• Price: $19.99 USD digitally, $29.99 physically
• Developer: Wonderscope Games
• Publisher: Team17
• Release Date: September 27, 2022

A review code was kindly provided by Team17 on behalf of Wonderscope Games. We thank them for being able to cover something they’ve worked so hard on.

Hokko Life is a simulation game that takes some clear inspiration from Animal Crossing while adding its own twist on creative town building. You arrive in a new town by train on a rainy day, and meet Oma the elephant and Moss the giraffe, who offer to help you get started in your new life. Oma allows you to stay in their spare room at the inn, and the next day you’re given the resources to clear out debris around dilapidated houses.

Unlike Animal Crossing, Hokko Life’s calendar doesn’t correspond with the time in the real world. Instead, it’s more like Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons in that you go to sleep (at the inn or your home) and then another day begins. You can choose to sleep for 2 or 6 hours, or until the next day. Loading in the game unfortunately takes a while on the main menu and when you enter/exit another area or house. There’s even a loading screen on crafting menus, and there are occasional drops in the frame rate when you run around.

After resting at the inn on the first day, you’ll need to gather enough wood to fix one of the town’s rundown buildings and make it into your new home. Once your home is habitable, they’ll ask you to help them brighten up the town a bit by crafting decorations. The game provides you with tutorials to teach you how to craft furniture and other useful items, as well as instructions on house building.

There’s a lot of progression based content, where you must complete one task before you’re able to continue. You’ll only have access to Oma’s inn and Moss’ store at first, and you have to unlock the crafting building, realtor’s office, and clothing store/salon. Eventually, you’ll also be able to access an island by boat and the city by train. Sometimes I had a hard time figuring out what to do next, but I managed to unlock everything after a while.

In town, characters like Oma and Moss remain inside of their establishments. In order to have more villagers move in, you’ll have to see who is hanging out at the inn with Oma. There are specific time periods every day where characters will come and sit down at the inn’s bar area. When you talk to them, you’ll be able to ask them to come and live in the town. Then, you must go to the realtor’s office and provide materials and funding for a new house, and also decide where the house will be built.

Something I really like in this game is that you can choose to remove villagers any time you’d like. Once their house has been vacated, you can choose who you want to move into the house from the waiting list. I remember my frequent frustration dealing with villagers I didn’t like in Animal Crossing, so this was a breath of fresh air for me. Another great feature allows you to change the exterior of every single house – and you get to move the villagers’ furniture around or remove it if you don’t like the current look of their interior. And you can barge into their houses while they’re out, too! 😂

The villagers will often make requests for new furniture, plants, fish/bugs, and other items. Each request has a time limit, which can be seen on the request tab on the menu. (I was a little confused at first because I thought the time limit was in hours, but it’s actually in days.) The requests for crafted items frustrated me a little bit because whenever I attempted to deliver the item to them, they’d complain about a lack of effort or time put into it.

I figured out that adding additional details like paint and small embellishments would solve the effort issue, but I’d try to spend additional time on the crafting screen and still not do it right. When you manage to complete quests the right way, they’ll count towards one of the requirements for the game’s achievements, known as Mayor Merits.

I also had trouble getting separate pieces to line up properly when I was crafting and attempting to put them together. But I really liked the incredible amount of options when it came to different components and paint options. There’s regular paint for materials such as wood, and you can also use fabric paint. I loved how the game lets you paint each individual component a different color if you’d like – as seen above.

While I really appreciated the customization options, I was not particularly good at them. That’s where the Creator Codes come in handy. When you’ve unlocked the ability to travel to the city (via the train), you can check out the amazing items crafted by previous winners of Creator Challenges. You can also enter Creator Codes (found in the Hokko Life Discord server and online searches) to download the creatively crafted items that others have made. I wish that each user’s store had more slots to place additional items, but I am so impressed by the items I found! What’s great is that you can choose to enable cross-platform mode, so you can also find PC players’ creations.

Besides the city, you can eventually travel to an island as well. There you can make some archaeological discoveries and donate them. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any kind of museum to display them properly, and you can’t even place fish or bugs in your house to look at. But when you want a break from crafting and digging, there’s a lot to do back at home. You can catch those bugs and fish, mine for materials, or farm. Planting vegetables and flowers will provide you with additional crafting materials – or you can give them to villagers to complete requests.

There are even some bug-catching and fishing contests every once in a while. They don’t seem very official with the announcements or prize distributions, as they simply mail out prizes instead of holding a ceremony. I do like that when another villager catches more critters than you, if you have caught enough for the gold/silver/bronze prize requirements you can still get that prize too. It means you can do your best and not worry as much about who is ahead of you, which is a nice thing to have in a wholesome and relaxing game.

Switch it ON or Switch it OFF? Hokko Life provides the player with a vast town building experience based on crafting and customization. Loading screens and some elements of crafting, like placement of components and villager requests, can be frustrating. But with so much to do – like fishing – the world is certainly your oyster. 😉 You can choose to complete everything besides timed requests at your own pace and take advantage of what the town has to offer. It’s a cute game with a lot of customization and choice that will make creative, imaginative crafters that love simulation games very happy. You’ll just need a little patience along the way. 7.5/10