Gamedec is a cyberpunk RPG where you play as a private detective solving crimes in virtual reality. Unraveling mysteries will require you to commit to some tough interrogation, collect evidence and, of course, a whole bunch of hacking. In Gamedec's first dev diary, we got to learn more about Low City and its seedy underbelly. In this new one, Anshar Studio reveals one of the virtual reality worlds you get to explore—Harvest Time.
Milking cows and growing vegetables aren't the first, second, or tenth thing that comes to mind when I think about a cyberpunk RPG, but Anshar Studio says that this is exactly the reason it wanted to include Harvest Time in Gamedec. Producer Radosław Maciạg says that the team wanted to do something unusual and fresh to break away from Cyberpunk's classic themes.
Harvest Time plays out a little like Farmville; it's a free-to-play game where players in the world of Gamedec can log in, grow crops, milk cows, and do fairly simple farmyard tasks. Marcin Przybyłek, the author of the Gamedec books, explains that having a farming sim isn't unusual at all because in the Gamedec universe people are afraid of nature, so being in a world where you can touch plants and help them grow is an appealing fantasy for some.
However, there is a sinister side to the happy-go-lucky players in Harvest Time. Players don't actually own a farm due to a lack of in-game money, so they work for someone else. The farming simulator has its own loot box system in the form of chests that players can get from simply playing the game. These two features create a hierarchy where players get addicted to getting chests and powerful farm owners are exploiting their manual labour. This need for chests means that working in Harvest Time, as Przybyłek describes it, is like having a second job to players in the Gamedec universe.
It's not made clear what the mystery in Harvest Time will be, but Anshar Studios hints that there are players who are abusing shortcuts to earn more money and that players are mysteriously collapsing in-game. Fraser Brown got a sneak peek at it last year at Gamescom, when the detective got a job to investigate Harvest Time players getting sick.
Anshar Studio hasn't currently announced a release date for Gamedec but the Cyberpunk RPG should be releasing sometime in 2020.
