“Such quick little lives our pets should spend with us (…) it’s wonderful how a lot love and laughter they convey into our lives” – John Grogan
Overview
Hamster Playground is a enjoyable free-to-play Hamster coaching sport that mixes administration simulation with mini-games and an overload of cuteness! The sport is presently in early entry and receives common updates!
Developer: We Dig Video games
Launched: twenty second August 2022 (Early Entry)
Worth: Free to play
Platforms: Home windows, Mac Linux (Xbox, Change, Ps TBA)
Obtainable on: Steam
Engine: Unity
This sport is being reviewed as a part of the Indie Recreation Collective (IGC) showcase.
Gameplay
The primary activity of Hamster Playground is to pick out and identify a hamster. In addition to various appearances, the accessible critters will all have completely different personalities and wishes, for instance, one is likely to be a lazy hamster who requires extra sleep than common, and one other could eat much less. These stats can be found to the participant earlier than they select their pet.
There are many quests to finish in-game, most pertain to bettering the Hamster home, including new furnishings and upgrading gear. The primary sequence of duties works as a tutorial and guides the participant via feeding their hamster, getting it to drink, use the bathroom and wash in addition to encouraging it to play and sleep. This stuff are additionally the hamster’s primary wants and have to be monitored repeatedly. Caring for the hamster’s wants and finishing quests will present XP, upon levelling up a number of rewards can be granted.
There are a number of mini-games in Hamster Playground that may be performed towards a CPU or on-line towards different random gamers. The video games embody skateboard racing, an consuming competitors and a maze race. The skateboard race requires the participant to click on the mouse whereas a shifting pointer is in a particular space in an effort to advance the hamster. The consuming competitors sees gamers match playing cards as shortly as potential in an effort to eat essentially the most meals. Lastly, a mix of those mechanics is used to get via the maze in a speedy trend and win the race.
Hamsters may be skilled in energy, dexterity, intelligence and dedication utilizing completely different gear. This may have an effect on how they every carry out on the varied mini-games and it’s as much as the participant which stats they favour when coaching the animals. A hamster with excessive intelligence and low dexterity is likely to be higher at mazes than skating.
Forex
There are a number of kinds of forex in Hamster Playground. Cash can be utilized to purchase garments, meals, water and pay for repairs. Stars are helpful for getting furnishings and decorations. Screws are used for upgrades and seeds are used for coaching. These 4 can all be obtained by levelling up or finishing quests and mini-games. Nevertheless, a fifth forex, diamonds, is just accessible if purchased with actual cash. They’re accessible in packs of 100-7000 diamonds and can be utilized to purchase unique customisation gadgets. For instance, a brand new hat or shirt will price 90 diamonds, and a brand new hamster pores and skin (solely accessible with diamonds) will price 20. Stars and cash may also be purchased with diamonds.
The inclusion of diamonds is maybe lower than ultimate for a sport that may seemingly have a youthful target market. A paid sport with out non-obligatory micro-transactions might need been a extra moral selection, although not essentially viable. That being mentioned, whereas this fifth forex can get fairly expensive if shopping for the larger bundles it’s completely potential to play and benefit from the sport with out buying any diamonds in any respect.
Narrative and Styling
There are not any actual story parts to Hamster Playground and the sport’s narrative consists of those the gamers create for his or her hamsters when selecting their personalities and deciding which expertise to concentrate on. That is pretty commonplace for the style and it doesn’t really feel as if something is lacking.
The sport has a really upbeat soundtrack crammed largely with barely funky music that includes brass, drums, jolly vocals and cute twinkling sounds. This suits the sport rather well and makes a pleasant audio accompaniment to the gameplay together with some charming sound results that assist convey the hamsters to life. Hamster Playground additionally has some beautiful visuals consisting of an isometric view and vibrant 3D fashions. The Hamsters themselves are a specific visible deal with and are completely cute, that is very true of their pleasant animations!
Upcoming Updates
When it comes to future content material, the builders have made a roadmap accessible on Steam that lists issues akin to superior racing, further customisation, a maze builder, and the potential for hamsters to fall ailing in addition to new DLC. There may be additionally a be aware initially of the sport to say there can be updates to present content material together with native and on-line multiplayer, the sport’s economic system and sport modes.
Abstract
Total, Hamster Playground is an adorably enjoyable expertise. The upbeat music and vibrant styling work nicely with the jolly really feel of the sport and the overload of cuteness offered by the hamsters as they go about their duties is an absolute delight. There’s a good selection within the content material, from taking care of the hamsters to coaching them, taking part in mini-games and refurbishing the hamster dwelling. There are limitations to the quantity of leisure the present content material can provide however it’ll simply present a number of hours of enjoyable with tons extra content material on the way in which. As a free-to-play sport, that is nice high quality with no requirement to make in-game purchases until searching for particular beauty gadgets. I’d fortunately suggest gamers try this title and definitely keep watch over the developer’s updates!
In case you like this sport you may additionally take pleasure in these different animal antics:
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