All posts tagged in Farming Simulation
Dec 7, 2023
Remember Garden Galaxy, that adorable little cozy idle game I talked about here? In that one, you’re collecting coins from random visitors to spend in order to get decorations. Then, you take the decor and build your own little landscapes. It’s perfect for really casual gameplay, and so is this next game!
Rusty’s Retirement is another idle game I came across, but this time instead of decorating you’re running a farm. The game sits comfortably at the bottom of your screen so you can continue your tasks while it chugs along doing its thing. You’ll plant crops and watch as Rusty does his thing taking care of them. He’ll water, nurture, and harvest everything you plant. And as you progress, you’ll unlock new crops to plant.
Then, take those crops and manufacture biofuel. Rusty’s Retirement’s biofuel is clean and energy-efficient, and sells for a good bit of money so you can reinvest in your farm. You can also employ a host of cute robots who will help with planting, watering, and harvesting crops. Even customize and upgrade them for increased efficiency.
Don’t worry too much about getting distracted by Rusty’s Retirement, though. You can turn on “Focus Mode” to slow down production to allow you to concentrate on your tasks!
Release Date
This fun farming idler is listed on Steam, where you can add it to your Wishlist. However, there is no specific release date listed. It’s set to come out sometime in the first quarter of 2024, though!
- Nov 30, 2023
Fae Farm is a beautiful farming sim where you cultivate crops, craft items to decorate your home with or sell, and care for adorable farm animals. Befriend a varying cast of townspeople, and even romance some of them. Plus, you even get to venture into the faerie realm, where you’ll see faeries and fantastical creatures not seen in the human realm. Even delve deep into the mines to collect resources, fight enemies, and uncover mysteries!
What’s Great About the Game
The art in Fae Farm is absolutely gorgeous. It’s easy to fall in love with the game based on that alone. The scenery is varied. The NPCs all look different. Even your clothing options are lovely. Then, the furniture and decorating choices are great. You’re sure to find something that suits your style, whatever it may be. Adventuring into the fae realm is probably my favorite part. It’s so whimsical and magical. Even the dungeon is dreamy, though chock full of enemies. The art is absolutely what drew me to the game to begin with!
What I also really like about Fae Farm is that tools switch automatically for you. Walk up to a tree to chop, and you’ll immediately have your axe in hand. Then, go to a rock and poof! There’s your pickaxe! It’s a super handy mechanic that I would love to see in all farming sims. It saves time and lets me switch between activities much faster. Besides that, fast travel unlocks early game. There are several points across the map called Wayshrines that act as fast travel spots. You need to craft a seal from cave resources in order to activate the Wayshrine, but you can accomplish that easily early on. Having fast travel early in the game makes it genuinely useful and not just an afterthought. Plus, the mines have waypoints where you can place seals you’ve crafted in order to get to different levels without going through the whole mine. Think Stardew Valley’s mine elevator, but with more magic and teleporting!
What I Dislike
Unfortunately, Fae Farm has more aspects that I dislike than I like. In order to play multiplayer, or even just name your character, you need to create a Phoenix Labs account. Otherwise, your character’s name defaults to the account name that’s on the system you’re playing on. So, my character’s name is a string of random letters I used for my Steam name. It kind of ruins any romance when my husband calls me by name.
I once wasted a precious Fae Farm day sitting in the crafting menu or almanac menu thinking the game was paused. It certainly was not. The nice thing is that you aren’t negatively affected for passing out after bedtime, so all I truly lost was a day of play time. It didn’t decay friendship points with my critters, and it didn’t ruin any quests. Then there’s the sales tables. The limited sales table spots really get in the way of me mass selling a hoard of items I’ve held onto for too long. It doesn’t inhibit money-making, just clearing out that stack of 600 fibers I probably don’t need so many of.
The exuberant laughing at everything is obnoxious, though. When I accomplish something, I laugh. When talking to an NPC, they laugh instead of speak. None of it is funny! I’d prefer if they muttered some nonsense like Sims do. Unfortunately, the laughing just lends itself to the overall soul-less feel the game has. The NPCs have no deep backgrounds, and their dialogue is repetitive and shallow. There’s not even a point to befriending anyone unless you’re trying to marry them. And there’s only a handful of marriage candidates. Even the festivals feel lifeless. They’re not exciting and engaging. Everything feels very surface level.
Final Thoughts
Don’t get me wrong, Fae Farm is somewhat fun. I’ve put some hours into it, but I’d hoped for a lot more polish for that AAA price tag. A better story with more meaningful characters would have made this game an absolute gem. I’d also like for everyone to have a nose, please! Everything feels so shallow and surface level. I don’t need some deep, dark secrets to go into it, just a little more substance that makes me want to talk to people or do things. And when you add up several minor gripes, things feel lackluster, and that’s what we have here.
Overall, I’d give it:
You can find Fae Farm on Steam and Switch now!
Check out another of my reviews on a magical game: Witchy Life Story!
- Nov 29, 2023
Welcome to Cheaphaven! It’s a short, but charming game full of agriculture and delightful NPCs. Play as a cute little lizard as you get to know a cast of NPCs who live in a nearby small town. Take time to clear the land of trees and debris in order to start your very own farm. Grow some crops, raise some chickens, and fish for a while. Even go shopping in town and collect fun cosmetics for your character like hats!
You won’t get hundreds of hours out of Cheaphaven, but you will encounter a few great hours of relaxed escapism in it!
Available Now
You can find this cute game on Steam now!
Craving more farming sims? Check out Little-Known Galaxy and Wish Upon a Llama!
- Nov 15, 2023
There’s no lack of farming sims, I know. Harvest Moon, Stardew Valley, Coral Island, Fae Farm, Paleo Pines, and so many more different iterations are out there for everyone to try. Farming has almost completely become synonymous with “cozy gaming” lately. What there is a lack of, is good phone game options for on-the-go gaming. Sprout Valley recently came out for both iOS and Android, and is a great paid option. It’s adorable and simple. However, if you’re looking for a free game to try, Harvest Valley might be right up your alley!
Harvest Valley is a simple farming sim where you can pick your own character from a few presets. You’re the new owner of a run-down farm, and it’s up to you to restore it and make it great! Clean up piles of debris to make room for farm plots and useful equipment. Plant watermelons, potatoes, and a variety of other crops to sell. Even travel to neighboring farms to help out NPCs with different farming tasks like planting, watering, and vegetable sorting.
Available Now
You can find this cute farming sim on Android and iOS now!
- Nov 9, 2023
What happens when you take the classic farming sim, throw in some microbe research, and a dash of romance? You get Little-Known Galaxy! This adorable pixel graphics game has you playing the main character, a new captain-in-training. You work with your crew to solve the mysteries of an ancient relic found on the Grey Planet, and live a life full of exploration, crafting, and of course farming!
Your crew initially starts small, with just 20 people, but will slowly grow as you meet new friends. Little-Known Galaxy has all kinds of different NPCs like full families and single people. You get to build relationships with them though chatting, gifting, and more. There are also 10 single people ready for you to woo them! Win their affection and you can eventually marry one, too. Not everyone is human, though. An alien, an android, and a genetic clone are all possible romance characters!
When not romancing and befriending your crew, Little-Known Galaxy lets you engage in quite a few different activities. Take off to new worlds to explore to gather resources for crafting. Collect alien artifacts and gems while out exploring to fill in your museum. Raise cute little pet creatures called Xeno. You’ll need to give them love, attention, and plenty of food to see them thrive. Complete microbe research, or use the microbes you find for crafting or selling. Even rise through the ranks to become a full-fledged captain by completing missions and keeping crew morale up. And when you want to kick back and relax, spend time decorating your living space!
Coming Soon
Little-Known Galaxy is coming soon to Steam. There is currently no release date listed.
One Lonely Outpost is another space-based farming sim.
- Nov 2, 2023
Roots of Pacha is a lovely farming and life sim set in the Stone Age. You and your tribe mates will discover new ideas and inventions, as well as bring those ideas to life. Improve your community as you explore the world. Tame animals, make friends, even get married! And of course, you’ll run your own farm where you plant a variety of crops to use in jams and other recipes.
Now, Roots of Pacha is receiving another fun update that brings more content, and goodies! This update will add a new animal, called the auochs. This cow-like creature will be tameable by playing its own unique song. Move them to a barn on your land and gather fur and milk from them. Plus, they may even play a major role in future game updates!
Roots of Pacha is adding quite a few new additions for NPCs, too. Voda will be romanceable now. You can join her in the woods to visit with the wolves, and more. Plus, there will be new NPC cut scenes, as well as gifts from those NPCs you’ve achieved a high enough friendship level with. Receive 16 new recipes, 10 new hats/masks, 11 furniture pieces, and 2 new accessories. Then there’s unions. Players have wanted to be able to break unions (marriages) for a while now, and now they’ll be able to! So, if you like to marry everyone in a game for completionism, this is your chance!
Then there’s these fun new Roots of Pacha additions:
- Sitting on chairs will restore your stamina
- You can now grow herbs and mushrooms
- Use traps in savanna to get meat, or butcher animals you’ve raised
- The race maps were polished
- Performance optimizations implemented
- Fruit tree costs lowered, plus a new one added that makes animals never get sick
- Fish will have quality levels
- Japanese language added as a playable option
- Cross play will be available with Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox releases.
Finally, and perhaps the most exciting, is that Roots of Pacha is coming to Nintendo Switch and PlayStation November 28th! An Xbox port will come sometime next year. You can also find it on Steam now.
- Oct 26, 2023
Tales of Autumn is an open-ended wild farming RPG with an emphasis on raising animals and managing terrain. Restore the abandoned ranch to create a thriving new home for yourself. Befriend and tame cute wild creatures, as well as adorable farm animals. Each animal has their own specific requirements for living on your ranch. Meet those requirements to have happy, healthy animals! Change the terrain around the ranch to create different biomes. These biomes will allow the growth of specific crops and attract new creatures for you to tame. And don’t forget the fish, either. Grab your fishing pole and lures to catch a variety of fish.
When you’re not working on the ranch, take time to get to know the people of Tales of Autumn. The inviting town will reward your good behavior and ignore you for poor behavior. Receive gifts, discounts, and helping hands for being friendly with the people of your town, or they’ll keep their distance and shutter their doors to you for not being friendly! Talking to the townspeople will let you hear about their lives, though, and involve them in your own. Plus, you can attend town festivals and experience character and animal events.
Available Now
Tales of Autumn is available now on Steam.
Wish Upon a Llama is another adorable game that has a focus on raising animals!
- Oct 25, 2023
We’re just a week away from Halloween, and I’m so incredibly excited for it! What better way to celebrate it than with another cozy, yet spooky game to play? This time, we have Harvest Island, a farming sim with a horror twist. The gods demand a harvest offering, your dad is telling white lies, and the island itself seems to be hiding something.
Harvest Island is a narrative-driven horror farming sim game. You can farm crops, collect creatures from the tidepools like starfish and horseshoe crabs, and even forage items like coconuts and seaweed. Spend time catching fish, which you can also offer up to the gods in return for blessings that help you with your farming and crafting. You can also cook up the fish in tasty meals for yourself to restore your stamina!
Explore different areas and find the hidden spots of Harvest Island like a beautiful waterfall hiding a cave behind it, or the vending machine placed in the dark underground room at the beach. Craft different tools like ladders and rope to help you explore the island further, help you on your farm, and progress the story further. You can even befriend the animals you find in your adventure. Offer them food or a friendly pat, and they may reward you with items or show you an undiscovered place!
This deceitful island waits for you to explore it.
Available Now
You can find this spooky farming sim on Steam now!
For more Halloween fun, check out Book of Hours. Plus, here’s a list of Slightly Spooky Games You Should Play This Halloween.
