A large farm in Rusty's Retirement sits below the default Windows XP desktop.
Screenshot by GameSkinny

Rusty’s Retirement: What Does Focus Mode Do?

Here's what the mysterious Focus Mode in Rusty’s Retirement is for and whether it's right for you.

Rusty’s Retirement is a new idle farming game with a twist. Where staples of the genre like Cookie Clicker or Kitten Game sit in a browser tab or on your phone, Rusty’s Retirement lives on the bottom of your desktop. This makes the game quite minimal, but that simplicity often makes things confusing. This brings us to our question: What does focus mode do in Rusty’s Retirement?

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What Is Focus Mode in Rusty’s Retirement?

Rusty’s Retirement only uses a few words to describe Focus Mode, saying it “doubles production time.” Understandably, the lack of details confuses some players. Does this actually make vegetable growth slower? Does it affect the entire game or just “production?” What do we mean by production, precisely?

The answer is quite simple. Focus Mode slows down pretty much the whole game by what seems like 50%. With a few exceptions, like the movement and action speed of characters, Focus Mode affects most of your farm. Plant growth, machine improvement, and building construction are all much slower.

You can find Focus Mode in Rusty’s Retirement’s option menu. You can open that menu by clicking on the gear icon on the right side of the screen.

What Is Focus Mode for in Rusty’s Retirement?

But why would you want to slow down production time? Of course, most players won’t click the option. While Focus Mode isn’t there for most players, some might want this cutesy idle farm to keep them company without being too distracting.

By default, the game’s speed is fast enough to require the player to intervene every 10 minutes or so. Not so distracting if you’re not doing much, but far too active to play while working. Compared to that, taking a few seconds every 20 minutes or so to keep things running before getting back to work is much more sustainable.

That concludes our explanation of what focus mode does in Rusty’s Retirement. If you’re looking for other farming sims to distract you while you should be working, check out our list of games like Stardew Valley or visit our Rusty’s Retirement guides hub.


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Author
Diana Croce
Diana is a freelance Gaming Writer for GameSkinny and loves all kinds of stories, even though she’s too lazy for most things that aren’t games. She likes writing about the smaller, unique indie games that slip through the cracks, and she's been doing so since 2022.