There’s a recipe that most cozy farming sims follow: You rock up to a new town that has a few issues, inherit or purchase a farm that’s overgrown and broken, and you commit to improving life not only for yourself, but the townsfolk, too. Peaceful Days follows this recipe to the letter, while still managing to stand out for all the right reasons. 

Peaceful Days is an indie game created and developed by Nhat Nguyen, and was released into early access through Steam way back in 2020. Since then, it’s had a huge number of updates and tweaks to perfect the gameplay and story, and it’s a genuinely exciting and lovable experience from the very beginning. 

The beginning of a journey

Peaceful Days starts out with an encounter with a goddess who seems to have far more faith in my created character than I have ever, or will ever, have in myself. After all but telling you that you’re the ‘chosen one’ of this tale, the Goddess thrusts you into life in Aurora Town, immediately introducing you to the mayor of your new home, Robert. 

If you’ve played a farming sim before (which you likely have, if you’ve ended up here), then you’ll know how this goes. After a brief introduction to life in Aurora Town, a good night’s sleep, and an optional tutorial on how farming works, you’re thrown into the role of the ‘good neighbor’ and given your first official quest: meet the neighbors. 

There are 26 residents in Aurora Town, and all of them are unique. Your new home is surprisingly multicultural, and while I regularly struggle with the relationship-upkeep aspect of games of this type, it doesn’t feel like such a chore in Peaceful Days. Getting to know the individual characters is enjoyable, even to someone who usually avoids that task, and there are even some familiar character archetypes at play.

There are mysteries here

Despite the name, Peaceful Days is not as straightforward and serene as you may expect it to be, and most of that stems from the fact that there’s a mystery afoot in Aurora Town, at least from the point of view of a newcomer to the area. 

In the north of the town, just east of the mines and the closed-down bathhouse, there’s a mysterious dark building that has a literal security guard outside. The building belongs to Radiant Corp, and the security guard will immediately turn you away if you try to approach. 

Nobody seems to mention this looming great warehouse just outside of town, there’s no information about it when you hover over it on the map screen, and I haven’t managed to find out anything more about it despite playing for a good few hours. It’s just there, mysterious and shady on the outskirts, and that mystery is enough to keep you playing, especially if you’re like me and like figuring things out. 

Diving into the details

The characters, setting, and story of Peaceful Days are all enough to entice even the most seasoned of farming sim players, but there is a long list of small details that tip it from ‘just another farming sim’ to something special. It’s obvious that feedback gained during the early access period and from other games of the same genre has been implemented to make Peaceful Days a joy to play.

For starters, you have complete freedom over colors when creating a character, at least when it comes to your hair and shirt color. You aren’t limited to a select few colors, so you can really make your character unique in that aspect. As soon as you can control your created character, you’re immediately given the option to change any of the keybinds, as well. 

Within the settings, there are some options that can be used to tweak your game to your own requirements. If you get headaches or eye fatigue when there are too many bright colors on screen, you can opt to desaturate the entire game, making it easier on the eyes. You can also choose how zoomed in you want to be, which is really helpful if you’re used to the distance offered by other farming sims. 

The most exciting options, for me at least, is running. It’s always been a pet peeve of mine that pressing shift in farming sims often makes you walk – going against the standard expectation of running. Peaceful Days lets you run, and not only that, but you can toggle running so that you auto-run. It might not be the most glamorous of options, but it’s definitely a welcome one!

Peaceful Days is a gorgeous little farming sim that’s worth playing if you’re a fan of the genre, and is still in its early access period over on Steam. If you want to try it out to make sure you enjoy what’s on offer, you can download the demo and get a taster of what’s to come in Aurora Town.