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Pardon the dust! This page includes some jargon that hasn't been added to the site's glossary yet. I'll be around to fix this later, but sorry for the inconvenience in the meantime. |
Review: Slime Rancher
At a Glance
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How to Save and Pause:Your progress is automatically saved when players perform certain major actions, such as using a Slime Key or building something. Otherwise, you'll need to select "Save and Quit" from the pause menu. To bring up this menu and pause the game, press ESC. Time needed per session:It's fairly easy to lose track of time while playing this game, so expect to play for 30 minutes or more - especially if you're planning on visiting the more distant locations, which are easily accessible at first.
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Does this game pose issues for Christian players?
 | Some players may have concerns The only real issue with this game comes from how the player views Casey. They are never shown, nor are we ever told if they are a man or a woman, so players may view Bea and Casey as a lesbian couple. This has no impact on the gameplay, however. |
Screenshots
![[view screenshot]](../images/screenshots/slime_rancher_0.jpg)
![[view screenshot]](../images/screenshots/slime_rancher_1.jpg)
![[view screenshot]](../images/screenshots/slime_rancher_2.jpg)
Game Overview
In Slime Rancher, players take on the role of Beatrix LeBeau, a young woman who has recently moved to the planet of Far Far Range in hopes of finding new challenges and turning a profit. Despite the game's name, you aren't going to spend much time on the ranch or running a business. Instead, you'll actually be exploring the world, finding new ways to use slimy materials, and dealing with some left over baggage from Bea's personal life.
At the beginning of the game, most of the Far Far Range is closed off behind "ranch extensions" or large ancient doors. The latter are likely to catch the player's attention, as they're the first real hint that there's more to come, but let's focus on the ranch extensions first. As you'd expect, they provide additional places to construct new buildings, like silos, corrals, or farm plots. However, each extension also offers some unique features. For example, the cavern area is ideally suited to raising slimes that can't tolerate sunlight, while the overgrown section is a great place to find lots of wild chickens and some extra fruit.
Ranches are also the only part of the Far Far Range that have been tamed - outside of these "safe" areas, slimes of all sorts are abundant. In fact, they are so abundant that it makes one wonder why anybody would bother with raising them in captivity.
Fortunately, you're not farming slimes in order to increase their population - you're really after their plorts. Whenever a slime eats, it produces an eight sided semisolid object called a plort as a byproduct. These colorful poops have properties that make them valuable to various industries, so as a Slime Rancher, it's your job to gather them in large quantities. Every slime breed creates its own unique plort type, and unsurprisingly, rarer plorts fetch better prices.
There is, of course, a catch to this. Slimes don't eat plorts made by their own species, but they will happily consume them from other types of slimes. When normal slimes do this, they become a hybrid of the two species (known as a "largo" slime). Aside from being much bigger, largo slimes inherit two important traits from their parent species: their dietary preferences and their plort types. Largo slimes will always produce at least two plorts when they eat, so by hybridizing them carefully, you can make it easier to acquire lots of rare plorts.
But never allow a largo to eat a plort - this results in them becoming a mutation known as a Tarr slime. These black and oily monsters reproduce rapidly by eating other slimes, and have a particular fondness for chomping on nearby ranchers. Should a single Tarr get into your slime pens, you'll lose all of your hard work in moments!
The good news here is that Tarr slimes have an easily weaponized weaknesses: water. Spraying them with water from your vacpack will quickly dissolve them. More water can always be obtained from small springs found throughout the Far Far Range, so keep your tank full while you're exploring.
That about summarizes the basic flow of Slime Rancher - find slimes, feed them, gather up their plorts, and then sell the plorts when the prices are high. There's a lot more going on, such as a few slime themed minigames, experimental slime science, and even some puzzles to solve as you explore the later areas of the Far Far Range. But I don't want to spoil things too much by detailing them here; if you like quieter games with some exploration, definitely consider trying this one out.
At the beginning of the game, most of the Far Far Range is closed off behind "ranch extensions" or large ancient doors. The latter are likely to catch the player's attention, as they're the first real hint that there's more to come, but let's focus on the ranch extensions first. As you'd expect, they provide additional places to construct new buildings, like silos, corrals, or farm plots. However, each extension also offers some unique features. For example, the cavern area is ideally suited to raising slimes that can't tolerate sunlight, while the overgrown section is a great place to find lots of wild chickens and some extra fruit.
Ranches are also the only part of the Far Far Range that have been tamed - outside of these "safe" areas, slimes of all sorts are abundant. In fact, they are so abundant that it makes one wonder why anybody would bother with raising them in captivity.
Fortunately, you're not farming slimes in order to increase their population - you're really after their plorts. Whenever a slime eats, it produces an eight sided semisolid object called a plort as a byproduct. These colorful poops have properties that make them valuable to various industries, so as a Slime Rancher, it's your job to gather them in large quantities. Every slime breed creates its own unique plort type, and unsurprisingly, rarer plorts fetch better prices.
There is, of course, a catch to this. Slimes don't eat plorts made by their own species, but they will happily consume them from other types of slimes. When normal slimes do this, they become a hybrid of the two species (known as a "largo" slime). Aside from being much bigger, largo slimes inherit two important traits from their parent species: their dietary preferences and their plort types. Largo slimes will always produce at least two plorts when they eat, so by hybridizing them carefully, you can make it easier to acquire lots of rare plorts.
But never allow a largo to eat a plort - this results in them becoming a mutation known as a Tarr slime. These black and oily monsters reproduce rapidly by eating other slimes, and have a particular fondness for chomping on nearby ranchers. Should a single Tarr get into your slime pens, you'll lose all of your hard work in moments!
The good news here is that Tarr slimes have an easily weaponized weaknesses: water. Spraying them with water from your vacpack will quickly dissolve them. More water can always be obtained from small springs found throughout the Far Far Range, so keep your tank full while you're exploring.
That about summarizes the basic flow of Slime Rancher - find slimes, feed them, gather up their plorts, and then sell the plorts when the prices are high. There's a lot more going on, such as a few slime themed minigames, experimental slime science, and even some puzzles to solve as you explore the later areas of the Far Far Range. But I don't want to spoil things too much by detailing them here; if you like quieter games with some exploration, definitely consider trying this one out.
Points of Interest
Plenty of Slime Breeds
Not counting the hybrid Largo slimes or the dangerous Tarr slimes, there are roughly 20 unique slime breeds to discover. Some, like the Lucky Slime or the Golden Slime, cannot be domesticated, making encounters with them a special event. The other ranchers also specialize in some rare breeds, like Mile's quicksilver slimes or Orgtiz's saber slimes, adding some extra variety.
Slime Science
One of the more expensive ranch extensions includes a fancy Lab where you can use plorts to build scifi equipment, decorations, and other interesting things. On the downside, what you can build is fairly limited, but some of the gadgets (like custom teleporters) can be really useful later in the game.
Flexible Marketplace
Trying to make a lot of money with plorts will take some planning, as the prices of each plort type will fluctuate over time. As a general rule, selling lots of plorts of a specific type will result in the price dropping, so build some silos to store your plorts until their prices have gone up.
Multiple Game Modes
The Game Overview section above really only covers the basic game mode - referred to as "Adventure" on the game mode selection screen. You can also choose to play without the risk of Tarr slimes showing up ("Casual"), or try a Time Trial mode where you race to collect as many newbucks as possible within a limited amount of time.
Post-Story Adventures
Finishing the story doesn't end your game. Instead, you get to go on a new quest, searching the world for treasures hidden away by your ranch's previous owner. Of course, you can simply continue to mess around with slimes, slime tech, and the different minigames to your heart's content.
Steam Community Features
Like many modern Steam games, there's a set of Steam trading cards available for ranchers to earn as they explore the Far Far Ranch. More players will be interested in the game's 57 achievements, many of which are earn by progressing the story and discovering new places. That said, most of the achievements involve accomplishing silly challenges, like flinging a Boom Largo into the air high enough that it explodes before it lands.
Concerns and Issues
Mild Violence
Many slime species eat fruit or veggies, but there are a few carnivorous slimes out there, which does mean predation is part of the game (it's what the chickens are for). This is completely bloodless, but you will sometimes hear a startled BAWK from a hapless chicken dinner.
Some slime breeds are also dangerous to hang around, either because they have spikes or generate a hazardous field (like the radioactive slimes). And then there's the Tarr and the rare Feral slimes, which will nibble on you and other slimes if given the chance.
However, this is a very forgiving game, so there's no way for you to actually die - at most you'll lose whatever items are in your vacpack and get teleported back to the ranch.
Some slime breeds are also dangerous to hang around, either because they have spikes or generate a hazardous field (like the radioactive slimes). And then there's the Tarr and the rare Feral slimes, which will nibble on you and other slimes if given the chance.
However, this is a very forgiving game, so there's no way for you to actually die - at most you'll lose whatever items are in your vacpack and get teleported back to the ranch.
Some achievements involve cruelty
If seeing slimes consume live chickens bothers you, then you're probably not going to want to earn every achievement this game has to offer. A few require you to do some sadistic things that don't provide any benefits, like tossing a live chicken into an incinerator. Even the tagline of the achievement highlights that you really shouldn't have done that.
Homosexuality
A lot of Bea's emotional baggage comes from their (amiable) separation from their significant other, Casey. Casey's gender is intentionally left vague, so the player is free to assign them whatever gender they want. Since this is a story about falling out of love and moving on, this can be read as Bea and Casey being a lesbian couple.
Of course, this interpretation is both entirely up to the player and plays no actual role in the gameplay itself, so how much that matters is debatable.
Of course, this interpretation is both entirely up to the player and plays no actual role in the gameplay itself, so how much that matters is debatable.