Dinkum

Awesome game. Dev sold out to Krafton. EULA changed, no way to opt out. Stay away.

I'll probably catch flak for this, but I think overall it's a better Stardew. The one area I think Stardew does better is the depth of the NPCs and the relationship mechanics. Everything else-- farming, crafting, hunting, mining-- is done better and is more engaging in Dinkum than Stardew. Plus, we get the added benefit of Animal Crossing's ability to completely terraform and organize the island.

If you like Stardew Valley, Roots of Pacha, Animal Crossing, Coral Island, or any of the other farming sims or "cozy games," I'm confident you'll love Dinkum.

Very fun to play on your own or with friends <3 Especially with adorable Australian friends X3

Good times. If you're looking for a Co-Op progression experience this is not it. Plus, the game was Sold to a Korean mobile game publisher which is a massive letdown

its animal crossing with more

It's a great game but they could definitely improve storage situation of the bugs/fishes etc. It looks awful and takes up so much space!😒

Me and hubby just loved this game! We played it for many many hours but it was early access so after a while we could't get any further. But it is just so fun and cozy. Like a MUCH funnier and more advamced version of Animal Crossing. Dinkum is like a little paradise island. :D

It's fine. It takes way too long to progress compared to the depth the game has. If you're going to make me grind forever then give me something interesting happening while I'm grinding.

But it's really still fine. I enjoyed it.

Aight so Dinkum is like stardew but aussie and more sigma u grind u build u fight crocs and get rich its actualy insane i went in like "yea ill play a bit" then boom 6 hours gone im in debt to a dude named fletch and john the shop guy lowkey got me feeling things idk man i like men

gameplay? banger u mine u fish u farm u fight animals and ur town goes from broke dirt patch to elite sigma empire multiplayer goes crazy too just runnin round w the boys committing warcrimes on emus

Final thots? if u like stardew but want more danger capitalism and suffering get this game if u dont like it? skil isue

score: 420/10 im dinkuming evrywere

57 hours

I found myself really enjoying this game! From it's so cozy and warm graphics, to the small similarities to other island games. But still sticking out from other's.

I like that you can befriend the villagers and get to know them a bit. The way you can really customize the city almost however you want, is really nice aswell. It's nice to look back at where you started and how a little plot of earth turned into a small, cozy town. Nice game to boot up if you're feeling like playing "for a while" and then glance at the clock realising you've been playing non stop for two hours xD. It really has a way of making you feel accomplished when doing small tasks for yourself, or villagers. Which then makes you want to keep going! Nice work, devs!

A lil complaint

It feels really robotic with the characters actually. Although they have different personalities and nice character designs, it does really feel like you are just reading the same dialouges when speaking to them. It would be nicer if they had a bit more backstory, beef or something to make you like the characters even more. Maybe being able to acutally talk to them about other small subjects would be cool! :)

LOve love love this game! Perfect mix of relaxing and exiting. Also love building up my town :) Definitly can recommend!!!!!

Changing EULA on the already purchased product is not acceptable.

This
is not
Animal crossing from down under.
This game is actually

A cozy looking version of Diablo

Yeah, you kinda help out town folks and some fruits. But your main game loop is dive into this Mouth-of-Hell-in the-Middle-of-the-Village dungeon, each level more infernal, so you loot, come back, and upgrade.

It was okay-ish but just felt off. I thought for sure I could easily get into this game with my many hours playing games such as Animal Crossing but I was wrong. It's just not as fun as it made itself out to be. And the nonsense with changing a EULA agreement and then forcing players to email personal information to a foreign company just to opt out of data collection, is not good.

Good luck on your future endeavours.

Changing contract (EULA) on the already purchased product is not acceptable.

Changing contract (EULA) on the already purchased product is not acceptable.

This is a fun game with elements of town building, befriending NPC's, survival, defeating monsters, foraging and mining it will not leave anyone bored!

Third party EULA? A new game announced while this one lingers in EA with sparse updates? No thanks.

Sad to see.

HAD some good times.
Sad to see it end.
Adding a 3rd party publisher and new, badly written EULA 2.5 years in might not be the move.
Still being in Early Access while announcing the next game doesn't help things either.

I loved this game. I really did.

But, I'm sorry, I can't play a game I bought at the beginning unless I sign their EULA even if I am only playing single player and they not only get my info to do with as they please (they claim it's for innocuous purposes, but we all know that's a freaking lie) but they can just yank the game at any time without out recourse on our part.

James, dude, I play indie games because when I buy things I expect to own them, not subscribe. (Funny coming from a Steam player, sure, but that's changing because I'm tired of this shit. GoG, itch.io, etc. are now my go-to because Steam has also proven they no more care about our ability to access our games, and Microsoft can kiss my whole ass with Windows 11.) You're really okay with telling your player base that the money they spent on your game in EA IN ORDER TO SUPPORT YOU AND YOUR EFFORTS TO PRODUCE THE BEST GAME YOU WISH TO PROVIDE that their privacy and their ability to continue to access Dinkum are forfeit?

How dare you.

I've been waiting for this game to come out of Early Access for a good while now, and now the community is freaking out over a new publisher that seems really shady.

I'm not going to wade in the weeds with this one, but I will say this: I want to develop games one day, and if I was looking for a publisher, I sure as hell would vet potential companies, and not just pick the first one that comes along. It seems to be either carelessness on James's part, or he really doesn't care about the game he's worked on.

sigh... Another game in the trash, I guess.

very good game, please add some achievements like other game..
thanks.

this game was fun at first, it was a nice cozy game about making money growing your village and decorating your island. it was an awesome game to play with my kid.

but as updates came along most of the content and cool items were put in the caves with monsters that were harder and harder and that swarmed you with annoying mechanics to move around and explore.

My kid no longer wanted to play because she didnt want to deal with the monsters in the caves and only wanted to explore and interact with the few npc there is, keeping us from enjoying the game fully because we were unable to get the cool items or unlock the recipes with the new machines.

the game also wasnt fun anymore as i was doing is grinding keys to unlock gates in the caves to try and get the items in the caves.

the early/mid game is fun because you are unlocking things to make your island beautiful and finding ways to make money but by end game it becomes a boring grind fest and an exercise in frustrations as you get swarmed by ennemies with a random chance of getting the item you are looking for in the mines

Wide as a puddle and just as deep. Your experience on the first day of playing is exactly the same as everything that comes after: grind materials and complete fetch quests.

The island feels lifeless and dead, NPCs have one note personalities and only exist to sell things to you, and animals just kind of wander around aimlessly.

I kept waiting for the game to go somewhere, but it never did.

Oh, also, the solo dev sold the game out to a Korean mobile game publisher, Krafton, just about a month or two ago and the game now requires you to agree to their EULA.

No beef to the dev or even Krafton, honestly, but they're not honoring refunds despite this upset happening at the tail end of early access, and I really don't appreciate the apparent bait and switch.

Basically though, it's an incredibly shallow mess that can't (and won't) be saved by future content updates, as the developer is instead working with Krafton to develop a multiplayer-focused, mobile spinoff called "Dinkum Together".

Very cool. Please avoid this.

Bought the game more than 2 years ago,
played for a bit and felt that the game got potential to be a fun game for me,
so I waited for the game to get out of early access period before I commit to fully play the game.

Then disaster strike

Original solo dev shake hands and make a deal with the devilkrafton.
- i don't know if he sold the ip or not,
- I don't know why krafton need me to consent on them collecting my data, when I don't even touch or planning to touch any multiplayer aspect of the game.
- I don't know why krafton blocked me to play single player offline dinkum if I don't sign the new contract.
- I don't know why the solo dev doesn't post any information in steam addressing this shidshow.
- I don't know why he doesn't do this dinkum together more elegant, like klei did with don't starve together.
(I don't need to sign any eula in the offline don't starve)
- I don't know why he holed up in his discord bunker and sending his gaslight goons to damage control in steam.

So many questions, none answered
But I know two thing,
1 Dev is a pussy
2 I'm not touching anything the guy make in the future.

tldr:
- Game is decent
- The updates are very lackluster, mostly just focus on decorative knick-knacks and the annoying mine.
- New buyers that expecting this is a singleplayer offline game beware that krafton wants your personal data even when you don't have any plan to play multiplayer, they won't let you play the game if you don't sign the eula and agree to share yours.

I've seen way after purchase their new shady EULA… this already gaves a bad taste in the mouth.
Aside of that, it has pissed me off right off the bat unfortunately.

I tried and played other early access indie games even more recent ones - Dinkum has been out for 2 years - and I'm aware of issues that can occur, especially on Steam Deck, but none gave me this much trouble and honestly I don't have as much patience as I used to when it comes to make something as basic as controls work, being under pressure of going over the 2 hours limit trying to make it work is no-go. Left button on D-PAD is just not recognized despite every workaround I tried, even trying with my XBox Controller. Most of my very short playtime was just trying to figure this out as the diary icon was just constantly jumping in the bottom left corner of my screen, because it didn't register I opened it with something else. Irritatingly distracting.

2 minutes in, I got killed by a crocro, loosing money (dinks) and getting my HP very low with the irritating sound that comes with it. As it was from the very beginning, I didn't have a bed or anything to rest and stop that infuriating sound getting my teeth on edge. Couldn't eat anything either apparently. Fortunately I was able to turn its sound completely through settings, which isn't a long-term solution, too bad I couldn't disable that jumping icon as well. I mean, I knew there would be dangerous creatures attacking me in this game, come on it's inspired by Australia, but not right from jumping out of the airship. Got killed a second time going in water apparently, I just put my toe in it and got stuck, impossible to move: bam, dead, bam even less dinks. I wasn't even in the depth wth.

They warned you at the beginning that my language (French) localization was made through AI and community help. Well, it doesn't look like any intelligence has done anything about it. Every word is translated literally instead of a true localization making the whole thing a huge mess (to be honest, I was able to reverse-translating to English given how word-for-word this was translated, truly headache inducing). I could have changed language back to English, but to me, this is not an attempt to make the game more accessible to players around the world but a trick to make them get the game at all. French and English have lots of similitudes, I can't imagine what it gives in other languages.

Paid full price for the game knowing it was Early Access, but having already these couple but BIG issues (for me) being a source of irritation and distraction right from the start doesn't feel like I will ever enjoy this game, which is a shame since I've been waiting for it for a while and heard lots of good things about it.

I may give it another try when 1.0 is out, but as far as I've read recently, the game isn't even in the hand of the original dev/publisher with shady data collection you can't opt out of?

I didn't think i'd like the game much, no video games have been hitting recently so I wanted to try something new. And well im 9.3 hrs in, its not like amazing and the best thing ever (i prefer games with story and very indepth characters) but there's something that isn't letting me stop. The grind gives so much dopamine, especially catching bugs, omg thats the most fun i've had in a long time. It's a good game to switch your brain off to and just grind and do chores :))

I was an early on supporter of the game. I loved the game and wanted to support a fellow Aussie and indie developer.
However, I don't agree with having an EULA on this game. I don't agree with having my info shared automatically.
To share my personal information automatically without consent, and then having to email a company that I didn't agree with to have access to my personal information with in order to opt out is disrespectful.

Communications with the community has been poor. It's like the dev is cowardly hiding after making the decision.

Game uninstalled.

Game is now forcing a EULA and locking players out of the SINGLE PLAYER GAME for no purpose with false claims of "re-agreeing to the Eula."
Game has seen virtually no meaningful updates in over a year and consistently plagues with bugs of varying degrees.
It's claiming that it will still be developed by the original developer but I have serious concerns for this being accurate. With the amount of changes seen with this change in publisher... you know that James Bendon is lying to us all.

This is a great game with an engaged developer and a transparent data policy.
It is similar to Animal Crossing but, in my opinion, with more diverse gameplay going on. It has more featues than other games of the genre and ample content for the price!
The additional twist is that it is Australian outback themed.

If you never played Animal Crossing or a similar game, the goal is to take care of an island and it's inhabitants. And also to make lots of money to build your own house in a village you build yourself.

While you don't have the same range of options in building like you have in games like The Sims, there are a lot of options to make the village feel like your own creation. After 13 hours of play, there is still so much for me to discover and since it is in early access, the game is still growing.

You can also fill up a museum, fight against animals, explore, build relationships and grow your community via quests.

-------------------------------------------------------

Don't be tricked by recent negative reviews who are unable to understand what is happening with their data on Steam.
There is a new publisher for this game and the developer gets punished for being transparent.

A lot of users seem to not understand that data collection on Steam is happening, regardless whether they are explicitly told. This developer told the gamer about it and now the people are losing their minds...

I love this game. I contemplated getting it for months and finally caved. Ive always loved Stardew Valley/Animal Crossing/Harvest Moon and this game is the perfect little mix of all of them. Im not really sure why everyone has their panties in a bunch over the new publisher, as the game developer is the same... i dont think the game itself deserves bad reviews based on peoples opinions of the new publisher. This game is cozy, and relaxing, there's no pressure (at least it feels that way to me) to complete tasks in a certain time or get things done before the end of the day/season. I look forward to coming home after a stressful day and getting to my island :) the characters are cute and the building designs are amazing i just adore the greenhouse! it is a bit slower but i appreciate there are no "rules". i can design my town, fish or hunt, farm and cook- when i get bored of doing one thing i can move to another. i also love the currency, its not hard to get quickly vs animal crossing or stardew valley. i dont mind the stamina drain either - esp if you make fruit salad or something similar you will barely have an issue. there are also things you can do that dont drain stamina at night. I am only 30 hours in and i know i will be adding alot more time in Dinkum <3 thank you for making such a fun/amazing game. I feel like ive been waiting for a game like this.

Sold out to KRAFTON, and to keep the negative reviews at bay, botted positive reviews in at the same time. Like seriously, look at the graph, never before has it gotten more one sentence (or sometimes even one character) reviews then when the negative reviews also started pouring in regarding Krafton and their crappy engagement. The original Dev isn't even't allowed to do the community outreach anymore. Add to it that it requires a new EULA AND an opt out policy on sharing your data (which requires you to email them in good faith), and you have a really disappointing finale to Dinkum.

An enjoyable and well-crafted game, plagued by issues related to the transition to a new, corporate publisher.

The game itself largely deserves a thumbs-up recommendation (as was my previous review), but the updates - both game and news - since the publisher transition have been sorely disappointing.

I am very happy that a broader international / non-English audience will be able to experience and enjoy the game. But implementing that non-content update in such a way that it breaks existing saves (especially for - but not limited to - mod users) is neglectful of the existing community.

I hope future updates will receive the due care that the overall community deserves.

Sold out to a Korean Developer, who profits off information sharing.

Permanently uninstalled. Fuck Corpo-trash

I wouldn't even know what the game is about with that new featured trailer video, lol, pretty stereotypical as well. Horrible marketing/publishing team the dev sold out to.

Game requires a new agreement that collects your data to play now.

Devs sold out to Krafton (PUBG and other scummy games).

Also new EULA selling all your data.

Dont buy.

I can't recommend this game in good faith now due to the recent Krafton acquisition. Now that they're basically in charge the charm of the game will most likely die. for now i'd recommend waiting and seeing what they decide to do with the game incase they fill it with MTXs and pointless paid DLCs. shame on you Jimbo.

Thank you for the good times, James, but it is time to say goodbye.

I have a few hours into this game. It’s a fun game to dig out on occasion and plug a few stress-free hours into, then put away for a while. However, I am removing the game from my computer for the following reasons:
- Despite having already purchased the game well over a year ago, I am asked to accept a new Eula from a Korean company, Krafton. Apparently, this has been discussed within another platform, but the game runs within Steam and nothing has been mentioned here, until today. You know, where the players are. This is all comes at a bit of a surprise.
- The Eula is not found on Steam. You will not see the Eula pop up in a Steam window when clicked on. Instead, links to Krafton are found. Not sure I trust a Eula that can’t be added to Steam. Once to the site, you will be asked to accept or modify their cookie policy. I read what I could without clicking on anything and left the page.
- If my understanding is correct, you can opt out of their personal data collection policy by emailing them (providing more personal information, which they state they will be keeping on file in the new Eula). Why is opting in, instead of opting out, the default choice to begin with?
Maybe I am being paranoid and maybe I am overreacting a bit. Maybe I simply have it all wrong. If it weren’t for the poor track record of the various industries handling our information, maybe I would be more trusting. It’s not you. Its me.

Totally Shattered after the so called "Aussie Battler" developer sold out to a Korean Publisher. I bought 5 copies for my adult kids and/or my grandchildren. Developers name is now Mud to my family.

Thanks for the deception. Enjoy your profits. Update is permanently paused soon to be deleted x 5.

Sold out to a Korean publisher that is forcing people to sign a new EULA in order to play the game, despite people having purchased and owned the game prior. Steam's own store page does not even link the Developer's page properly and only sends you to Krafton's page instead... real nice *sarcasm*.
I get that being an indie developer can be tough and that the idea of selling rights or partnering up with a publisher to make money is tempting, but you've picked a bad choice and betrayed your player base James.

Sorry James, but you sort of stabbed your community that supported your game in the back. I know money is a great motivator and all, but you chose the wrong horse to back.

Very fun and casual game.
Needs achievments!

As you can see, a lot of hours into this game. I've been playing it since the day it launched into Early Access back in July 2022. But, nothing like a game stopping 3rd-party EULA you Must Accept to continue playing the game you paid for more than two years ago to give you pause. It's not about getting a Publisher, it's not about data transfer to that publisher, it's about a publisher doubling down and forcing that EULA or I can't play the game anymore. No Thank You! I have many other games of this genre to play that don't force me into a 3rd-party EULA to play them but Well Done; you've now joined the ranks of Dubious and Shifty. Game Uninstalled, Removed from Steam Library, Developer and Publisher added to IGNORE list.

Animal Crossing/Harvest Moon meets Australia

super fun game like a new twist to animal crossing with harvest moon quality things as well. i love the grind of the slow progression and i keep finding that if i lose sight of the game for a while, its not a pain to get back to it. its a simple enough game that once you get the hang of it, you know what you're doing so you dont really have to relearn how to play if you take a break. being a mother of 2 young ones, its hard to find time to game sometimes, but i love it still. ive had this game for over a year and its still in my top 5 for sure. I Recommend you give DInkum a try if you like harvest moon and/or animal crossing. oh yea and it even has a bit of combat! very simple, again, but not laggy or useless. well balanced game. i kind of love it more than animal crossing. XD

I have had a blast playing this game and i really enjoy it!!! I have also played Co-op and had a great time with friends... this is a cute game and a lot of fun that i highly recommend!!!!

I am so so so proud of James and all
his hard work! Here’s hoping the new publisher allows even more people to fall in love with the beauty of Dinkum. James made a game that encapsulates so much of what other games might have, but lack in other areas! Dinkum is the all encompassing perfect game to wind down after a long day and there is so much freedom and creativity for players to explore! I love this game and here’s to many more years with Dinkum.

Nice game, fun and low-stakes, though it admittedly hasn't held me as much as I was hoping for. That said, I'm finally leaving a review to try and balance out the overblown reaction to Krafton's involvement.

Fair's fair, the announcement was very opaque and poorly handled. On Steam. Out of nowhere there's a news update about personal information transfer, suddenly invoking the name of a new company instead of clarifying that, "Hey, Dinkum has a publisher to take care of some of the overhead now!" It's made much clearer on Discord what is actually going on, for those like me who might have had their hackles raised by the announcement. Here are the important points you're looking for:

- Krafton is now the game's publisher. They will be handling the game's socials (Discord, YouTube, etc.), though not exclusively; there will be additional language support; and perhaps some future benefits, we'll see.
- Krafton will be receiving about as much user data as James had to begin with; which is to say, whatever Steam shares with any publishers and anyone you've ever bought something from on Steam before. We're not talking about a game that had any invasive telemetry to begin with, here.
- James Bendon is still the developer. He has not passed the reins on to anyone else.

So if you are for some reason EXTREMELY OPPOSED to a bog standard publisher based in South Korea having access to the most innocuous level of data (i.e. the fact that you own the game, and what account the ownership is attached to) then perhaps you have cause for concern. Otherwise, this is just a poorly-communicated and completely unremarkable revelation that the game now has a publisher and is going to be getting more language support.

You really messed up with how you handled this deal, James.

I don't care that you've found a larger company to work with. Honestly, good on ya. But there was definitely a better way to handle relaying to the community what was happening, as well as being absolutely clear in all the specifics included regarding player's personal information and actually giving people the option to OPT-IN beforehand rather than jumping through hoops to OPT-OUT afterwords.

Hope you do well from here on, but I don't have any desire to continue enjoying Dinkum after this.

This game has given me hours of peaceful happiness. This game is so relaxing and really makes you feel like you're in a little town of cute characters. As more people move in and the town becomes bigger, it really feels like home. There is a ton to do and lots of options to make things your own. The only thing I would change in this game if I could, would be the storage boxes. If there could be bigger sizes that we could make that would be great! And that's just a QOL thing for me. Again this game is amazing and makes me very happy! Would and will definately recommend!!!!

Congrats and best of luck James! I hope you get everything you want out of this deal. What you've accomplished up to this point is nothing short of amazing. Doing what you've done as a solo dev is up there, in my opinion, with some of the greatest indie success stories like Stardew Valley, Undertale, etc. I really mean that.

Unfortunately, after 800ish hours, my wife and I will no longer be playing the game and can no longer recommend it. We try very hard to "vote with our wallets" and just cannot, in good conscience, support Tencent, whether directly or indirectly—at least we try not to, although it's hard to keep up with everything Tencent owns or has significant stake in.

I know that for me it's just a game, but for you, it's your life, so we're going to have very different perspectives, but I feel like this situation was handled very poorly and with little transparency. It was announced like it was a surprise update, but in reality, at least for me, it was not good news at all. Based on how this went down, I can no longer recommend this game, as it's an Early Access game that was created by a single dev and now you're teaming up with a gigantic company

Either way, thanks for the good times, Dinkum! But It's time to eat some Pavlova, bury my 91 million+ Dinks, put my Halo on, and glide off into the sunset.

Fear not angry Tencent fans! Here are a few things you can say in the comments to convince me to turn my frown upside down:

1) You aren't supporting Tencent, since you already bought the game.
2) Tencent already has all of your data!
3) Who cares?
4) What are you trying to hide?
5) Tencent already owns EVERYTHING!
6) Then why are you on TikTok, idiot?
7) One person can't make a difference.
8) Do you even know what a publisher does, bro?