Ooblets, the Stardew Valley meets Pokemon mash-up, gets a Double Fine publishing deal

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And here's a debut trailer to see what the fuss is all about.

Ooblets, as we described it in our interview with creator Rebecca Cordingley last month, is "a mash-up of Stardew Valley, Pokemon, Animal Crossing, and Factorio, with the 'adorable' knob cranked all the way up to 11." 

Cordingley also said that it was the success of Eric Barone, the solo developer of Stardew Valley, that convinced her to go it alone. But today she revealed that Ooblets is going to be released under the banner of Tim Schafer's 'Double Fine Presents' indie publishing program, which the studio launched in 2014. 

"This time last year, I was wondering if I should even embark on indie game development. I was honestly terrified of going out on my own and trying to make my own games," Cordingley wrote at Ooblets.com. "All the potential outcomes I had imagined were nowhere near how insanely awesome things actually turned out. If you had told me back then that Double Fine and Microsoft would be interested in my game, I’d probably say something like, 'Yeah sure, and I suppose Donald Trump will be the next president of the United States…'" 

Development will continue along its previous trajectory, but Double Fine's involvement means "we'll hopefully be avoiding a lot of dumb mistakes we were otherwise planning on making," she wrote. "More generally, we’re now a bit less afraid of failure since so many people believe in us. We’re so thankful to have you all alongside us on this weird journey." 

And that's not all, here's the debut trailer.

Ooblets will be released on the Xbox One as well as the PC—hence the mention of Microsoft—and is expected to be ready for release sometime in 2018.     

Andy Chalk
Andy Chalk
US News Lead

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.