Even the cosiest of cosy games can have melancholy openings. In Stardew Valley, for instance, your elderly grandfather passes away, bequeathing you his rundown farm. In Moonglow Bay, you set about restoring a town after your partner is lost at sea. And in Willowbrooke Post you take over the family mailroom after your parents’ sudden, unexplained departure. Still, Crop, the new farming game from 11 Bit Studios and Carbonara Games might take first place, considering you turn up at your new farm stripped naked and in the boot of a car.

Okay, in fairness, Carbonara Games may not describe Crop as a cosy game and more of a thriller, but all the hallmarks are there. Once you arrive at the farm, you must clear the ground, dig plots for plants, harvest the crops, and sell them in town. Granted, the first job on the farm is burying the previous owner, the crops can sometimes turn to pig intestines in your hands, and the villagers you’re supplying are starving and trapped in the eye of a cosmic storm through which no help can penetrate. But, still, it’s not not a cosy game.

From what I’ve seen of Crop – a trailer, a fact sheet, and five minutes of B-roll – I’m intrigued. The game opens with you crawling out of the boot of a car and walking through some tangly woods until you come across a rundown farmhouse. The nearby village is in desperate need of food and you’re installed as the new farmer, pressured into renovating the property and growing enough crops to keep the people alive until a rescue comes. It’s a strong setup, but what I’m actually drawn in by is the physicality of the farming.

When you dig your spade into the ground, you lift out the soil and choose where to dump it. Back into the hole to create tilled soil for planting, or off to the side into a pile. When you cut back long grass with your sickle, you then need to rake up the plant matter and dump it into a compost heap where it rots into useful fertiliser. Insects and pests will ruin your crops unless you clear the ground where they breed or make a scarecrow to keep the birds away. Crop looks to dig a little deeper into the day to day actions of farming.

I am also intrigued by the story, though the trailer and footage only reveals glimmers of what’s going on in Crop’s world. As well as your suspicious arrival, the farm’s previous owner, and the storm, your neighbour comes across a body that’s been partially eaten, suggesting there’s something monstrous inside the eye of the storm with you. Or perhaps someone just got a bit peckish while waiting for your haul of celeriac.

While Crop is being developed by a new outfit, Carbona Games, there are hints of why Frostpunk developer 11 Bit Studios were keen to publish it. The villagers are all reacting differently to the storm, with some offering bribes if you’ll provide them food before the others, and tempers rising among the survivors. It sounds like decisions you make will have dramatic outcomes as the starvation grows.

As with any trailer, it’s hard to tell if these systems and story will coalesce until Crop’s in our hands. The more involved farming may prove to be fiddly, the story may become a distraction from the farming, the pigs in the next farm over may turn out to be so cute it’s hard to be scared by the goings ons of this strange world. Suffice to say, I’ll be digging in when I get the chance.