Wouldn’t you like to get away from the busy city life and have a farm? Maybe fulfill the dream of those wistful gay tweets about finding a lover and becoming a gay farmer? Well, that’s the dream you live in Seeds of Love!

Seeds of Love is a visual novel/rhythm game hybrid made by a bunch of UC Santa Cruz students, with the original concept by Gigi Batchel (check out the full credits here). My friend worked on one of the showcase games that won a few awards and he suggested that I check this game out for Pride Month stuff.

In Seeds of Love you play as María, a young woman ditching college and city life to work on the farm with her abuela, Rosa. It’s a nice break from the city, she’s learning some responsibilities, but what really catches Maria’s eyes is Sunny, a local teacher that she falls for.

The visual novel segments are enjoyable and full of good vibes. I find María to be a relatable character, as she’s just a huge gay dork that’s just trying her best between finding love and impressing her abuela. The minute she tried a lame pun pick-up line pretty much sold me on her. Her relationship with Sunny is sweet though it comes into conflict with her new obligations as a farmer with Rosa; however, the conflict is ultimately a minor hindrance and the game is an overall feel good time. Also there’s Barnabus, who I like to think is the one playing all the music in the game and that he’s some freelance musician doing odd jobs on the side.

Speaking of that, there’s the rhythm game segments! It’s a lane based game where you navigate lanes to hit notes using the arrow keys and spacebar. You click space on active notes and hold on some segments, while there are also passive notes that you can just hover the cursor over to give your fingers a break. The music of Seeds of Love is overall happy in tone, expressed through a mix of genres. My personal favorite track out of the bunch is the one for the third rhythm game segment, which I describe as “farming chillhop.” It’s a nice groove to play as María goes hard at work to show that she can run a farm by herself.

Instead of a standard grade, your performance actually decides María’s mood. Do well and María will be bold and confident in the proceeding visual novel segments. If not, well, that’s just how things be. I think it’s a cool idea that nicely meshes the genres together, though I’m a bit iffy on how the game decides mood; María’s mood is sort of like a DDR life bar dependent on your current performance instead of your overall performance, so you can do perfectly well on most of the song but can still tank her mood if you mess up a bunch at the end. It’s kind of a personal preference thing but it’s hell to me. Still, a neat concept!

Seeds of Love is a short but enjoyable time and is one of those things that you can play to perk up – which is something that I really needed after hearing about what happened with a certain YouTuber. I honestly don’t have much problems with the game – it’s sweet and to the point. I think it’s well deserving of the honorable mentions it got at its showcase and I hope to see more stuff by the developers in the future!