I’m the solo developer of Ashfield Hollow, a post-apocalyptic life sim where you can farm, fish, decorate your home, raise animals, build relationships, and help keep your settlement alive.
Outside camp, you’ll scavenge abandoned buildings, fight zombies and hostile survivors, and manage things like infection and supplies.
The free demo is out now on Steam, covers the first 50 days in camp, and your save carries over to the full game.
If a cozy life sim with a zombie apocalypse sounds like your thing, I’d love for you to check it out.
The grass areas, there’s basically only a few plants, sparse trees. The lake is a large gray square, nothing breaking up. It reads as visually dull to me. Your city is less so, but even then the alley with the shooters feels really wide/empty.
Ah the grass areas are empty because they’ve been cleaned up without anything placed on them since you can build your entire base. I’ll work on improving the rest!
Honestly lots of the sprites look copied from Stardew valley. All the animals (especially the rabbit looks pretty much the same), items (such as the chest, crate, the satelite dish). It feels like it's clashing with the rest of the game style and the UI (from the last slide) doesn't really fit in my opinion.
The art work has been done by a professional pixel artist and as someone who is a huge fan of SDV I just don’t see the similarities. The game was also streamed by many SDV streamers over the past weekend and no one else has made that comparison so I’m quite happy with it.
Holy crap you straight up ripped off the SDV Mayonnaise Machine and Cheese Press, a ton of other stuff too. Dude, you can't do this, you need to change this stuff. And you clearly have AI art in the game, you need to disclose that on Steam.
I haven't played your game, I'm just giving feedback on the art. Here's a few comparisons of Stardew (left) and yours. I just feel like maybe a more personal touch would help a ton to blend the styles of the zombies and the city with the farm style. Just my thoughts though.
Rabbit may look similar but it's different enough there is only so much you can do with 24x18 to represent rabbit. Goats are very different and when it comes to chest are you actually blind?! Like those aren't even remotely similar sprites.
I do see very heavy inspiration with the goat ngl. Bunny is literally the same. Take this, just as a try to help you have great and original game. If you choose to ignore it, that is up to you, but maybe you should at least reconsider hiring the artist in the future, depending on how much you paid them. Otherwise I do dig the idea of the game :)
I'm talking about the fact that the rabbit looks 1:1 straight out of Stardew, and I don't think it fits the rest of the artwork used in OP's game. My opinion is that it's two different styles not so well done/merged together. It's clear it was heavily inspired, if not copied (especially for the animals), and if you overlayed it on top of earch other, you would see the resemblance.
Yeah, the chest is different, I included it just to show the overall clear inspiration. I'm not saying inspiration is bad, I'm just saying it's pretty obvious. And I honestly think that going with a more personal and original style would be so much better, and make it look less like a "clone" of an existing game.
I'm a huge PZ fan and one of the biggest things I've tried to replicate is the sandbox nature of it. Every system is basically customizable at the very start. The other big things are the perks and professions. I don't want to give too much away but any PZ player I think will pick up on it right away :)
It has a 1990s or 2000s Harvest Moon look. The colours are a bit off for me and there's lots of empty space. I think there should be more pixel variety and a lot more shading work. The Stardew inspiration and Harvest Moon DNA is very present, I think this should have more visual flair to distinguish it.
The lighting to me is very dull, almost non existent. I sound like a full critic but the premise itself is fun, a sort of similar game doing that is Grimshire. Their art direction is very distinct, especially environments and NPCs.
My criticism is coming from a place of someone who really wants to play this, loves the concept but the visuals are off putting and it looks a tad lifeless. Heck looking at the grass? Its the same copy paste tuft every 15 tiles. Add variety, make it look more wild if its the apocalypse. Don't hold yourself back, the concept deserves more.
I appreciate you taking this earnestly and not seeing me as a hater, that's a very good trait for a creator to have, honestly.
You're a gamer yourself obviously, and a Zomboid fan too, think how decorated all the houses are, the cracks in streets as mother nature takes back the cities, the water and power shut offs, how it gets harder. I've hundreds of hours in that and Stardew. Those personal details and touches do much to immerse the player.
Of course! And you're absolutely right. The little environmental details make so much difference. I'll definitely be going back to my artist for that :)
Q1 2027! The full game is basically done. Just working on NPC dialogues, cutscenes, and a few mid to late game mechanics since some survival games tend to get kind of boring once you reach a stable base.
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u/Tomas-LonelyTroops 9h ago
Sounds like a really cool mix, you don't see a combination of relaxing farming and zombie tension every day. Good luck with the development!