The latest indie publisher to hop on the Nintendo Direct-like showcase bandwagon (which, for the record, we're big fans of) is Chibig, the studio behind Summer in Mara and Deiland: Pocket Planet. Their showcase, which is called "Chibig Presents", will be livestreamed on their Twitch channel at 4pm GMT, on Wednesday, February 2nd.
The showcase will include trailers, physical releases, and the announcement of three new games:
Mika and the Witch’s Mountain
A fantasy coming-of-age adventure about a trainee witch delivering packages on her magic broom. Coming to Switch in 2022.
Elusive People
A Borrowers / Stardew Valley mashup where players grow a farm in a watering can and forage for resources in an enormous house. Coming to console in 2023.
Koa and the Five Pirates
A bouncy puzzle platformer set in the sunkissed world of Summer in Mara. Coming to console in Summer 2022.
Kickstarter success Ankora: Lost Days, a prequel to Summer in Mara and Deiland: Pocket Planet, will also be coming to Nintendo Switch in Summer 2022:
And Summer in Mara, a single-player farming sim set over a scattered archipelago of islands, will be getting a physical release, including Collector's Editions, which you will be able to pre-order from Amazon.
Are you excited to see the world of Mara expand? Do any of the games on this list tickle your fancy? Let us know in the comments!
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Comments 14
I think I’m interested in all of these, they all look charming with an interesting gameplay loop. The backlog hungers for new souls.
I felt excited with ALL those games by Chibig ! 😃
All of them looked interesting.
I have never felt so excited with bunch of indie games from same company.
And for Ankora, Yaaaay....!!!
Physical release from the trailer! 😁
And looks like Koa have spin off game with 3D platformer style.
they all look somehow the same... since mara was pretty mediocre I'm not super hyped about them
Did they ever fix Summer in Mara? That should probably be the first priority.
Mika and the Witch’s Mountain is giving me Kiki's Delivery Service vibes.
I like that the Koa game goes with linear level design instead of open worlds. Looks fun.
@Synecdoche I don't own this game, can you tell me what need to be fixed?
The critic reviews are all over the board for Summer in Mara, ranging from the 8/10 all the way down to 3/10 from Nintendo Life. The NL review didn't mention performance issues in the pros/cons list and some comments said their review was overly harsh, so I'm having trouble getting an accurate reading on how it plays today and why the reviews are so inconsistent.
I wanted to try Summer in Mara but the majority of reviews said it's basically just a fetchquest game with some cute artwork.
Elusive people looks great. I wonder why no ones made a borrowers game before.
Nice they are all great looking game, Mika and the Witch’s Mountain looks like it borrow the Wind Waker's cel-shaded graphics, even the ocean wave looks the same.
Sooo.... Kiki's Delivery Service, The Littles (80's TV show), Crash/Sonic platformer..... and.... "What if Captain Toad, Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley had a baby?"
@Astral-Grain I don’t own it either, because of the reviews. Game Skinny also gave it a 3/10 and their review details their problems with the game, including bugs.
@Synecdoche 3/10 typically means "unplayable" for most review outlets and that definitely doesn't seem the case here. From what I gather, Summer in Mara was perfectly playable on release and has since received several patches released to fix issues. It seems more like a 6/10 or 7/10 after patches, but this also depends on if the player likes games with lots of exploration and fetch quests.
The Game Skinny review in particular read as negative just for the sake of being negative. The GS reviewer feigned praise for the studio ghibli-style intro animation and then criticized the 3D graphics for not being as pretty in comparison. The GS reviewer also complained the hunger mechanic is out of place and annoying (it is a farming sim) and then admitted it's actually quite easy to stay fed when you grow crops. Then, to make this a negative point, they said because it's easy to stay fed, it shouldn't have been in the game.
It became difficult to separate the actual bad parts of the game from the moody negative tangents of the reviewer.
Well, can't say I am excited about the expansion. However, these look charming in their own right, and all of them look very "Mara-ish" if one can say. Like they're all games from the same franchise.
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