Project Happiness evolves into HomeTown Story, Yasuhiro Wada reveals

Yasuhiro Wada, Harvest Moon creator and ex-Marvelous CEO, revealed that his new game known as Project Happiness is now HomeTown Story, according to recent interview with Famistu.com.

Wada first announced his new game Project Happiness at E3 2012. Atsuko Nishida, the Pokémon’s character designer, and Nobuo Uematsu, Final Fantasy composer, are on board as part of the HomeTown Story’s development team.

In the game, players run a small village store accompanied by a magical sprite. As the player interacts and sells items to the village inhabitants, more information is gleaned about them. After a while the player will be able to make a handful of the NPCs happy by granting them one of seven wishes.

"Because you've spent very much time with the villagers, you care for them, you feel affection, you're attached to them – that is going to make your choice very difficult," Yoshida previously told Polygon.

The latest trailer highlights a few gameplay elements and interactions with the in-game characters. It also illustrates the evolution of the store as the player draws in more customers and makes more friends .

HomeTown Story is set for release this year on the 3DS and mobile devices.