.
However, unlike most slice-of-life ranch simulation games, besides theBesides the "Stamina Bar," "Silent Pastoral" also has an additional "Health Points" resource. However, during this demo, we never encountered a situation where health points were consumed from start to finish.
Although the neighboringThe "Rune Factory" series also allows extra actions by "overdrawing life," but the stamina value in "Silent Pastoral" seems to have a different purpose—when a character's "Stamina Bar" is depleted, the player cannot perform any farming activities.
Therefore, this extra health value is more likely a survival resource when facing anomalies. Logically, it should also increase as the game progresses; the higher your health, the higher your margin for error in actions. The segmented calculation method also ensures that players won't be likethe "Yomawari" series, dying instantly due to one or two unreasonable ambushes upon first encounter.
Unfortunately, underUnder the control of "Peaceful Life Mode," these remain mere speculations.
But on second thought, forFor a game like "Silent Pastoral,"Perhaps "not knowing" is the best state—after all, in all horror stories set in "villages bound by old customs," there's always this trope: it's precisely because outsiders' excessive curiosity breaks taboo village rules that tragedy ensues.
The more people tell you not to do something, the more you want to do it; this is human nature—I think I would probably actively break the curfew rule on my first night in Bijin Village... Perhaps this is exactly the effect the developers intended.
Regardless, there are less than a month left until the official release of "Silent Pastoral." By then, whether you're curious about the dark secrets of Bijin Village or simply want to experience a free and unique ranch life under the exquisite picture-book style...I believe it can deliver a satisfactory answer—regardless, this will be a rare composite experience.