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Indie Game Spotlight: Frontier Story

Ready to fulfill your farming dreams? This week’s Indie Game Spotlight, Frontier Story, created by @jmw327, has captured our hearts this week with their latest farming sim. Frontier Story is about exploring a new world and its mysteries, while befriending the townsfolk, building your farm, and raising some adorable animals!

@jmw327, the solo developer handling the code, art, and game design of Frontier Story, took a moment to speak about the indie game scene and how to start getting into it!

What are some major influences to the game?

Harvest Moon 64 (my first Harvest Moon game) is an obvious one, but also the many worlds of the Legend of Zelda series, and the quirkiness of Earthbound, amongst other things. But not just video games! I read a lot as a child, so I think that had a huge influence on my preference for storytelling in games! And of course there are a lot of amazing people in my life who inspired me creatively and in other ways!

How do the farming mechanics work in Frontier Story?

The mechanics will have a lot of similarities of course to the Harvest Moon series, but with some twists of my own! I especially want animals to play a large role in the game, aside from just being tools to make money. So in addition to having them feeling more alive, hopefully almost like a virtual pet, some of them will have unique abilities which will help you in managing your farm if you treat them well! An example of this is a slime-like creature called a Droplet, which produces water!

How did you get into developing games?

It was something I had a desire to do for a while, and then last year I guess I just figured it was time to stop just thinking about doing it, and do it! I already had some programming experience, so I started learning art and trying to pick up the basics of game development just through trial and error.

What does your day-to-day look like for creating Frontier Story?

After all other life obligations are taken care of, I generally put most of my free time towards working on some aspect of the game. A nice part about doing both art and coding is I can create a more relaxing pace I think by switching between the two roles often.

What’s some advice you could give to anyone looking to get into the indie game scene?

Just start creating whatever it is that you want to create! There is a lot of advice on the internet on how to go about creating a game, but I think experimenting is essential when starting anything new. There are a lot of ways to do things, but I think it’s most important to find the one that works for you and your goals. Understanding what you want to get out of making your game is essential!

my long-suffering friends and followers:

(Image: An X-Men panel of Cyclops, who is saying, “These are our lives. It’s not a game of dress-up for the terminally over-privileged.”)

Cis writers: when you insist that trans identities are nothing more than misplaced misogyny and overly rigid gender roles, you are also claiming that trans people cannot possibly be aware or considerate of either our own minds or those factors. Cis publishers: When you hire cis writers to tell–or, in many cases, co-opt–our stories, you are rewarding and reinforcing the same.

The idea that a person–especially a person as intelligent and socially aware as Dr. James Barry–couldn’t distinguish between identifying as male and disguising himself to navigate a sexist system is so grossly patronizing and dehumanizing; and to do so in the face of his explicit lifelong and dying wishes is even more ghoulish.

Cis women: Your experiences are not the experiences of trans men. Transmasculinity is not a cheat code for hacking patriarchy.