Ashfield Hollow – Game Review

Ashfield Hollow is a new game by BitQuest Studio. It blends some farming simulation games like Stardew Valley, Harvest Moon or Story of Seasons with some Zombie apocalypse environment like The Walking Dead or The Last of Us in a top down 2D environment.

The gameplay is mostly like farming simulator games. You can do farming activities like planting and watering seeds and then harvesting the crops, you can also fish, craft items and cut down trees to collect some wood. You can also interact with other survivors from Ashfield Camp by talking to them or buying stuff from some of them. These activities are possible while you are inside the Ashfield Camp area.

However, as soon as you step outside it, you will find zombies everywhere, just waiting for some fresh meat for them to eat. And here, the gameplay becomes less cozy and more thrilling. You won’t die with just a hit from the zombies, but this will add to your infection meter and lose some health points. You have a few weapons that you can use against them, like Swords and Guns (but be aware that ammo may be limited, so you got to be careful with that). Also, outside Ashfield Camp, you may find a city with places that you can loot for more items or a forest to forage for plants and mushrooms that you cannot grow.

The gameplay can get quite addicting like in most farming simulator games. You will have some quests being added daily to a bulletin board in the Camp and you also have some Objectives that are more like milestones but can help guide you a bit. Unfortunately, I had a few issues with some decisions that took me quite some time to get used to, and also some design choices.

I was quite surprised with how few tutorials there are in the game. And I felt like I missed a lot of things in the first few hours simply for not better understanding how it worked. For example, the map. Well, it may be intuitive for some people but for me, to understand that I can only go through one area to another in a specific part of the screen took some time. I didn’t even find the city until after 14 in-game days. And it was actually by accident because I was running from a zombie. Well, you may be able to understand better than me that if you follow trails, it may help you get to other areas. Also, you need to go exactly to that direction. For example, if you want to get back to your farm from the forest, you need to move right, but if you come down because you were in the top area of that screen, you won’t be able to enter unless you step to the left and then right again. Not a huge issue, but if areas are more easily accessible or easier to spot, I think it would be better such as the way to leave your farm and reach the forest.

I guess my biggest issue is related to information and how it is passed to the player. Maybe this was intentional to make the player explore more. And I wouldn’t be complaining about that if I had not selected the tutorial option in the beginning. Which means that I wanted the game to tell me how things work, to give me more context. I could only find about different stats once I paused the game, then I found that I had not only HP and Stamina, but also Energy, Nutrition, Hydration and Infection meters… And the game never taught me how to fill them out or how they get depleted. For the number of options in the game, I think it would be better if more tutorials were available for the players. Either through the pause menu or as they play. I lost nearly 30 in-game days before discovering how to get a motorbike. And it took me sometime to understand how the Camp works, and how each survivor there does things according to a specific time of the day, when they are free to just chat and when they enter specific buildings where I could shop for supplies or seeds. So this was something that I hoped that enabling tutorials would help me understand more of the game.

The story of the game is not ground-breaking, you were found nearly dead in the road and brought to the camp, now you got to do what you need to survive, they will give you a place to stay and some things to get started. But everything else is on you, and they will state that clearly. You can talk to the characters of the camp and get to know them more. This didn’t seem to add anything to the story, but does give more context to the characters and make them more interesting. I feel like story-wise, there is not a lot here for the player but this is based only on the demo, there are areas that I could not access in the Demo, and maybe, they have more to develop the story, or maybe not. For now, I would say the story is okay for giving context of the game to the player.

The controls are okay, I had some issues understanding the difference between Interact button and Attack button when dealing with items like Watering can or Water canteen. For those, you need to have them selected, but use the “attack” button, on PC the left mouse button to fill them with water from the river, for example. For using them, you need to use the “attack” button again, and in the case of the Water canteen, by clicking on your character. Although, you might need to boil the water so you can actually drink. But, again, another little issue for me, you need to pause the game and open the backpack to verify what is in the Water canteen in case you don’t remember. It is not a big issue, but maybe, design could make the game more friendly about that.

Besides that, there are very good things like a line showing where the gun is pointing to, being able to add some items in the taskbar to quickly select them, or to dash but also run if you keep pressing the button (which does not spend stamina and it is weird but honestly, that is for the better, the game would be far too hard and a little bit too slow without it, in my opinion). I liked how the zombies could have different attack patterns, which kind of put me in my toes. Even with some weird choices as the design of the fishing pole and if some fish would be weird when reaching the border of the bar, it was something that got me really addicted.

Well, once you know your way around, and start understanding more of what you can do, the game has a lot of value. The demo covers 50 in-game days, and that takes about 10 hours of gameplay so a whole year might take quite some time to finish. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention, the soundtrack of the game is very good, it keeps a more relaxing and chill tune while in the camp and when in areas filled with zombies, they may get a little more intense or eerie kind of music.

So, in conclusion, the game has some things that could make my life easier, and maybe for other players as well, but it still manages to catch the attention for farming simulator and zombie lovers. It is a good game, with nice pixel art and a change of gameplay that might be just what some people are looking for. The game is set to release on the first quarter of 2027, so this review was based on the Demo, which is available to the public right now on Steam. If it peeked your interest, go check it out!

Written By: Amiibru
Favourite Film: A Monster Calls
Favourite Game: Super Mario Galaxy
Favourite Book: The Hunger Games
About: Hey there, Amiibru here. I am a Brazilian Gaymer who loves Nintendo and Indie games. Love some RPGs, Puzzle, Rhythm and Platformer. I also enjoy books, animes, TV shows, movies, dancing and sweets!
Donate: https://ko-fi.com/amiibru