Farmer’s Father: Save the Innocence Review (PC)
An interesting scenario
Hunting is cool (both Germans and animals)
Having three people to keep alive is a fresh angle
Physics can be poor
AI is frustrating
Farmer’s Father: Save the Innocence is the latest survival game from South African development studio, FreeMind SA. Survive the elements, stave off hunger and survive the highly trained enemy as you work to keep your family safe during the dying embers of World War 2.
Farmer’s Father: Save the Innocence – Premise
It’s 1944, World War 2 is in it’s final year. You just have to survive the final home stretch and you and your family will live to see the back of the pain, destruction and suffering and bear witness to a new world of peace, harmony and devoid of invading soldiers.
The snow is falling and you’re just about to settle into a well deserved meal with your wife and baby when all hell breaks loose and a wrecking havoc descends upon your previously safe homestead. The time has come, you need to step up and follow through on your duty as a father and protect your family at all costs.
Time is short, you barely have time to grab the essentials from your home, before setting off into the wilds. A place far more hidden from the bloodthirsty invaders.
Farmer’s Father: Save the Innocence – Gameplay
Farmer’s Father: Save the Innocence shows ample promise from the start as you’re asked to quickly gather the essentials from your home. The game doesn’t take your hand and lead you through this part, but instead puts the decisions about what to take with you in your hands. Throughout the small house is a healthy selection of different items. However, you’re inventory can only hold so many items. Choose wisely or suffer the consequences later in the game.
Here we took with us: a hammer, an axe, an oil lamp, a saw and the mouth watering steaks we were about to tuck into as a family (apart from, of course, the baby). Armed with what we felt would keep us alive in the cruel embrace of Mother Nature , we fled into the night and into a nearby forest where we set up camp.
After finding a secluded spot, we were tasked with gathering firewood from our surroundings and collecting food to sustain our family as we hid from the Germans.
From here, the game plays out exactly how you would expect a survival game to play. Heat, sustenance, water and safety are the four main aspects of surviving Farmer’s Father: Save the Innocence. This is far from a bad thing, there’s nothing quite like a fresh survival game to play and this game has everything you need for a solid gaming experience.
Fight, Hunt and Build your way to Survival
Of course, with any World War 2 occupation, the enemy is a very real threat to you and yours. Use your surprisingly transferable skills as a farmer to hunt them before they hunt you. Stealth is a very prominent part of Farmer’s Father: Save the Innocence and absolutely essential to survival.
When you’re not killing German soldiers, it’s important to build up on your food stores by hunting wild animals and make your new home a better place to live in with your skills as a builder. Build homes for animals, annexes and even a new cradle for your child.
Farmer’s Father – Save the Innocence – Summary
Setting a survival game amidst the throes of a German occupation is an interestingly fresh angle on games that fall under this genre. It’s nice to see a bit of history played out and realistic situations are often far more relatable than the zombie apocalypse we see in survival games all too often.
Yes, some of the physics are poor and the AI is frustrating but it’s a fair price to play for what the game has to offer.