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Backlog Blogging: Echoes of the Plum Grove

Posted on November 4, 2025 by Aywren

Echoes of the Plum Grove bills itself as a cozy farming simulator, along the lines of Story of Seasons. But it has a few twists, one of which makes it a little more hardcore than most farming sims out there. I’ll talk about that in a bit.

This was a game that my sister ran across and introduced me to a little over a year ago. Though it’s a single player game, we both picked it up and were playing it simultaneously via voice chat in Discord. While it’s not exactly the same as playing a co-op, it did allow us to have a shared experience as we explored this game for the first time.

The Twists

So, what makes Echoes of the Plum Grove stand out amongst other farming sim games? Well, first, it has a very cute art style – it went for a flat, hand-drawn, paper-made aesthetic, similar to Paper Mario. Second, it takes place in something that feels like a fantasy version of the American colonial time-frame, that also leans into the art and overall aesthetic.

The major twist is that this is a farming sim with consequences. Things can go wrong. Very wrong. And when they do, you have to be prepared to change your best-laid plans. Because this is not a gentle or forgiving farm sim world.

The Sad Story of Rowland Smith

Here’s a direct example of these consequences, based on what really happened to me in my playthrough. So, this is a legacy game, meaning that if you don’t change the settings, every character in Echoes of the Plum Grove ages and eventually dies. That includes your own character.

Due to this, I don’t liken it to Stardew Valley. There’s no aging and dying in that game as it’s more about making permanent connections and learning the stories of other characters in the world.

Echoes of the Plum Grove puts a timer on these things. You need to not only build up a thriving farm, but you only have so many seasons to find a significant other, get married, and have children. When your original character passes away, I assume (I haven’t played that long yet) that one of your children will become your next in line main character and inherit all that you’ve built before.

So, in knowing that, I set my sights on Rowland Smith – the original smithy NPC of the town. Aren’t they handsome (the one without the hat – the one with the hat is just the apprentice and a real jerk)?

Anyhow, I set about trying to win their favor, visited every day, brought gifts, and built a strong relationship with them. Then, one day, small pox swept through the town.

You read that right.

By default, there are deadly illnesses in this game, and they can spread like wildfire across the residents. There’s absolutely nothing you can do about it but ensure that you stay healthy.

One day, I visited Rowland and found them quite ill at home.

And then… I just never saw them again. I was so, so close to proposing to them, and waited day after day to see them again at the smithy. Then, a few game-days later, I saw their obituary in the announcements.

Rowland had died of the small pox, and there would be a funeral for them.

Along with about half of the town. No joke. There was a funeral every day for a solid week. That small pox did a number on my town!

Finding New Love in Honeywood

That meant that I now needed to pivot and find a new love interest because I’d put all of my focus on courting Rowland. Eventually, I chose to settle down with the carpenter, William Watt, who did not die of small pox before I could pop the question, thankfully.

We ended up having a daughter, Lindsey.

And the last time I played, Lindsey was old enough to wear a costume for the town Halloween festival, which was great fun.

This is saying nothing about the supernatural story that lurks under the farming sim part of the game. I’ll just leave that there because I don’t want to spoil things. There’s absolutely more to this town than first seems, and it’s more fun that you discover it for yourself.

I really, really like Echoes of the Plum Grove for all that it does differently. Having permadeath, illness, aging, legacy play, and other challenging mechanics makes it all that much more interesting a farm sim to me. But these are all also optional settings that you can change if you’d rather play it safe.

I think the only difficulty setting that I did turn off was food spoilage. Food spoiled way too quickly the way it was set on default, which made it super annoying for some quests, such as fishing quests, which required a large number of fish to catch and deliver. The fish would just spoil in my inventory while I was frantically trying to fish up the number required, so I decided that was that and turned that setting off.

Overall, it’s a game I set down but do really want to get back into sometime. I’m curious how the legacy and inheritance system works.

If you enjoy the farming sim genre and are looking for something a little different, see if you can’t catch this one on sale sometime. Just watch out for that small pox. For real.

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