Forager

Using earnable gold to buy more land, the player discovers various puzzles and dungeons.

• Title — Forager • Developer — HopFrog • Publisher — Humble Bundle • Engine — GameMaker Studio • Platforms — Windows PlayStation 4 Nintendo Switch Xbox One iOS Android • Genre — Open world, adventure • Designer — Wilmer Willgot

Forager combines mechanics commonly seen in idle games with those of an adventure or exploration game. Resource collection starts off slow, but as the player collects more XP and land, alternative resource collection and respawn chances grow. The player can harvest massive amounts for crafting and leveling, eventually leading to automated systems to collect resources and produce other products and goods. The leveling system in the game consists of a large grid of unlockable perks, which also may unlock new tools or craftable objects. Everything the player does from harvesting resources, to crafting objects, to killing enemies, has a positive impact on their XP used to advance levels. The player is able to simulate a variety of tasks related to cooking, economics, engineering, farming, fishing, hunting, magic, manufacturing, mining, and more. By obtaining money through crafting, skills, looting, and economic tasks, the player is able to purchase more lands to expand their base, explore new areas, and obtain new classes of resources or encounter new enemies and other NPC's.

The creator of Forager, Mariano Cavallero, dropped out of school to develop video games. He started developing Forager in a Game Jam with the help of a loan from his mother. Mariano then participated in a competition in which he won a trip to the U.S. to show off his work, eventually getting offered a publishing deal by Humble Bundle for Forager. A year after release on Steam the gamehad sold 600,000 units. A multiplayer update was worked on but eventually cancelled.