Publication date of the original Japanese article: 2021-06-05 22:08 (JST)
Translated by. Ari Clark

On June 5, PLAYISM, the publishing arm of Active Gaming Media, announced that the debt repayment daily life RPG The Good Life will be released in fall 2021 for PC (Steam/Microsoft Store), Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.

* Disclosure: The publisher PLAYISM is part of Active Gaming Media, which is also the owner of this website.

The Good Life is the newest game from White Owls Inc., the studio of Hidetaka Suehiro, aka SWERY, best known as the creator of games like Deadly Premonition, D4: Dark Dreams Don’t Die, and The Missing: J.J. Macfield and the Island of Memories. Development was also handled by the team at Grounding Inc., led by Yukio Futatsugi, the creative mind behind Panzer Dragoon and Phantom Dust.

The protagonist of The Good Life is New York photographer Naomi Hayward. She arrives in the town of Rainy Woods after taking a commission from The Morning Bell newspaper to uncover the mystery behind this rural English village. The area is known as “the happiest place in the world”, but it’s such a dull little rural town that Naomi refers to it as a “hellhole”. Still, she’s saddled with such enormous debt that she ends up living in Rainy Woods while she works on the commission.

The town of Rainy Woods is populated with a lot of quirky folks, who happen to be hiding a secret. When night falls in this town, a strange phenomenon transforms the locals into cats and dogs. Then, Naomi herself gains the ability to transform into a cat and a dog. When she becomes a cat, she can leap up into high places and explore them, and when she becomes a dog, she can use her keen nose to track the local citizens. Using her human, cat, and dog forms to their best advantage, she seeks out the truth about the town. In the process, she also runs smack into a murder case.

Naomi uses her skills as a photographer to pay off the debt she owes. By taking on commissions from The Morning Bell newspaper and the locals, she can earn rewards for taking photographs around Rainy Woods. She can also earn income on the game world’s social network, Flamingo, by uploading photographs of trending topics to delight her followers.

Enjoying your life in Rainy Woods is another aspect of the gameplay in The Good Life. You can grow vegetables in your garden, polish up your cooking skills, explore the fields, or share a drink with the locals at the pub. Of course, getting enough food and sleep is also important. You should make sure you’re looking sharp, too. The more money you earn, the richer your life should become.

The open world of Rainy Woods is filled with a variety of locations, and lots of events await you as well. You can expand your range of mobility by exploring the town’s environs and unlocking areas like shrines and campsites.

The Good Life originally started its full-scale development after it was successfully crowdfunded on Kickstarter in 2018. After postponing the game’s release several times, they announced in December 2020 that they had chosen a publisher and a release date, but they have now switched publishers to PLAYISM and rescheduled the release date for fall 2021. According to SWERY, the game is already in the final stages of development, and it’s safe to say that they’re getting closer and closer to launch.

The Good Life is planned to release for PC (Steam/Microsoft Store), Nintendo Switch, PS4, and Xbox One in the fall of 2021.