Rolling Hills: Make Sushi, Make Friends is a cozy indie life sim game that puts players behind the wheels of a charming robot sushi chef. It's up to players to learn over 50 sushi recipes and check out the local ingredients to improve them as they master their skills as the adorable Sushi Bot, serving customers in the namesake town's sushi restaurant. As a confirmed Xbox Game Pass release for June 2024, Rolling Hills is likely to attract the attention of fans of life sim games such as Stardew Valley, albeit with an art style that's more akin to other cozy titles like Animal Crossing.
Indeed, Rolling Hills has several inspirations from the video game space, including Animal Crossing, recent restaurant management titles Lemon Cake and The Sushi Spinnery, and the old-school platformer adventure game Chibi-Robo. It sounds like an exciting mix of titles and genres which, altogether, could make Rolling Hills an endearing and entertaining blend of life and restaurant sim mechanics. Game ZXC recently spoke with one of Rolling Hills' co-creators, Matthew Taylor, who developed the game with his brother and fellow co-creator James Tillman. Taylor spoke more about the specific inspirations of all these titles.
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The Sushi Spinnery, Lemon Cake, and Chibi-Robo
When asked more about Rolling Hills' various video game inspirations, Taylor identified The Sushi Spinnery as "an early inspiration," with both he and his brother being "big fan[s] of Kairosoft sim games" and mentioned it was also "a helpful example of a sushi-themed game." Fans of restaurant management games may also be familiar with Lemon Cake, an indie game about running an abandoned bakery. Taylor went on to explain how Lemon Cake specifically inspired Rolling Hills from a gameplay perspective:
Lemon Cake helped demonstrate how to make a fun, more cozy restaurant sim that focused on controlling a character. We felt this was important to make the game more accessible, as opposed to a full-scale sim game where you control everything from a godlike perspective.
Additionally, while some players might be less familiar with the Chibi-Robo game series, it's perhaps not too tricky to see the parallels with Sushi Bot as a concept. Taylor described Chibi-Robo as a "personal favorite," adding it was more of a "subconscious" rather than a direct inspiration:
Looking back, I never directly thought "Let's make a game with a robot protagonist," but it's no surprise that Chibi-Robo was in my subconscious the whole time.
Rolling Hills' Animal Crossing Inspirations
Fans of Animal Crossing may appreciate Rolling Hills' appealing visuals and for good reason. It's clear that Rolling Hills drew from a lot of sources, and Taylor identified Animal Crossing as inspiration for the game's art style.
It's evolved a lot over the years, but we've always strived for something cute and colorful. We've seen a few games attempt "indie Animal Crossing " over the years, and although our game shares very little in common with Animal Crossing 's gameplay, it was no doubt a big inspiration for our art style.
Although the visuals look to create cozy, chill vibes, it will also be interesting to see how relaxing Rolling Hills' restaurant management gameplay is, something which can sometimes feel more frantic than cozy in some restaurant sims. While games like Plate Up! and Overcooked might come to mind, even cozy games like Lemon Cake can sometimes feel chaotic for some players. When asked about the balance of restaurant management and coziness in Rolling Hills, Taylor reflected on the game's initial inspirations:
I imagine a lot of folks who see Rolling Hills will be reminded of Overcooked , but we definitely tried to make a chiller game. A big component of that is taking inspiration from RPGs instead of purely action-based games. For instance, if you're overwhelmed by the number of customers, you can invest in better recipes or furniture, both of which will make the game easier.
Rolling Hills releases on June 4.