I have such a love/hate relationship with Stardew Valley, slightly less so with My Time At Portia (the developers seem to have at least considered wrist strain in the button layout and mechanics). I long for a moneyless, classless game in this genre where the incentives are community thriving, trust, pleasure, and all the other aspects that make life worth worth living outside of capitalism. Does that game exist?
The first games that popped into my head were Forager and Outpath, though these arent so much community building type games. They are more just something cute to relax to. They have farming and resource collecting and honestly play more like an active idler game than anything. Another game ive sunk tons of time into that kinda meets your requirements is Banished. Its just a medieval city builder game but it is deceptively hard to get a good balanced town going which can be pretty rewarding in itself. Theres no money per se but you do have to manage resources. Theres bartering in the game but you use your resources like crops and stone and stuff.
It’s also great without mods. During my first playthrough, a tornado destroyed most of the village, including the school with every child in it. Up until that point, nobody had died. All livestock, all crops, every single house was gone. The only thing that saved the survivors just before the next winter was some fruit I had stored in the dock for future trade. I managed to get them through the following winter and they all lived to die from old age, but the village never recovered from losing the entire next generation. I was only able to stabilize the population; growth ended up being impossible after this disaster.
I love games that are able to organically create stories like this one.
I feel like the best you could possibly find is a game that uses a resource as payment that isn’t called “money,” but mechanically it would be the same.
But there is Minecraft. You can farm in that and you don’t need money (even though it exists in the form mentioned above). Or Project Zomboid which money exists as money but is only useful as toilet paper.
It’s an extremely bizarre suggestion given your request. I do want to defend the game (though not the suggestion) a little though.
It initially presents as you say, but offers you opportunities to fight back in your capacity as border control. Letting in the right people can help the resistance and incite a coup, or enable you and your families escape from the country. It isn’t just Be A Good Tankie Simulator 2013, though you can play it that way too.
You may be interested in Aska. It asks the question “what if valheim was also a colony sim?”. It’s a bit less chill then Stardew/Portia, but it is a classless, moneyless community building game.
There is even a Star Trek-ish game where you have to produce to earn money to upgrade the ship for your crew. I get that it is a game mechanic, but seems like a perfect setting to not have money, and just concentrate on the people.
Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles … but with the caveats that a) it’s only PARTLY like stardew/portia/harvestmoon and b) For the life of me I can’t remember if the game had money or not.
The game is partly farm-life-sim, but the other part is “zelda-like” adventuring and getting rid of “dark smoke thing” that does bad things to the world.
It has a barter system, but you don’t need to use it if you don’t want to. Nearly everything you need in the game can be harvested or made.
Their other game, Grow: Song of the Evertree, is pretty fun too. It’s partly a city builder, partly exploring new worlds that you create. It’s been a while since I played it, so I remember some sort of currency, but I don’t really remember having to work that hard for it. Mostly, I just focused on creating worlds with crazy elements.
Grow: Song of the Evertree has lots of crafting materials, but no money. I haven’t played it much, but it mostly seems to be about gathering daily to grow the Evertree, then using the resources to expand the town.
I long for a moneyless, classless game in this genre where the incentives are community thriving, trust, pleasure, and all the other aspects that make life worth worth living outside of capitalism.
I think Sim Ant technically meets these conditions.
Contribution is a currency used in Roots of Pacha. When the player donates food or supplies to the clan, contribution points are awarded as acknowledgement of their efforts.
Contribution points must be expended to develop ideas. Certain clan members have items for trade in exchange for points, as well.
Items are donated by placing them in the contribution bin, found just north of the bonfire. Donated items may be viewed and retrieved until the end of the day. The value of the contributions is tallied overnight and the bin is emptied for the next day.
It’s not just a rename of money, it’s more like your social renown in the village, like how much people respect you because of your contributions, and you use it mostly to choose what improvement project you want to build next in the village.
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The first games that popped into my head were Forager and Outpath, though these arent so much community building type games. They are more just something cute to relax to. They have farming and resource collecting and honestly play more like an active idler game than anything. Another game ive sunk tons of time into that kinda meets your requirements is Banished. Its just a medieval city builder game but it is deceptively hard to get a good balanced town going which can be pretty rewarding in itself. Theres no money per se but you do have to manage resources. Theres bartering in the game but you use your resources like crops and stone and stuff.
Seconding banished, it’s great with mods
It’s also great without mods. During my first playthrough, a tornado destroyed most of the village, including the school with every child in it. Up until that point, nobody had died. All livestock, all crops, every single house was gone. The only thing that saved the survivors just before the next winter was some fruit I had stored in the dock for future trade. I managed to get them through the following winter and they all lived to die from old age, but the village never recovered from losing the entire next generation. I was only able to stabilize the population; growth ended up being impossible after this disaster.
I love games that are able to organically create stories like this one.
I feel like the best you could possibly find is a game that uses a resource as payment that isn’t called “money,” but mechanically it would be the same.
But there is Minecraft. You can farm in that and you don’t need money (even though it exists in the form mentioned above). Or Project Zomboid which money exists as money but is only useful as toilet paper.
There are farming-focused mod packs for Minecraft too
Papers Please
This is a tankie nightmare. I’m a border control agent? And if I fuck up my wages are reduced? Seems like you answered the opposite of my question
It’s an extremely bizarre suggestion given your request. I do want to defend the game (though not the suggestion) a little though.
It initially presents as you say, but offers you opportunities to fight back in your capacity as border control. Letting in the right people can help the resistance and incite a coup, or enable you and your families escape from the country. It isn’t just Be A Good Tankie Simulator 2013, though you can play it that way too.
I also love this game. It’s just fun to play.
Great game, but what a wild recommendation for this specific request…
I think technically Frostpunk is this, but it’s probably not what you mean.
Not exactly moneyless but imagine quality of life improvements for Stardew Valley. That’s “Fields of Mistria”.
You may be interested in Aska. It asks the question “what if valheim was also a colony sim?”. It’s a bit less chill then Stardew/Portia, but it is a classless, moneyless community building game.
There is even a Star Trek-ish game where you have to produce to earn money to upgrade the ship for your crew. I get that it is a game mechanic, but seems like a perfect setting to not have money, and just concentrate on the people.
Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles … but with the caveats that a) it’s only PARTLY like stardew/portia/harvestmoon and b) For the life of me I can’t remember if the game had money or not.
The game is partly farm-life-sim, but the other part is “zelda-like” adventuring and getting rid of “dark smoke thing” that does bad things to the world.
It has a barter system, but you don’t need to use it if you don’t want to. Nearly everything you need in the game can be harvested or made.
Their other game, Grow: Song of the Evertree, is pretty fun too. It’s partly a city builder, partly exploring new worlds that you create. It’s been a while since I played it, so I remember some sort of currency, but I don’t really remember having to work that hard for it. Mostly, I just focused on creating worlds with crazy elements.
Grow: Song of the Evertree has lots of crafting materials, but no money. I haven’t played it much, but it mostly seems to be about gathering daily to grow the Evertree, then using the resources to expand the town.
you might like Moonglow Bay! it’s not moneyless but the rest is all that
(also it’s a fishing game with boss battles)
I think Sim Ant technically meets these conditions.
Amazing, I’ll check it out
Edit: Oh wow 1991! Won some awards back then, too 🐜
Whats the best way to play Sim Ant these days? Ive always wanted to try it
You can download it here: http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/250/SimAnt+-+The+Electronic+Ant+Colony.html You’ll need DosBox or some other emulator to run it
thank you very much!! 👏
I think you want Roots of Pacha.
It’s not just a rename of money, it’s more like your social renown in the village, like how much people respect you because of your contributions, and you use it mostly to choose what improvement project you want to build next in the village.