It’s time to put your virtual wellies on and experience the Farmer’s Life! Having recently binged the latest season of Clarkson’s Farm, I was excited to sit down with a farming simulator. Farmer’s Life might just be the most innovative and creative farming simulator to date. There is clearly so much passion involved in this project just by the sheer possibilities available to you in this game. You play as Kasimir an alcoholic farmer in his 30s who has inherited his farmland from losing his parents to the war. His best friend is seemingly a pig called Fluffy (who you can ride!) Fluffy will help you through the tutorial as you learn a very brief insight into Kasimir’s days as a farmer and also some of his personal struggles with alcoholism. This simulator offers the player so much freedom that it probably helps to consider this as a sandbox open-world game that just so happens to be based around farming than that of an actual simulator.
The Farming
Even as a farming simulator alone, this still provides authentic unique aspects. Kasimir’s drinking issues leave you completely broke by the end of the tutorial, so it’s up to you to build up your farm. Your livestock run away after a fire, you have little money and lack the usual farming gear in simulators such as a tractor. Building up your farm is a satisfying process. Days go by fairly quickly so not too much time is spent waiting around. The game keeps you on your feet, there’s always something that needs attending to – such is the life for the average farmer.
The Innovations
This game is essentially an open-world experience. You play in the region of Gmina Zalesie. It is not just your farm you have to explore, you also are exposed to a village. There are some cool explorative options here. The village centre is particularly special. This is where you buy and sell products. But not just that. You have an array of possible interactions with NPCs that give the likes of Baldur’s Gate 3 a run for its money. The fact that by speaking to a priest, you can choose to do: the usual buying and selling, attend mass, ask if he fancies a smoke, or even fight him shows the variety in gameplay here. Normally smoking with merchants will increase their opinion of you and make for better trade.
The DLC – Pimp My Cottage
Over the past 3 years since the game’s original release in 2021, Farmer’s Life has received outstanding support from its fanbase and desires for more content. The developers at Freemind certainly listened and provided their first DLC just last month. Pimp My Cottage doesn’t add too much to the original game. As you can probably tell from its title, it focuses on upgrading your home. As well as the opportunity to completely refurbish your house, they’ve also added Cats and Dogs as pets to accompany Fluffy. Most impressively though, they have added a feature where you can build large structures. In reality, the Pimp My Cottage expansion is mostly just a cosmetics upgrade which isn’t essential in enjoying Farmer’s Life. However, it’s nice to see this game accumulate enough support behind it that it could provide more service to its audience. A few fans online have suggested they mainly bought this DLC to support the game for its small price and to hope for more future expansions within the game.
The Limitations
There are a few issues that can limit the enjoyment of this game. I did experience a few bugs when playing. I had to restart my game a few times which is unfortunate as the game will bring you back to the start of whichever day you were on. The game is aware of this and has added a bug-reporting system in the menu. The framerate can also be jumpy at times which can be quite frustrating. While the game is supported on Steam Deck, I would caution against playing it on this platform. Some of the controls have transferred over but for some actions I was still told to ‘press E’ or ‘Right click’. That said, the controls weren’t that difficult to work out even without there being an official guidance. I would say all of these issues don’t hold this game back enough from giving it a go!
Verdict
Farmer’s life is a really ambitious adaptation of Farming situation and it certainly pays off. The game is filled with hours and hours of content and gives the player lots of oppurtunities on how to manage their farm. The DLC Pimp my cottage, isn’t the most expansive DLC but it’s nice to see the continued support this game gets has led to them being able to put out more content. There are some bugs that can be frustrating but really nothing that holds the enjoyment of the game back too much. This game thrives in a similar way to the recent Clarkson’s Farm series, in which you don’t need to be interested in farming to enjoy this. I don’t come from much of a farming background – in real life or gaming – and found this game very addictive. I would certainly recommend Farmer’s life to anyone who’s interested in a game which doesn’t take itself too seriously in the farming genre.
