The Good Life, a “debt repayment daily life RPG” from White Owls Inc and Suehiro “Swery” Hidetaka*, is coming to Nintendo Switch this year, Nintendo revealed today.
The game follows Naomi, a journalist from New York who moves to a sleepy British town called Rainy Woods in order to pay off some debt by using her photography skills to take on odd jobs. But there’s more to the “happiest town in the world” than meets the eye; at night, everyone turns into cats and dogs—Naomi included. On top of that, there’s been a strange murder in Rainy Woods that Naomi inevitably gets caught up in investigating.
True to Swery’s form (and his well-known love of David Lynch’s work), The Good Life blends surreal mystery with oddball characters and the charming mundanity of everyday life. With its low-poly art style and serene setting, The Good Life looks somewhat more cheerful than Swery’s past works, though it’ll no doubt touch on some dark themes.
Related: Swery’s most recent game, The Missing: J. J. Macfield and the Island of Memories, is a genuine masterpiece. Read our review to see why.
The Good Life was initially funded through Kickstarter, though that campaign didn’t raise enough to reach its stretch goal for a Switch release. For anyone who was hoping it would (myself included), this latest announcement is a very welcome surprise. Swery is also working Deadly Premonition 2—a long-awaited sequel to the cult favourite mystery game that Swery is best known for—as a Switch exclusive, so clearly he and his team are getting along quite well with Nintendo.
The Good Life is due out sometime this year. As well as Nintendo Switch, it’s coming to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
*Note: As much as possible, we at Shindig try to use Japanese name order for Japanese names, which puts the family name first. In this case, Suehiro is the family name.
