mintywolf: (fox camilla)
Minty ([personal profile] mintywolf) wrote2017-08-26 10:17 pm

Adventures in Sass Farming

So I recently started playing Slime Rancher, because (mainly owing to the inexplicable reputation of Sassy Flan and my association with it) it seemed like the thing for me to do and I'd been looking forward to it graduating from early access, which it did this month. Now I can finally achieve my destiny as master of the Sass Ranch.

But honestly this game is the goshdarn cutest thing I've seen in a long time. Everything is so bright and squishy and friendly-looking and the slime designs are really, really endearing. The basic gameplay premise is that you - the heroine, Beatrix LeBeau - have traveled to an alien planet populated by slimes, and you make a living by exploring and collecting them and raising them on your ranch. (On a side note I really appreciate that the protagonist is a woman of color! Especially since the developers didn't have to make her look like anything at all; the game is almost entirely in first-person and they could have easily avoided some whiny backlash - which they are unfortunately getting from what I've seen, although hearteningly most players seem to really like her design!  - by going the faceless protagonist route and leaving unimaginative dudebros to picture themselves as yet another white, male, grizzled space marine or something. I like the deliberate push for diversity.)



These are my prized Tabby/Phosphor Slime hybrids. They eat fruit and bounce around and meow and are adorable.

((Edit I don't know why DW made two cut links here!! I can't get rid of them! Sorry about that.))
 



Of course, I immediately crossbreed EVERYTHING with the cat slimes, despite there being no strategic advantage to doing this. JUST TURN THEM ALL INTO CATS. They meow! They wiggle! They steal things they can't eat and frolic around with them!









You can also dress them up, as I did with this dapper fellow I caught near my farm.



Who then exploded into several smaller dapper cats after eating enough chickens. However, I apparently snared him too close to my house because the batch of wandering tabbies all meandered onto my farm where they immediately vacuumed up the plorts left behind by the two Quantum Tabbies I let roam around the yard. Plorts are those crystal things on the ground; you feed slimes to get their respective plorts, which you can sell or use for crafting. If a regular slime eats another kind of plort, it will turn into a larger hybrid slime.



THAT'S HOW THIS HAPPENED.



I don't even know how many there ARE, since Quantum Slimes create alternate-reality projections of themselves. So now there's an uncountable number of theoretical cat slimes bouncing around my ranch, harassing the chickens and uprooting all the vegetables. And they're too cute to get rid of. :( This is how I ended up a Crazy Cat Slime Lady.

But I definitely recommend this game if you're looking for something fun, cute, and low-stress to play!

[personal profile] cumuluscastle 2017-08-29 01:32 pm (UTC)(link)
Thanks for the rec. I've been eyeballing this game for awhile, but I wasn't too sure. I might get it next. Whenever I am working I need low stress games to chill out at the end of the day. I was playing Stardew Valley for a long time, but after over 200 hrs played I need something new.

[personal profile] cumuluscastle 2017-08-29 08:58 pm (UTC)(link)
Awesome! I didn't know you played Stardew Valley. I was kind of surprised at how much I had liked it - having never really played that type of game before.
coffeevore: A tousled-looking woman stirs coffee. (Default)

[personal profile] coffeevore 2017-08-30 12:42 am (UTC)(link)
Ooohhhh. I like this game of turning everything into cats. Maybe I should look into it!
coffeevore: A cat meowing up at people. (cat)

[personal profile] coffeevore 2017-08-31 04:36 am (UTC)(link)
Hahahaha that is awesome. :DDD