Slime Rancher

Slime Rancher is a 3D farming simulation that features a first-person exploration of the planet Far Far Range located a thousand light years from Earth. You have to survive there, playing as a plucky and young Beatrix LeBeau by building a ranch and then traveling around and exploring this beautiful world.

Your mission is to suck up adorable slime creatures into your tuned vacpack, feed them, collect their valuable poops called plorts and expand your ranch. With a can-do attitude, stake a claim, amass a fortune, and avoid all the dangers.

Graphics 4,5/5

Slime Rancher does not disappoint with its colors and graphics. The game looks beautiful. Although the landscapes have been designed to seem cartoonish, they still look amazing.

The canyon walls, the clear blue sky, and the emerald colored grass may even make you want to go outside. And it’s not just the environment that looks great, the creatures do too. The slimes will likely adore you, even though some of them are kind of terrifying too.

Gameplay 4,5/5

So, the main premise of the game is to collect Slimes, which come in various shapes and sizes. You will need to take care of them by feeding them correctly since each Slime has its own diet between veggies, fruits or meat.

Once they are fed, the Slimes will produce Plorts that you can sell for gold coins. Each slime produces a different Plort and combined Slimes produce two Plorts.

Then, you can use the coins to build new farms to grow fruits or veggies, fountains for water and Chicken coops. The game features various chickens you will need to collect the same way as you collect Slimes, as well as a rooster in order for them to reproduce. The rooster is much harder to find, though.

Also, you will be able to build Corals, which are like cages for Slimes. You will need to upgrade them regularly to keep them captive. Otherwise, they can escape and then possibly turn into Tar slimes that will eat the rest of your Slimes and attack you on sight. This is the fastest way to lose your ranch.

Collecting slimes is a pretty easy process as you just need to suck them up with your vacuum gun and then shoot them out into the Corals. Since some slimes jump higher than others, Corals have to be upgraded with higher walls and with a net for those slimes which can fly.

While you are venturing out to collect new slimes or chickens, you have to keep an eye on two dangers: Tar Slimes and Feral Slimes. Tar Slimes is a mutation of two Plorts that multiply very fast by eating every Slime surrounding it. You can use water to damage and kill them, or you can just suck them up and shoot away in the ocean. Feral Slimes has a mean streak and will attack you on sight. It is not known what exactly causes them to become so grumpy, but it's suspected that they have simply gone too long without a bite to eat. If a Feral slime eats, it will instantly revert to a normal slime.

Controls 5/5

Slime Rancher begins with a short and sweet tutorial about the controls, so it will be easy for you to figure it out. Basics are the usual WASD controls as well as left and right mouse click for the vac gun, space bar to jump and shift to sprint.

There won’t be a long and tedious tutorial, though. So you can get to start playing almost a few seconds after you started the game.

Replay Value 3,5/5

Each day will deliver new challenges to you as you attempt to amass a great fortune in the slime ranching business. And you can approach these challenges however you wish.

You will unlikely want to start the game from scratch and lose all the coins you’ve earned. So it’s better to stick to your ongoing game and upgrade your farm.

In-game purchases

Slime Rancher costs about 20$ on popular digital markets. 

Conclusion

Slime Rancher is fun and addictive game, with a fun premise and cute creatures. The cartoon style graphics look amazing, and gameplay is clever and full of cute.

You have a chance to amass a great fortune in the slime ranching business, using all the coins you’ve earned to upgrade your farm and catch more slimes.

• Graphics 4.5
• Gameplay 4.5
• Controls 5
• Replay Value 3.5

Pros

Beautiful 3D graphics;
Cute environment;
The world to explore;
Vacpack and ranch upgrades.

Cons

No world map;
No story.