I've been playing The Good Life and was thinking of making an effort post on it. It's got some bugs but so far they're non-intrusive/disruptive and would have been solved with more QA/playtesting. Some small things aren't really well explained either.
I really like it so far. It's a Sweary game(Deadly Premonition) so it's got what you would expect: weirdness, mystery,
ritualistic murder and garbage combat.
The game exists somewhere in between Animal Crossing and Deadly Premonition, with a little bit of Frank West(Dead Rising). You play as a photo journalist and can take pictures at any time. Just like Dead Rising these pictures are tagged with what can be seen in them. This is important. Quests will have objectives where you need to photograph people or things but photos are also a way to earn money, take pictures of things and upload them to fake Shutterstock/Instagram and see if people click on them. Outside of specified photo-targets this is the way to learn what makes photos good. There's also a rotating series of hashtags with the currently "hot" subjects to give you some direction if you're stumped.
Oh, and if you see anything weird or gnarly then that picture is going to get so many clicks. You have no scruples.
You also have a house and garden, you hunt and collect materials, there's various meters/stats like health AND hp*, sleepiness, cat/dog affinity, charisma, conditions like illnesses, stress, hunger and maybe something else, not all of these are exposed or even explained. They don't drain that quickly and you can go 3-4 days without food or sleep, but when HP/sleep is fully drained it's not good, so pack food and some absolutely-not-amphetamine from the witch.
*Health seems to dictate how easy it is to get sick or suffer from other ailments, HP is hitpoints. When eating certain foods one of the bonuses is health up, but this refers to HP and not Health. Other bonuses are more ??? to me because I'm not sure what it is referring to. I still don't know what stress does. This is what I mean when I say that there should have been more play testing.
Tips for anyone going into it(it's on Gamepass).
* There is a tutorial book on the couch in the house that explains some thing you might have missed or forget.
* When reading e-mails, press A and not B(back out) to mark them as read. This can be important.
* Take photos. There are landmarks, statues, people and all kinds of things that will earn you money. You want the money. Photograph the food you order like an asshole then upload it, maybe that will get you somewhere.
* Utilize the garden, check the recipes for what you need. Growing herbs are good because bird and hedgehog meat are easy to find.
* There is a storage shed on your property to free up inventory, anything put in there will be available in certain storage boxes around the world - Resident Evil style -, this is explained at one point but it should have been explained sooner IMO.
* The world map is surprisingly large with locations you might not expect. There is fast travel but not right at the start(with the exception of "warp back home" but that costs time unlike future fast travel).
* Cooking, showering and beauty care does not advance the clock, they're free actions.
* You get access to the cat and dog pretty fast. Cat can jump over fences so you don't have to go around them. Dog is fast and has far superior stamina to any other form.
* Animal form can pick up items and items can be picked up while running so you don't have to stop all the time while going from point A to point B, just swerve and hoover them up.
* New abilities and stuff will be unlocked by missions.
* Holding "run" while carrying something only depletes your stamina, it doesn't do anything else.
* If you become an alcoholic(day drinking) the vet can treat you. The witch also sells things to sober you up. It's not amphetamine.
* The character models stops vibrating after the prologue, don't know what was up with that, maybe my drivers.
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I really like it, it's got a "very positive" rating on Steam but it might not be for everyone.
