This game is a twee Papers, Please with a dash of Animal Crossing

There’s two games I didn’t think I’d ever be talking about in the same breath, but here we are. Willowbrooke Post is an upcoming game where the player returns home to manage their parents’ post office for a year following their “sudden departure,” in the process meeting the local community, learning about them, and stamping lots of letters. Willowbrooke Post will be developed by Dante Knoxx and published by Excalibur, the company behind odd, endearing broken car simulator Jalopy.

Willowbrooke Post is a setup that’s familiar to anyone interested in farm life games like Stardew Valley, all about meeting characters and becoming their friends—or, actually not. Of note in the game’s description is the ability to do things like steal peoples’ mail, negatively impacting your relationship with them. It’s scheduled to release into Early Access in early 2019. The Early Access build will be a “comprehensive post office management experience, while introducing a cast of memorable and varied characters and laying the groundwork for an intriguing and engaging narrative.”

You can check out Willowbrooke Post on Steam. For the further curious, the developer gave an EGX talk about the game.

Jon Bolding is a games writer and critic with an extensive background in strategy games. When he's not on his PC, he can be found playing every tabletop game under the sun.