Dinkum Review (AtypicalChook)
Dinkum is really fun! It's not perfect (will get to that later) but if you are addicted to farming/crafting/foraging gameplay loop like me then you owe it to yourself to give Dinkum a try. It doesn't stray so far from the normal things you are used to (yes you donate to a museum, yes you try and make friends with all the villagers, yes you have a stamina bar) but I think it leans enough away from other games to hold it's own well enough. The look of the game is great and it's forgiving in many ways that other games are not.
The Good:
-When you run out of time you are not forced to sleep, you are in a "Late Night" status that means you have basically no stamina but you can spend all the time you like decorating, crafting stuff, etc. at the end of the day if you want. This really helps remove the stress of rushing back home that is anti-relaxation
-Once you unlock power tools being able to change the landscape and make a town is a treat
-I like that they keep the entire game on theme with the Aussie outback and it's a great change of pace from other games
-Fishing game is not annoying (to me) and pretty intuitive, lots of different fish but not too many
-Vehicles and tele-pads are amazing I love riding around on the jetski
-Wishing well is a great add
-Lots of great outfits and tools
The Mid:
-The stamina system was changed recently which I hated at first but with food being buffed it kind of works better now, if you stack different readily available meals you can get a lot done. That said it does kind of take a lot of setup to get there and I think the game really would benefit from a leveling system that can IMPROVE BASE STATS over time so you feel like you are actually getting stronger
-Trapping animals is a fun mechanic but having to get two separate in game letters (one with your trap being returned and one with the money is kind of meh). They should give you your trap back immediately and then send you be money later in one letter
-It feels a little bad that most my income is RNG stuff like finding fossils/rubies/amber and not more normal day-to-day things. I go from being broke to totally rich so fast
The Bad:
-Skill leveling is very poorly balanced with how fast/slow they level. Mining levels up like crazy because of the incentive for getting ore for crafting and fossils for huge easy money. Farming, which takes way more money, effort and time to setup and maintain, levels up pitifully slow... it's an absolute joke. They say that seed makers are a better way to get farming XP but that is stupid as hell; farming should be the biggest gain to farming XP
-No romance options; NPC friendships are pretty surface level in general
-Cooking sucks because most meals need ingredients from part of progression that take quite a while to unlock so by the time you can craft interesting meals you are basically done unlocking the game
-I should be able to put tiles under the edges of places buildings
-I should be able to more easily move buildings late-game to make a perfect town... I don't want to have to pay for it or wait a day
-Planting seeds and trees is abhorrent, it's so awkward having to dig a hole, swap to a seed, drop a seed in the hole, and go back to the shovel to fill it again I absolutely hate it
Still got Dinkum it's pretty great!