Natsume recently announced a partnership with Yasuhiro Wada's Toybox studio to bring his next project, tentatively called, "Project Happiness" stateside. Known as the "father of Harvest Moon," Wada-san wants to create a universe similar to that of Harvest Moon, but the gameplay will be completely different.
Instead of tending to a farm, you're managing a shop and trying to expand. Your objective is to grant the wishes of seven villagers, but we're told that it will be difficult to decide which villager to help, and each wish is tough to accommodate. One key features that he stressed was that there will be plenty of customization, so you can determine the layout of your store and choose the items that you want to have. He's enlisted the help of Nobuo Uematsu (of Final Fantasy fame) to help with the score and illustrator Atsuko Nishida (Pokemon) to design the characters. More details will be revealed in the coming months, but for now, Project Happiness looks to be an early 2013 release.
