The Rabbit Haul unmistakably looks cozy—and it is—but the longer I played, the more it felt like lying in bed: the longer you do it, the more you become comfortably cemented to it.
This tower-defense game doubles as a farming sim. It works in phases. During the day, you’re planting, watering, hunting, gathering, and dumping all of your crops into an ever-growing haul that looks like a landfill of fruits and veggies. At night, Raccoons come to steal from the haul. You must protect it because if it empties, your run is over. You brandish weapons like swords, knives, frying pans, flywheels, and magic wands. I’d like to see a game starring animals use less human-like weapons—I’d just like to see creativity—but I can appreciate the whimsy of some of the weapons.
I use the word “run” specifically because The Rabbit Haul is a roguelite, too. You’ll choose buffs that do things like fortify your crops, increase your strength, or simply give you items for free. The roguelite element is forgettable. All my fun came from buying new weapons and towers, discovering crops and enemies around the forest, and managing each day to maximize my horde. Choosing an upgrade whenever I leveled up, which wasn’t often, didn’t make noticeable differences. As with many indie games, it feels like its in there because that’s what people are playing. But I’m confident I wouldn’t miss it if it were gone.
The map isn’t big at all, but the developers did a good job of creating moments of discovery just by randomizing what’s the forest each day. Sometimes there are enemies, sometimes there are lots of blades of grass to slice like it’s The Legend of Zelda, sometimes there are treasure chests with goodies, and sometimes there are free crops to pick to add to the haul. You never know what you’re going to get. You could be disappointed, you could be elated. This design feels deliberately like it came from a template—games must have discovery; create random things in the world to discover—but it works because its cozy vibes keep things simple. In The Rabbit Haul’s case, simple is good.
You don’t have to think hard. You don’t have to manage how much water you’re using, how many crops you have, how long the day or night lasts, nothing like that. Day is as long as you want it. Night ends when you defeat the enemies. Watering plants is as simple as just tapping the key to pour water over the soil. The most thinking you do is combat and how to place your towers.
Even the art style doesn’t require a lot to process. It’s colorful and extremely limited in animations. In some ways it looks amateurish, but it’s in-line with how simple the rest of the game is. If it were there were more animations, it would feel out of place.
There are a few quirks I hope are resolved before launch. The first is that the animal crew who are stealing from your haul are called the Trash Panda Posse. So far, all I’ve seen are raccoons. I’m open to the idea that they’re the lower-level lackeys to the panda’s, but if that’s not the case, and I don’t see any pandas in this game, I’m going to have some questions.
The second quirk is the controls. I played most of this on a gamepad because it said I could and, again, it’s another indie game that submits a demo with clunky inputs. I shouldn’t have to fight the game trying to figure out if I’m using a mouse or a gamepad. That is the kind of stuff it’s imperative you fix before you release the demo. If you’re going to give the option, people are going to use the option. I also think it’s odd that the only way to move the cursor is only through tabbing around. I think the Destiny cursor is the worst thing happened to gamepad menu navigation design, but there are games where it’s a useful option.
When I used the mouse and keyboard controls, I lost my cursor because it flew off-screen even though I had Full Screen checked in the settings. I’m not saying these are easy things to fix, but I am saying they’re easy to test for. I imagine if you put gamepad controls in, make sure it works without flaw, at least for the most common PC setups. If you’re going to utilize a Full Screen option, make sure the cursor doesn’t fly off the screen.
I know it’s a demo, but first impressions matter. I’m glad that everywhere else The Rabbit Haul is pretty solid.