What's more relaxing than a farming sim? Many of us love to wind down with a few hours of tending crops, looking after cows, and taking in the seasons in a good ol' Story of Seasons game. And for almost 30 years, this hugely popular series has been sowing the seeds and setting the standard for the genre.
So what if it were to do something entirely different? The farmhands have swapped their hoes for pens and taken up a spot of picross. Piczle Cross: Story of Seasons marks the first time Marvelous' farming franchise has stepped out of the mulch and into a different genre. Can you get more relaxing than a farming-based puzzle game?
To find out what made Story of Seasons and Piczle Cross the perfect match, we spoke to the creator of the Piczle series James Kay from Score Studio, and the brand manager for Story of Seasons at Marvelous Inc, Hikaru Nakano.
Nintendo Life: So, where did the idea for Piczle Cross: Story of Season come from?
James Kay, founder/creator of Piczle series: Rainy Frog, the publisher, and I were blue-sky brainstorming about what would be cool IPs to do crossovers with and when Story of Seasons came up it felt like such a great idea that we decided to really pursue it.
Story of Seasons is cute, relaxing, comfortable gaming and Piczle Cross is a relaxing visual logic-puzzle so it just felt right. Also, I am an unapologetic fan of the Story of Seasons series.
How does the standard Piczle Cross gameplay mix with the Story of Seasons formula?
JK: The puzzles are all based on Story of Seasons mainstays, like the farming tools, crops and animals, but also the bachelors and bachelorettes and villagers from the Story of Seasons games, as well as a few collage puzzles (a lot of smaller puzzles that altogether form one much larger solution image) based on some classic festivals.
On top of that your farm in the background evolves as you clear puzzles and as time progresses, experiencing the seasons and years as you would in the Story of Seasons games. There is also an almanac showing the cute animals and characters, along with their likes and dislikes, once you’ve unlocked them through clearing puzzles. There's a music player too where you can listen to the included music tracks from the games in the Story of Seasons series.
This is described as “the most feature-rich and option-abundant experience” so far. What changes and additions have been made for Piczle Cross: Story of Season?
JK: I very much believe you can play nonograms however you please. Some people like a challenge, others just want to relax. So you can turn off the timer, use hints to show where moves can be made, automatically correct wrong moves or have the game check for any mistakes you’ve made overall. Or none of these. These are all optional. There is no wrong way to play!
On top of that, there are a lot of quality of life features, like completed rows or columns automatically having their empty cells marked off for you. Counting how long a series of blocks is by the touch of a button (or automatically). Measuring a series of grid cells easily - no more counting by hand!
Completed clues can be marked off automatically, or not at all, or even manually — you can, if you want, mark off clues by hand.
All these options are explained easily in the options menu so you know exactly what does what.
What keeps you coming back and making more Piczle games?
JK: I just really really like puzzles! Logic puzzles of all kinds are just things I truly enjoy, so when I create Piczle games I am creating games I myself really want to play. Even the development of the Piczle games is a bit like puzzles for me. I set myself some goals that I feel are beyond my technical skills and then enjoy learning and solving issues until I figure it out.
“Ikigai” is a term often thrown about by lifestyle coaches, but in this case developing logic puzzles truly might be my ikigai.
As the first non-farming game in the Story of Seasons series, did you have any concerns before or during development?
Hikaru Nakano, Story of Seasons brand manager: We didn’t have any particular concerns before starting the project. You can get a great feel for the world of Story of Seasons in Piczle Cross and we hope that it might encourage users who have never played Story of Seasons before to try out our farming games.
What was it like working with Score Studios, and what elements of Story of Seasons did you want to retain in the game?
HN: When James (Score Studios) and Tony (Rainy Frog) told us about the project, it was hard to imagine at first what it would be like, but as we discussed more, we could feel their passion for Story of Seasons and I started looking forward to playing the game. When we tried it out for the first time, it was great to see how characters, crops etc. from the Story of Seasons games had been turned into puzzles, and it was a lot of fun to play.
Although the game genres are different, I wanted Piczle Cross to have the same charming atmosphere as the Story of Seasons games. We didn't give James any particular direction on what to do, but you can see that he has done an incredible job of realising Story of Seasons' appeal in a puzzle game.
How important was it to have the almanac, which celebrates the history of Story of Seasons, in the game?
JK: One of the things many players like myself love about the Story of Seasons games are the many characters and their personalities. As Piczle Cross: Story of Seasons isn’t a traditional Story of Seasons game with characters interacting, I really wanted to add them in some other way.
The almanac contains all the Story of Seasons characters with their character art, a small bio and, for players of the Story of Seasons games, and a few hints as to what they like and dislike. It was a way to let people enjoy their favourite villagers and bachelors as well as giving a little extra incentive to play the puzzles to unlock them all.
Do you have a dream Piczle crossover you’d like to create?
JK: Hoo boy, yes, quite a few! Some are extremely unlikely to ever happen, and others I, alongside my publisher Rainy Frog, are actively pursuing right now. So fingers crossed we get to make some more!
Could we see other crossovers in the Story of Seasons series in the future?
HN: I wouldn’t rule it out. James at Score Studios is a great puzzle game creator and was able to faithfully recreate the feeling of Story of Seasons as a puzzle game. If similar opportunities like this come up in the future, then I’d like to consider it.
This interview has been edited lightly for clarity.
Thank you to James Kay and Hikaru Nakano for taking the time to answer our questions. Piczle Cross: Story of Seasons launches on 27th February 2024 on Switch. Will you be planting with picross? Let us know in the comments.