If you’re anything like some people I know (you know who you are), you’ll take one look at Slime Rancher‘s Steam page, say “Why even,” and forget about it.
If you’re anything like me, you’ll take one look at Slime Rancher‘s Steam page and slowly slide your money toward the game as to not startle it in hopes it will be your friend.
Yeah.
Slime Rancher is one of those games that slinks its way into Steam Early Access and bewitches a portion of the indie gaming community even without the help of marketing. I guess that’s what people call a sleeper hit these days.
So the big question is: What is this game really?
It’s sort of a time management/raising sim and Harvest Moon fans should feel right at home here despite what the game initially seems.
You’re either going to be enamored or confused when you first look at Slime Rancher on Steam Early Access and that’s only normal — normal people don’t really care for slimes. You’re normal, right? Right.
Right.
Don’t kid yourself: You want to play with the slimes. I know you do.
Slime Rancher doesn’t really let you play with slimes, but you can catch them. You can catch as many as your Vacpack can carry (30+)! But don’t think you can raise as many as you can carry right out the gate.
No, raising slimes is hard work. They need suitable living environments and regular feeding. They need to be separated by type to avoid them mutating one too many times and turning into slime-hungry Tarr.
Toss your slimes about your ranch and they’ll chow down on your crops and any stray chickens they come about, then probably wander somewhere you don’t want them to.
Toss them in a corral with other slimes of their type and they’ll stay nice and cozy, as long as you feed them regularly.
Upgrade your Vacpack to get access to a jetpack and hover into secret areas for.. more slime food!
Explore Far, Far Range to gather food and new slimes for your ranch.
Meet giant slimes and feed them to get keys, teleporters, and some other stuff (probably).
And for what? All for what? Why are you doing this, what is the point? Why are you slaving away on this ranch and dealing with the ever-increasing stress of keeping all your slimes fed and happy?
Poop.
Slime poop.
You feed slimes, they poop out plorts. Plorts are money, and you like money. Even plorty money.
Slime Rancher is still clearly unfinished and needs more slimes and things to do, but if the game’s current features as stated above don’t titillate you enough to make you buy it now and make the big plorts in-game before the next update, you either don’t have a heart or don’t like to eat plorts.
And who doesn’t like Honey Plorts?
Mmm, tasty.
