Stardew Valley tribute Grimoire Groves is a roguelike with plant pals

pcgamesn.com:

Stardew Valley has reinvented the life game genre, directly inspiring Stardust’s roguelike dungeon crawler, Grimoire Groves. The premise, however, is much lighter than a typical dark and dreary hack roguelike, instead tasking players with feeding plants and befriending woodland creatures.

When you think of a roguelike game you think of the likes of Cult of the Lamb or Hades, defined by their somewhat bleak environments and a whole lot of blood, guts, and gore. The colourful world of Stardew Valley likely isn’t what comes to mind.

Grimoire Groves seeks to fuse roguelike gameplay with a peaceful, life game-style aesthetic. The brainchild of Swiss indie developers Stardust, the game champions making friends and farming over hacking and slashing, shattering the stereotypes associated with the genre.

“We wanted to make something happy!” developer Annika Gerber tells me with a smile. “We play a lot of roguelike games, but they’re always so dark. We wanted to do something that asks you to make friends instead.”

And that’s exactly what you do in Grimoire Groves. During my Gamescom preview courtesy of Swiss Games, Gerber introduced me to Primrose, the only character that’s currently playable in the beta. She’ll be joined by three other characters – Lavender, Camellia, and Sequoia – whose names were “chosen by the community.”

Each witch can control the four elements (earth, fire, wind, and air), and they use these to feed the forest’s vegetable inhabitants. What element said adorable minion wants is denoted by the colours on their antenna – so, in the image above, the adorable little turnip wants you to feed it water.

Bosses will also start to sprout elements of different colours – in my experience, the first boss has