Farmboy, my jam submission


I created Farmboy for the RPG Maker 2025 game jam

I hope you all enjoy it! 


Files

Farmbow_Windows.zip 76 MB
24 days ago

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Comments

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I played the game for a while until I got tired of juggling the tasks sometime after delivering the corn (I was NOT being efficient I played for 40min or more). I enjoyed it more like an idler/clicker game than a farm sim proper, and that's not a bad thing, I enjoy those games.

  • Crops: nice that you don't have to buy seeds and you can use the same crop as a seed!  A pity you cant sell crops raw but i guess it would break the balance. I'm not entirely sure what doing all the hoeing, watering etc for he crops does, maybe just makes it go faster? They're already WAY too fast as it is so it didn't feel necessary (at least with the frequency it has now). Going together with this, I don't see the point of bothering with consumables (pesticide, fertilizer) since they're already so fast.
  • Animals: felt a bit meh. The ten minute cooldown felt eternal compared to the blistering pace of crops and fish, and the prices for their recipes didn't seem worth the time either. It's nice that they don't need any upkeep though and that some like the Swan are flat bonuses (thought I never know if his bonus affected the pond where it was or all of them.
  • Fish: The filler task, it was completely fine. It was a bit confusing that I never knew if could get ANY fish type from ANY spot or if I had to move spots.
  • Recipes: here is where I complain. The shop interface was a bit of a clunk for all the trips I had to make to buy salt and pepper and it made the recipes a bit of a pain. Especially the constant extra text from the Hunter. Sir, please. Be quiet and give me the functions without filler. I'd recommend making the supply store be a direct click from the hunter's able that skips all his dialog and brings you directly to the supply shop.
  • Tools: Here you lost me. I get the feeling there should have been a wider range of tools and bonuses, but as it is i only broke my fishing rod once and just replaced it, it felt very unnecessary. Same with the lucky undies, felt like a missing feature. Additionally I don't think the game mentioned they broke at all so I was extremely confused over having duplicate tools in the shop.
  • Since there is so little hud already, my suggestion would be to make one with your tool's durability and consumables (water, pesticide, poop). At least when the menu for adding pesticide/crap pops up.
  • Heavy suggestion to smooth out the pace of interaction: If i select to do something, just do it, don't give me a text box about it. Maybe add a very brief animation/sprite change to it, but the constant textboxes, especially in the shop and crops, that amount to "I do the thing" became annoying.
  • A little signal for when animal's cooldown is ready would be great, be changing their sprite or making them emote with a bubble, or even just a popup that doesn't interrupt gameplay.
  • Eventually I stopped playing because I felt I had seen everything by then. Nothing new was really happening except for the rabbit popping up (which was a cool little mini-mini game!). If it was a much smoother flowing experience I would have played more in the spirit of an idle game, but the constant moving around and clicking through menus got annoying (worse I couldn't rely on the mouse alone since some events like fish don't react to it). I'd say it'd be worth it to go all in the idler aspect and make the entire map one or two larger ones and fully enable using the mouse to direct click or move the sprite automatically to the target. Then again, that's just my take.
  • Finally: I live with mom? Ok. Single room house? Ok. WHY DO I HAVE A SINGLE DOUBLE BED THO? SUSPECT. AND SHE HAD MY UNDIES? XD

In general I enjoyed it but it lacks something to make stay. Could go full out farm sim with more content and stuff to do (automation upgrades, more facilities etc) or full on idler with a smoother controls. A bit of flavor dialog when completing objectives would also be nice, or SOMETHING to give an arching quest or goal to the game and keep me hooked. We're so used to towns with characters and relationships in farming sim that I feel it's natural to miss them here, though not very fair as it would be an entire game's worth of work (or more).

Overall a very functional game I enjoyed it for around 40 mins till its grip loosened and I didn't feel like continuing. Needs more oomph to keep me there for longer. Still good work!