First of all, the designers of this game deserve congratulations, the game is gorgeous.
The story starts very interesting and then.. nothing happens.
Finish the first tier of the underworld? Nothing happens. No one recognizes it.
Get some hearts with an NPC? Nothing happens.
The story just dies and you have a bunch of quests like "do 20 board quests", or "build a barn" which don't seem to forward the story at all, they just get replaced by the next one which you need even more money to buy.

On top of that, most of the fun items in the game that gives you a sense of progression are inaccessible, locked behind materials needed for their purchase that you've never seen before, and there's no clue as to where they might be sourced.

it kind of feels like the player will have to build everything, expand everything, reach everything at max, just to see the story finally progress. Which, to me at least, is not fun at all, because the world is doing nothing to motivate to do any of theses things. No promise to happen, no story to continue, no new area to explore, nothing.

It's a real shame seeing how beautiful the world is, and how awesome it would be to be able to actually enjoy it; buy new spells, find the seeds needed for that quest, stuff like that. But, no. Every things seems to be locked behind some unknown factor.

Hoping that future patches will fix the pacing, or at least add a way to know where to source stuff and where each investment leads.

i wish there were an option to rate in the middle. this game isn't terrible, but feels early access. for $20 i feel like it should have more. better UI, better models, player customization, etc. i like the nature, i like the art style, i like the little critters around the place. buy it on sale if you do buy it

Fun game. A lot different than the most farming games, but you know what? Nothing HAS to be like Stardew. This game is it's own thing and I like about it. It's different. :)