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Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin characters will appear as free launch-day DLC characters in Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma. This information first appeared during the official stream to commemorate how pre-orders are open for the latest Rune Factory game. [Thanks, Famitsu!]

The information comes near the end of the stream, which shows Sakuna and Tama sitting outside a house before running to help with the rice fields. It then ends with a shot of Sakuna looking out over the village. The stream did not provide any further information on the Sakuna and Tama DLC in Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma. However, as this is free DLC, you don’t actually need to add them to your game if you don’t want to see them.

Other information that Edelweiss revealed in the stream include new romanceable characters Pilika and Cuilang, as well as information on village management and combat. In total, there are sixteen possible characters to romance—the most in a Rune Factory game—and all of the scenes are fully voiced. Aside from romantic scenes, you can also hang out with them in everyday situations. The game also includes same-sex marriages, as well as marriages between the protagonists. Heterosexual marriages may also results in children.

Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma will come out on May 30, 2025 for the Nintendo Switch and Windows PC via Steam.

The post Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin DLC to Appear in Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma appeared first on Siliconera.

XSeed Games has revealed the follow-up to Edelweiss' 2020 hit hybrid RPG and farming simulator Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin. The new game will be a spin-off centered on Princess Kokorowa and is titled Sakuna Chronicles: Kokorowa and the Gears of Creation.

The announcement was accompanied by a teaser trailer, showcasing the premise of the game and its lead characters, Princess Kokorowa, the Goddess of Invention, and an automaton named Takebina. As of now there is no release window or confirmation about what systems the game will be releasing on.

You can view the trailer below:

The new game takes place after the events of Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin, and centers on the spreading of automaton technology and Princess Kokorowa's role as the Goddess of Invention on a brand new adventure. No mention is made if characters from Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin will appear in the sequel apart from Lady Kamuhitsuki who is shown in the announcement trailer.

Publisher XSeed Games recently restructured its publishing responsibilities alongside Marvelous. In August 2024, both Marvelous and XSeed shared plans as to what this would mean for future endeavors going forward. This included what games would be published under each branch.

Sakuna Chronicles: Kokorowa and the Gears of Creation is in development by Edelweiss and will be published by XSeed Games.

The post Sakuna Sequel Kokorowa and the Gears of Creation Announced appeared first on Siliconera.

Sakuna will have its first-ever manga adaptation appear digitally in Japan. The new manga, titled Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin - Gods of Ikusadatara, will be available for free on Hero's online comic platform. The first chapter will appear on November 26, 2021.

The Sakuna manga is one of the five titles that Hero's will add to the platform to celebrate its tenth anniversary. Jiji and Pinch will create the manga adaptation of Edelweiss' popular action RPG. Marvelous will help as a supervisor to make sure it stays true to the Sakuna universe.

Gods of Ikusadatara will tell a different story from the original game. Sakuna discovers a mysterious berry while hunting for food ingredients. When Sakuna opens the berry, she finds twin babies that will drastically change her daily life.

While this is the first manga adaptation for Sakuna, it is not the first written publication for the franchise. Shueisha had previously released a novel adaptation of Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin on October 4, 2021. The novel tells the story of Sakuna's friend Kokorowa after events in the original game had ended.

Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin - Gods of Ikusadatara will begin appearing on Hero's online manga platform on November 26, 2021. It will be loosely based on the video game available immediately on the PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and PC via Steam. The game has sured 1 million units in sales as of June 2021.

The post Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin Manga Will Appear Digitally in Japan appeared first on Siliconera.

Shueisha will release the Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin - Kokorowa Rice Cultivation Journal novel on October 4, 2021. The author of this novel, Keiji Ando, previously wrote a novel for The Magnificent Kotobuki in 2019. The game's illustrator Ryota Murayama drew the novel's cover.

This novel will tell the story after events in the Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin video game. Sakuna is still working hard at cultivating rice on Hinoe Island. However, the novel will also focus on Kokorowa, Sakuna's friend and the goddess of wheels and inventions. For some reason, the latter also starts cultivating rice on her own.

The Kokorowa Rice Cultivation Journal novel will have 240 pages in B6 size (approximately 5 x 7 inches). It will also have four additional pages containing illustrations. Shueisha will sell the novel in Japan with a price tag of 1,100 yen (~$10). It is currently unknown whether the novel will also be released in English or other languages besides Japanese.

Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin is immediately available on PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and Steam. It sured 1 million units in sales as of June 2021. The game's development team, Edelweiss, also won awards for creating the game at Famitsu Dengeki Game Awards 2020 and CEDEC Awards 2021.

The Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin - Kokorowa Rice Cultivation Journal novel releases on October 4, 2021 in Japan.

The post Sakuna Novel Telling Post-Game Story Will Release in October 2021 appeared first on Siliconera.

The Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin digital OST is now available to purchase through the Steam storefront. The OST will feature a total forty-two tracks from the game. However, this version of the OST is the same one that came with the Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin Digital Deluxe edition. The OST can be purchased for roughly $15. The price will vary depending on your region, [Thanks, Game Watch!]

The OST is comprised of the various background music found in the game. This also includes the "Yananto Planting Song - Oracle -," featuring Japanese artist Saya Asakura. The album includes the normal and festival version of this song. The 42 track OST is immediately available to purchase.

Since its release in November 2020, Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin has gone on to sell 1 million copies worldwide. This included both physical and digital copies of the game. During its first month of release the title had sold 500,000 copies worldwide. Additionally, the developers at Edelweiss have shown interest in potentially creating a sequel. However, the developers still have no plans to potentially release any DLC for Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin.

That said, a recent update has added a new feature into the game that lets players pick up and carry their pets. Additionally, the developers have added language for Latin American Spanish and Simplified Chinese.

Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin is immediately available on PC, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch.

The post Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin Digital OST Now Available on Steam appeared first on Siliconera.

Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin recently ed a major sales milestone, and to celebrate, developer Edelweiss has added a new feature to improve the lives of its players -- expanded interactions with adorable pets. The feature was announced in a press release touting the sales record, which was unofficially ed earlier in June 2021.

The new pet-related features in Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin include both dogs and cats. A dog will even greet players when they return home from an adventure. They'll also be able to pick up a cat and a dog simultaneously. This pets-akimbo play style was previewed by the Twitter Can You Pet The Dog?

https://twitter.com/CanYouPetTheDog/status/1407755491044954118

This pets update also fixes bugs, implements balancing adjustments, and includes improvements "intended to keep seasoned players coming back for more." Edelweiss also expanded Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin's accessibility by adding language for Latin American Spanish and Simplified Chinese. Recently, the game ed the catalog of the Epic Games Store on PC. A global sale is also ongoing, with the game going for 30% off on all platforms, including EGS, Steam, the Nintendo eShop, and PSN Store.

Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin is immediately available on PC, PS4, and Nintendo Switch. Check out Siliconera's review of the game.

The post Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin Adds Pet Interactions and Language appeared first on Siliconera.

Edelweiss’ indie farming and fighting game hit a major milestone worldwide. Marvelous, its publisher, took to Twitter to confirm sales of Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin ed one million copies worldwide. In the reveal, it confirmed the figure included digital copies and physical copies on all platforms. The game had a near simultaneous release worldwide in November 2020.

In Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin, players follow the recently deposed harvest goddess. After her part in an altercation with a group of humans destroyed some of the gods’ supplies, she’s banished to her ancestral home with the humans. There, she must deal with the demon inhabitants and learn to make use of her gifts and farm. While at her new homestead, you learn to properly farm and prepare rice. When exploring the island, it shifts to a 2.5D sort of beat’em up where she uses farming tools and her divine raiment to attack. As she’s a harvest goddess, she draws strength from players becoming better farmers. (Edelweiss, its developers, even grew their own rice.)

Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin sales have steadily grown since its launch. It sold through its first shipment in Japan. It also hit 500,000 copies sold worldwide back in November 2020. Its development team even suggested it might be interested in a sequel.

Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin is available for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and PC. There will also be a Sakuna Nendoroid.

The post Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin es 1 Million in Sales appeared first on Siliconera.

The latest issue of Famitsu has special coverage of Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin to celebrate the indie game's success. It also includes a new interview with Koichi and Naru, the two key of the Japanese indie circle Edelweiss. In it, they expressed their interest in working on a sequel to Sakuna. [Thanks, Ryokutya2089.]

In the interview, the Edelweiss key also addressed criticisms of the game's iconic rice planting feature. That is also when they stated no interest in adding DLC to Sakuna and would rather do a sequel instead.

Here are some highlights from the Sakuna interview with Edelweiss' Koichi and Naru:

• "We received a lot of that said it's difficult to plant rice. Some staff also suggested the same thing. But we didn't want to implement a feature where you could plant them in a pretty way. We didn't want rice planting to be a process done by simply pressing a button."
• "The thing we heard about the most from actual farmers concerned the lack of preparations for the field [such as flooding and tilling the soil]. The reason for that is because we couldn't think of an idea to differentiate it from plowing the paddy."
• Koichi: "There are no plans for DLC. But we want to do a sequel if there is an opportunity."
• Naru: "We do not have a concrete plan for the sequel, but we can only say nothing but thanks to all our fans. We want to live up to expectations when the time comes."

Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin is immediately available on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and PC. The game recently received an update patch that increased the maximum year limit to 9,999.

The post Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin Developers Express Interest in a Sequel appeared first on Siliconera.

Xseed Games released a new Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin patch with new additions and adjustments. In addition to updating various aspects of growing and harvesting, the developers increased the maximum in-game years to 9,999. The update is out now on the PlayStation 4 and Steam versions, with the Nintendo Switch patch "coming soon."

The latest Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin patch remedies several bugs. For example, rare instances of a double KO between Sakuna and a boss could lead to a soft lock. The update also fixes some supplemental effects during growing and harvesting. The best addition is Sakuna's new animations when resting on the porch with her animal buddies.

We have the full patch notes and a few images below.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue that occurred rarely with certain boss fights where the game would proceed even if Sakuna and the boss were defeated at the same time.
• Fixed an issue in Amagaeshi Shrine where there was a possibility of enemies not loading in correctly following certain specific actions.
• Temperature is now a condition for Bakanae disease to develop.
• Salt damage will now be reduced by using flowing water or while the field is being drained.
• The disorder Cloudy Rice will now develop during the ripening stage, not the drying stage.
• Fixed an issue in the second half of the game where conditions for an event occurring in the field can be met using flowing water.
• Fixed it so that playtime is not extended incorrectly when fast-forwarding through cutscenes.
• Other minor bug fixes.

Adjustments

• Add new animations when resting on the porch.
• Improved the way that Tidal Wave interacts with the terrain.
• Improved the accuracy of annual temperature calculation.
• Adjusted Autumnal Hunter’s Garment as a reward for clearing Amagaeshi Shrine Floor 100.
• Maximum in-game years has been expanded from 999 to 9,999 and the Cornucopia effect of the Rice Hunter’s Garment will now max out after 1,000 harvests.
• Optimized U load when V-Sync is turned off.

[gallery ids="867065,867066,867067" link="file"]

Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin has been a big success. We last heard in November 2020 that the game's shipments and sales totaled over 500,000 copies worldwide. We enjoyed the game back when it first launched, which you can check out in our review. We also interviewed the developers on the process of researching such a niche like rice-growing.

Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin is currently available for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and PC.

The post New Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin Patch Increases Years to 9999 appeared first on Siliconera.

Japanese indie hit Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin has shipped 500,000 units worldwide, publisher Marvelous has announced. That number s for retail shipments and sales across PC (Steam), Nintendo Switch, and PlayStation 4.

Sakuna is developed by the two-man indie studio Edelweiss, and took a total of five years to make. The game is a combination of action-platformer and highly intricate rice-harvesting sim—a unique combination that is a large part of the reason for its success.

Upon release, Sakuna sold 55,861 copies at retail in Japan, selling out at stores due to retailers underestimating demand. This spurred sales, with the Switch version of the game reaching the #1 spot in the Nintendo eShop best-sellers list. The game also received positive word of mouth over social media, and this alongside cross-promotion from Japan's agricultural sector, drove continued sales over the next several days. At present, Sakuna is still at the #2 spot on the Japanese eShop.

In North America, Xseed Games stated that Sakuna was seeing twice as many pre-orders on Switch as PS4, owing to Nintendo's promotion of the game in their Nintendo Direct and Treehouse Live events. After launch, it worked its way into early 20s in the eShop best-sellers list, then higher up to the #12 spot where it remains today.

The post Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin Shipments Reach 500,000 Worldwide appeared first on Siliconera.

The latest Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin PS4 patch will solve issues regarding save data corruption. While a previous patch was released to help resolve this issue, PS4 s were still experiencing instances in which their save files would be corrupted. With this new update, s should no longer have any issues. [Thanks, Famitsu!]

The Marvelous website released the patch notes alongside the update, detailing what other changes will arrive with the latest fixes. The Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin PS4 1.05 patch will solve issues surrounding data corruption, reduce the stamina consumption for three skills, fixed delay issues with some combat skills, and correct the amount of fertilizer players can apply to their fields.

If the update has not automatically ed, PS4 s will need to check for updates manually in order to the 1.05 patch. Access to the internet will be required to the patch.

The previous 1.04 patch resolved instances of the game randomly crashing on the PS4. Other additional fixes have resolved issues with spider enemies becoming stuck in the ceiling of some dungeons, alongside other adjustments made to the game.

Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin is immediately available worldwide on the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and PC.

The post Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin PS4 Patch Stops Data Corruption appeared first on Siliconera.

The latest Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin patch for the PS4 will attempt to resolve multiple bugs that can cause the game to crash. Alongside these fixes, another bug has been resolved regarding spider enemies crawling on the ceiling and getting stuck. Patch 1.04 is immediately available for the PlayStation 4, and s will want to update their versions of the game to avoid further crashes. [Thanks, Famitsu!]

However, the development team is still working to investigate and resolve another more major bug. This issue in particular can potentially corrupt the game's save data. Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin PS4 Patch 1.03 was supposed to resolve the problem, however this has not entirely prevented Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin save data from being corrupting on the system. The development team, Edelweiss, reported that it is still working to resolve this issue and that PS4 s will need to wait for additional .

Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin has been selling fairly well in Japan. Specifically, on the Nintendo Switch the hybrid action-platforming and rice farming simulator made it to the second spot on the Nintendo eShop charts shortly after its release. Additionally, Japanese retail blogs have been reporting of the success of physical copies of the title in stores as well.

Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin is immediately available on the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and PC.

The post Latest Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin PS4 Patch Stops the Game’s Crashes appeared first on Siliconera.

Recent sales reports from Japan indicate that Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin has done rather well, as retailers have sold most of the first shipment of the game.

After five solid years of development, Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin made its debut on PC, Nintendo Switch, and PlayStation 4 earlier in the week. Developer Edelweiss says most of those five years were spent on the intricacies of the game's core mechanic—an incredibly realistic and detailed rice-harvesting simulation that makes your character stronger and prepares her for battle.

In Sakuna, the harvesting of rice begins with mixing rice seeds and mud into a bucket of water. More mud yields better rice, but also less rice, which already gives the player an early decision to contend with. You then need to till your field, and the amount of effort you put into this impacts how well your crop will contend with weeds (which you also need to routinely monitor as your rice grows). Once you've done that, you place your rice seeds in a seeding box and wait for them to sprout until they're ready to be planted. And all of that is just step 1.

When Edelweiss began working on Sakuna in 2015, the two-man team knew exactly what they wanted the game to be—equal parts action-platformer and rice-harvesting simulation. During development, they visited the Japan Agricultural Cooperatives association to learn the intricacies of harvesting rice, researched old Japanese homes and farming tools, and even went to the effort of growing their own rice to get a feel for the minutiae they wanted to replicate in-game.

The end result of all this effort is that Sakuna appears to be finding an audience that appreciates its eccentricities—at least in Japan. Multiple Japanese retail blogs have reported that Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin has sold through most of its first shipment to retailers. Meanwhile, on the Nintendo eShop in Japan, the game worked its way up to the #2 spot in the game rankings list over the weekend. (This is a list that takes into the last two weeks of digital software sales.) While none of this points to an overwhelming success, it does tell us that Sakuna is doing reasonably well, or at least, better than Japanese retailers expected.

People who have played the game remarked on Twitter that its commitment to simulating the rice-harvesting process as meticulously as it does caught them by surprise. Some are expressing that they aren't fully on board with just how painstaking the entire process is, while others revel in its uniqueness and are tweeting out screenshots and captures of their rice fields. A bunch of players have even found their way to the website of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries in Japan, where they're following an actual rice-growing guide to grow rice in the game.

Meanwhile, the agricultural industry appears to have spotted an opportunity to stir up word-of-mouth as well. Shinmei Holdings, a Japan-based manufacturer and distributor of rice products, recently spoke to Edelweiss about Sakuna's development process, and is presently conducting a Twitter campaign offering followers that retweet a chance to win two copies of the game and 2 kilos of rice. Shinmei also pointed Twitter followers to U.S. Miraijuku, an e-learning firm dedicated to teaching rice-cultivation, in the event that the game inspires someone to take up rice cultivation as an actual career or hobby.

Over in North America, there's no real indicator as to how well Sakuna is doing. We know that the Switch version saw twice as many pre-orders as the PS4 version prior to release, but that doesn't really give one a sense of how actual launch numbers look. The game moved its way into the early 20s in the eShop bestsellers list over the weekend, but again, that doesn't tell us much in isolation either. One will just have to wait for publishers Xseed and Marvelous to issue a statement once sales reach a satisfactory level.

The post Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin Appears to be Doing Well in Japan appeared first on Siliconera.

Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin has been in development for over five years, but if you go back and watch its very first trailer from 2016, it looks astoundingly similar to the game we're getting today. Not from a visual standpoint, of course—Sakuna has seen a great deal of polish in the interim—but it's plain that developer Edelweiss knew exactly the kind of game they wanted to make at the outset.

That game is a combination of action-platforming and rice-cultivation. It's an activity you don't often see represented outside of farming sims, and certainly not depicted as meticulously as it is in Sakuna. Early in development, Edelweiss' Nal and Koichi found themselves visiting agricultural universities and researching old Japanese farming tools and techniques to get a feel for the mechanics they wanted players to engage with. Nal and Koichi discussed their development process on Sakuna and growing rice on their own balconies with us, and XSeed Games Executive Vice President Kenji Hosoi talked about how the Nintendo Switch version of the game came to be.

Ishaan Sahdev, Siliconera: All of Edelweiss’ games feel well-rounded in a way that many doujin games aren’t. You’ve almost always made games that look visually appealing and also have a sense of polish in how they play. How is it that you’ve consistently been able to do this, right from Fairy Bloom all the way up to Sakuna?

Nal, Edelweiss: One thing I enjoy about creating video games is the process of combining so many mutually interacting elements together in a single work. Artwork, sound design, story scripts, game systems, engineering—I’m interested in everything. The creator’s interests greatly influence the balance of power in a smaller team’s work, so I think knowing a lot about all these elements allows us to develop well-rounded games. (You could say that I don’t have a single specialization.)

Although you work with other people, Edelweiss has two main —Nal and Koichi. Nal is a programmer and Koichi is an artist. How do you each feel your work has improved most with Sakuna?

Koichi, Edelweiss: Compared to our previous titles, the world, setting, and game design had a lot of depth to them, and handling all those elements at once was quite the task.

Nal: This was my first time developing a game that combined RPG and adventure elements with rice cultivation, so it was a huge learning experience skill-wise. By incorporating a real industry like rice cultivation into the game, I had the opportunity to reach out to people who work in that industry for research and review purposes, which really broadened my horizons. We could go in so many different directions for our future games, so it will be hard to pick just one.

An organization known as Japan Agricultural Cooperatives distributes rice growing kits for free. You can grow the rice in a bucket, so I tried growing some on my balcony.

[gallery columns="7" ids="858974,858975,858976,858977,858978,858979,858973" link="file"]

Photos of the rice Nal grew in his balcony as part of the research process.

For modern agriculture, I did research on the internet and borrowed academic papers from the National Diet Library (the largest government archive in Japan). We used this research when simulating how the rice grows in-game.

Because this game is based on Japan from long ago, we also needed to research old Japanese households and historical farming tools used for manual labor. I made my way to public archives of agricultural universities and the historical archives of rural regions (these exist all over Japan). To research traditional Japanese homes, I visited Kyoto and Shirakawa-go (a sightseeing village famous for old-style homes).

It was after the game was completed that we were able to speak with people from different industries. I had the chance to meet and talk with professional rice farmers, and I was interviewed by rice wholesalers and agricultural co-ops. I learned a lot and was able to broaden my horizons by speaking with people in industries that I don’t normally have any interaction with.

Nal, you mainly worked on fighting games prior to forming Edelweiss, and traces of that genre can be found in a lot of your work. What elements of fighting games do you feel can be used to make other genres more interesting?

Nal: The fighting game genre specializes in smooth, tight character movement, and I think you can use that to improve the basic foundation of pretty much any other game. Some of the fighting genre’s strongest aspects include systems where the character’s actions reflect the player’s input; clear character animations that vary in speed; and character movements that respond to changing circumstances.

You’ve been part of the Comiket scene for a long time, and you routinely highlight other doujin games by putting together these very well-edited showcase videos and publishing them on your YouTube channel. How do you solicit entries from other developers? Do you have any specific requirements or types of games that you like to highlight?

Nal: Traditionally each team makes their own trailer. I was wondering how to repurpose these trailers to help hype up the event, so I started making compilation videos to highlight these games. I generally begin collecting them about a month before Comiket. I use all the videos sent to me so long as there’s no copyright issues involved. So rather than seek out something specific, I continue to collect them in the hope that, if someone has a game they want to show the world, someone who’s looking for a game just like that will see it.

By now, you’ve released a bunch of your games overseas and attended a few overseas events as well, including PAX and E3. Do you get the sense there’s a difference between the western and Japanese audiences?

Nal: I was impressed to see that at western events people don’t hesitate to play game demos. (In Japan people are reluctant to play if nobody else is, and often watch over somebody else’s shoulder.) I’ve also noticed that the male-female ratio is closer at western events. But while there are subtle differences, overall I don’t think the two groups are fundamentally different. It’s reassuring to know that gaming fans exist all over the world.

Sakuna has two distinct elements that affect each other. There’s the rice cultivation, which is very elaborate. And then, there’s the combat and platforming. How did you begin work on the game? What was the first thing you built and tested when you started development?

Koichi: The rice cultivation element makes this game unique, so it was difficult for us to find other games for reference. It took a long time to decide how to design the gameplay around it. On the other hand, this was an action game at its core, so we had to get that right first. While researching rice cultivation and experimenting with trial-and-error we worked out the details little by little. We began figuring out the gameplay cycle over five and a half years of development, and we finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel during the last two years.

For the first three years, we were focused on just getting all the controls and gameplay for rice growing correct. At this stage, we hadn’t yet decided specifics like the details of how rice growing would affect Sakuna's abilities or what kind of value to assign to each action in the farming section.

When the action and story progression were taking shape as we continued development, it was time to stop postponing the details of the farming section and get to work. We laid out the farm work and all other aspects of the game and asked ourselves, “how should progression in each aspect affect the others?” It required thinking about various aspects of the game in parallel before we could finally get the details just right.

You’ve mentioned that Sakuna controls like a fighting game. Could you explain that? What options and approaches are available to the player in combat, and how do the controls tie into this?

Nal: Sakuna has weak, strong, and combo type attacks, can move quickly by jumping, stepping, and grappling, and also has the ability to parry. Instead of mashing buttons to execute a series of combos, you automatically set up combos by cancelling movements. Because of this, I think Sakuna has more fighting game mechanics than your typical action game.

There are invariably going to be people that get super-obsessive with managing their rice farm and will want to focus largely on that aspect of the game without getting into the combat as much. Is that something you’re looking at allowing for, even if it happens after release?

Koichi: Since this game asks players to make progress in both of those things in order to move forward, it would be difficult to focus on combat or cultivation alone. To put it another way, if a player works hard at one of those things, they’ll be rewarded when they return to the other. We realize that some players may find this stressful due to personal preference, so we took that into consideration and tried to balance the two elements as much as possible. That being said, I think Sakuna’s unique charm and merits shine through when these two elements are combined together.

What’s your on-paper development process like? At what stage did that process begin, and how much of the scope of the game had you planned out from the start?

Koichi: Compared to the normal development process for console games, our style is to scrap and build repeatedly, as opposed to spelling out every last detail. In of documentation, we outline our goals and concepts, discuss the reasoning behind them, and then the programmer comes up with specific ways to implement those ideas in-game. The core pillar of Sakuna’s development wasn’t a story as a script, but a story in the sense that we considered how the playstyle would change as players experienced the game’s beginning, middle, and end. We reviewed every element, including the script, in that context and then implemented them in the game itself.

I the trailer that was shown at Comic Market 90 in 2016, and you already had the grapple ability with the scarf present both in combat and traversal. What kind of cool stuff are you trying to do with the grapple?

Koichi: There are lots of ways to use the Divine Raiment. For example, you can use it to weaken enemies that are more powerful than Sakuna. There are also skills that make it even stronger, so you should have fun experimenting with them. Besides being a useful item, it also plays an important role in advancing the story.

Sakuna is almost the polar opposite of Astebreed, which felt a little more male-oriented with the mechas and sci-fi backdrop. This time, you’ve got a game that looks much cuter, maybe more approachable, and we already know that the farming genre tends to be very popular with women. Was that something that factored into your decision-making?

Koichi: Since this is an action-RPG with a strong female protagonist, we knew from the start that this game would have wide appeal, and Murayama-san’s involvement as an artist certainly had a dramatic effect. We didn’t even think about how popular farming sims are among female audiences, as we were committed to creating a game that had wide appeal. I would say that we’re a little concerned about the difficulty level of the action segments for some players, since it can get pretty high at times, but you can solve most combat-related problems by gaining levels, so please don’t give up if you run into a difficult enemy. Keep planting rice and try again after you’ve leveled up some more.

The game has seen a full extra year of development time. What’s changed or improved most in the interim? (I Astebreed changed dramatically during the latter half of development)

Koichi: This is true for any game, but when you look in from the outside, a game’s development progress is neither linear nor easy to grasp. Many titles seem to undergo drastic changes near the end of their development. If most of a game’s eye-catching elements won’t appear until basic development is complete, then they won’t be apparent to anyone, and you can’t even start working on them. For much of a game’s development you can’t see the actual result, and in that sense, we start adding the final touches when we’re on the verge of hitting the finish line. I think the amount of time and commitment you invest in the game at this stage determines the quality of the final product. We probably could have released Sakuna earlier if we’d fixed up how the game looked and forced ourselves to push it out in a hurry, but we knew we’d regret releasing something we weren’t satisfied with. By working on it for another year, we finally reached a level of quality that we were happy with.

Edelweiss is a small team, but now you’re developing an action-heavy, console-quality game. How do you handle things like game feel and testing?

Nal: When it comes to the action parts, I personally prefer to test them multiple times. Since I have a strong attachment to side-scrolling action games, the aspects I came up with and implemented in-game came out as I expected for the most part.

Do you feel you’ve turned a corner with Sakuna? It looks so much bigger in scope and more polished than any of Edelweiss’ prior games. Have you thought about what you’d like to do next?

Koichi: Compared to our previous titles, Sakuna has received a great deal of positive attention in advance of its release, so we ourselves don’t know what lies ahead. It’s exciting and worrisome at the same time. We ended up depending a lot more on outsourced staff for this project, and I think we need to spend some time rethinking Edelweiss’ core principles. In any case, we’d like to consider all that at our leisure while taking a nice break.

Are you looking to continue working with publishers in the future on these larger, more ambitious games, or do you want to take a break and do something smaller?

Koichi: I think focusing on a single title for so long would cause our technological advancement to plateau after a certain point. We’re currently eyeing the possibility of reforming our development environment and working on something very small as a learning project. Our future plans have yet to be set, but we’re not originally aiming for large-scale games. So even if Sakuna has a positive reception, we don’t feel that we have to keep expanding and expanding. Regardless of what happens, we’d like to move forward with our core principles in mind.

You’re collaborating with a well-known publisher for the first time. How is the process different from your prior games, and how did it change things once they got involved?

Koichi: XSEED Games is an amazing publisher, and we really appreciate that they closed the distance between themselves and the development side of things. They worked closely with us from start to finish. In the middle of production, we decided on a multi-region, multi-platform simultaneous release, which led to technological difficulties and really limited our schedule, but they pushed back the release date multiple times. Ultimately, having a deadline allowed us to speed up the process of finishing the game. When I look back on the whole process, they respected our position all the way to the very end.

Do you feel being a doujin (indie) developer in Japan is a viable career? In the west, the indie scene has grown enormously over the past decade, to where a lot of people have been able to make it their full-time career. And while they work long hours and don’t make a lot money, they get to do what they love and it keeps a roof over their heads. What do you think it would take for Japan to get there?

Koichi: In the case of Japan’s indie scene, I think it’s less about having a career that pays the bills and more about being able to share a common hobby with a close-knit community. I think most people who want to work in the indie business brush up their skills first, then after getting their name out there, they move into the business side of things. I don’t think being an indie developer, per se, puts you in a position where you have to make a living doing it. On the other hand, due to the success of all sorts of people, in recent years “indie” itself has become more common in the overseas sense of the word. If it would help even a few more ambitious developers turn this into their career, we should provide such people with the they need to make and showcase their titles. This will lead to more success stories, and I think that the indie scene will become more active than ever before.

[For XSEED] XSEED has been involved as Sakuna’s publisher going as far back as 2017. I believe you approached them during Bitsummit and asked if they wanted to work with you. How far along was the game at that point?

Kenji Hosoi - XSEED Games, EVP: Yes! The first time we talked to Nal at Edelweiss was when he was showing Astebreed at BitSummit in 2014, I believe. Our President, Ken Berry, was visiting the show in Kyoto and was super impressed with how great Astebreed looked and felt, so he ended up chatting about Astebreed and future projects that Edelweiss had planned. Business cards were swapped, and we kept in touch until they started working on Sakuna. When we first met him, Sakuna was still just a rough concept in Nal’s head.

What happened after the initial conversation between you and them? How did Marvelous get involved, and what has the role of Marvelous and XSEED been on the project?

The initial conversation ended after business card swapping and that was it for a while. Nal later reached out, letting us know that he had a build of his new game he wanted us to check out, and here we are. Initially, XSEED was the only one involved, but when our Japan head office saw the game in action, they fell in love and asked us if they could become the publisher for Asia.

In of developer involvement, neither Marvelous Japan nor XSEED has been involved with the development side. XSEED handled the English localization of the game (BIG shout out to translator Elizabeth Bushouse and editor Derek Heemsbergen, as well as our awesome internal localization staff!) as well as the English voice recording. Marvelous Japan handled the Japanese voice recording with Edelweiss and the Chinese translation (Korean translation was handled by the Korea publisher, Arc System Works Asia Branch.)

It’s interesting how the game was initially announced for PC and PlayStation 4, but nearly every major showing over the last two years has been at a Nintendo Direct or Treehouse Live stream. How has that increased exposure impacted sales expectations?

Initially our plan was to release on PC and PS4 only, but after Sakuna was announced as being in the works, our Nintendo at the time reached out to us on more than one occasion to consider releasing the game on the Nintendo Switch as well. We were initially hesitant on the first few reach outs as it just was not part of the original plan and we would have had to reschedule everything, but after multiple talks with Nintendo and hearing how ionate they were about the game, we ultimately decided to release the game on the Switch as well.

That wasn’t an easy ask for Edelweiss, but we all agreed that Switch would be a great platform for the game. In hindsight, we’re glad we took their request seriously as we have nothing but appreciation towards Nintendo for actively showcasing the game, and in of sales impact, we’re seeing great launch orders on the Switch—about a 2-to-1 over PS4.

Finding good development/publishing partners can be difficult. Now that you’ve established a working relationship with Edelweiss, have you talked about the future at all? Whether they’re interested in doing another project with XSEED/Marvelous, or if you would be interested in funding/publishing their next project?

We would love to work with Edelweiss again on future projects! We’ve been amazed at their ion and skill, and have immensely enjoyed working with them over the last few years, especially our hours-long meetings in our usual café when we visited them in Japan. We’ve been completely focused on getting Sakuna ready for release and haven’t talked much about anything post-Sakuna, but if Edelweiss and their team pitch us a new game idea, we’ll definitely be interested as they bring a lot of talented people to the table.

Given how well this has worked out, are you going to be looking at other independent developers in the future? Is that something XSEED or Marvelous is interested in—receiving pitches or proposals from indies?

XSEED has been very fortunate in being able to work with a pretty amazing list of talented indie devs in our 16 years of business. From Team GrisGris, GalaxyTrail, Magnetic Realms, WayForward, Ankake Spa, and now Edelweiss, as well as our recently announced partnership with Voracious Games, we’re always happy to super ionate indie devs. Every indie title we’ve worked on has been very exciting and we learn something new with every project. Our love for indie games is still going strong, so would love to hear from more developers directly. Currently, the best way to reach us is still via our general public-facing e-mail of [email protected], but we are looking to create an indie-dedicated way of reaching out to our key people directly.

Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin is available for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and PC. This interview has been edited for clarity and readability.

The post Interview: How Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin’s Devs Grew Their Own Rice for Research appeared first on Siliconera.

Nearly four years after its first trailer, Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin will release for the PC, Nintendo Switch, and PlayStation 4, but that wasn't always the case. Initially, Sakuna, which augments its stylish action-platforming with an intricate rice-harvesting sim, was only in development for the PC and PS4, and the Switch hadn't been considered. Now, XSEED Games Executive Vice President Kenji Hosoi announced the Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin Switch version was pre-ordered "2-to-1 over PS4."

According to XSEED, which is publishing Sakuna in North America, the platforms it would appear on changed after Nintendo expressed an interest in Edelweiss' game. Ever since the Switch version's announcement, most of Sakuna's exposure to the public has been at presentations like the company's Nintendo Directs and Treehouse Lives, which has driven more pre-orders on the platform.

Here's Hosoi's statement to Siliconera

Initially our plan was to release on PC and PS4 only, but after Sakuna was announced as being in the works, our Nintendo at the time reached out to us on more than one occasion to consider releasing the game on the Nintendo Switch as well.

We were initially hesitant on the first few reach-outs, as it just was not part of the original plan and we would have had to reschedule everything, but after multiple talks with Nintendo and hearing how ionate they were about the game, we ultimately decided to release the game on the Switch as well.

That wasn’t an easy ask for Edelweiss, but we all agreed that Switch would be a great platform for the game. In hindsight, we’re glad we took their request seriously as we have nothing but appreciation towards Nintendo for actively showcasing the game, and in of sales impact, we’re seeing great launch orders on the Switch—about a 2-to-1 over PS4.

Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin will be available on the Switch, PlayStation 4, and PC on November 10, 2020. Siliconera's full interview with Edelweiss and XSEED Games on the day of its release.

The post Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin Pre-Ordered Twice as Many Times on Switch appeared first on Siliconera.