I have such a love/hate relationship with Stardew Valley, slightly less so with My Time At Portia (the developers seem to have at least considered wrist strain in the button layout and mechanics). I long for a moneyless, classless game in this genre where the incentives are community thriving, trust, pleasure, and all the other aspects that make life worth worth living outside of capitalism. Does that game exist?
I feel like the best you could possibly find is a game that uses a resource as payment that isn’t called “money,” but mechanically it would be the same.
But there is Minecraft. You can farm in that and you don’t need money (even though it exists in the form mentioned above).
There are farming-focused mod packs for Minecraft too
I long for a moneyless, classless game in this genre where the incentives are community thriving, trust, pleasure, and all the other aspects that make life worth worth living outside of capitalism.
I think Sim Ant technically meets these conditions.
Amazing, I’ll check it out
Edit: Oh wow 1991! Won some awards back then, too 🐜
Whats the best way to play Sim Ant these days? Ive always wanted to try it
There is even a Star Trek-ish game where you have to produce to earn money to upgrade the ship for your crew. I get that it is a game mechanic, but seems like a perfect setting to not have money, and just concentrate on the people.
Not exactly moneyless but imagine quality of life improvements for Stardew Valley. That’s “Fields of Mistria”.
Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles … but with the caveats that a) it’s only PARTLY like stardew/portia/harvestmoon and b) For the life of me I can’t remember if the game had money or not.
The game is partly farm-life-sim, but the other part is “zelda-like” adventuring and getting rid of “dark smoke thing” that does bad things to the world.
It has a barter system, but you don’t need to use it if you don’t want to. Nearly everything you need in the game can be harvested or made.
Their other game, Grow: Song of the Evertree, is pretty fun too. It’s partly a city builder, partly exploring new worlds that you create. It’s been a while since I played it, so I remember some sort of currency, but I don’t really remember having to work that hard for it. Mostly, I just focused on creating worlds with crazy elements.
you might like Moonglow Bay! it’s not moneyless but the rest is all that
(also it’s a fishing game with boss battles)
Papers Please
This is a tankie nightmare. I’m a border control agent? And if I fuck up my wages are reduced? Seems like you answered the opposite of my question
It’s an extremely bizarre suggestion given your request. I do want to defend the game (though not the suggestion) a little though.
It initially presents as you say, but offers you opportunities to fight back in your capacity as border control. Letting in the right people can help the resistance and incite a coup, or enable you and your families escape from the country. It isn’t just Be A Good Tankie Simulator 2013, though you can play it that way too.
I also love this game. It’s just fun to play.
The first games that popped into my head were Forager and Outpath, though these arent so much community building type games. They are more just something cute to relax to. They have farming and resource collecting and honestly play more like an active idler game than anything. Another game ive sunk tons of time into that kinda meets your requirements is Banished. Its just a medieval city builder game but it is deceptively hard to get a good balanced town going which can be pretty rewarding in itself. Theres no money per se but you do have to manage resources. Theres bartering in the game but you use your resources like crops and stone and stuff.
Seconding banished, it’s great with mods
You may be interested in Aska. It asks the question “what if valheim was also a colony sim?”. It’s a bit less chill then Stardew/Portia, but it is a classless, moneyless community building game.
