Hey everyone! I’m back! Yeah, I know I’m in the middle of a blog series critiquing a book and giving out literary advice, but I decided to take a break from that series for a while. In the meantime, here’s the most recent post from that series!
Now, let’s get to recent affairs. Usually on the weekends I play Animal Crossing: New Horizons, but in the last few weeks, I’ve been getting quite bored with the repetitive gameplay that I got after a while (By then, I had a five-star island and reached maximum friendship with all of my villagers). Also, after watching my sister play Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream, Animal Crossing seemed inferior to the wacky shenanigans that Miis can have on their island. So saying, I found myself bored to death when I opened up my Animal Crossing island.
Then I remembered: I have another video game console that isn’t from Nintendo! We’ve had out PlayStation 4 for a while, so I decided to boot it up to see what games I can play. My eyes fall back on Slime Rancher and the rest… you can imagine the rest.
For those who can’t, I… got a bit of an addiction to the game. Again. Yeah, this isn’t my first rodeo.
Some background info is needed here. In 2017, American indie studio Monomi Park officially released Slime Rancher to the PC and the Xbox One, with a release on the Playstation 4 coming out in 2018 and another on the Nintendo Switch in 2021. The game became a massive hit, selling over 5 million copies by 2022, getting a sequel (Slime Rancher 2), and a film adaptation is supposedly in the works!
I got the game when during the pandemic. When I started playing the game with my sister, we always would start a new game, unlock everything, but never leave the Dry Reef (the first area in the Far, Far Range you discover). Fast-forward to summer of 2025 (only a year ago?! huh), and I reboot my PlayStation once again and rediscovered the gamewhich started my hyperfixation of this silly game.
In the game, you play as a young woman named Beatrix LeBeau, who travels to a planet 1,000 light years away from Earth, known as The Far, Far Range. On the planet are sentient, gelatinous creatures called “slimes”, with Beatrix coming to the planet to make money as a “slime rancher” (Hey! That’s the title!) and explore the strange, new planet.
But farming slimes isn’t as easy as it sounds. Beatrix will have to open doors, accept partnerships with other ranchers, and even solve a mystery about the former owner of the ranch along the way. The game isn’t just about slimes; it’s about self-discovery and starting a new life.
And boy, oh boy, if the game was made to be addicting, Monomi Park REALLY succeeded in doing so. Props to them!
Since the game is all about discovery, there’s never a shortage on what to do in the game. How making money in the game works is that you feed slimes. Feeding them makes the slimes create plorts, which can be sold for Newbucks, the main currency in the game. Easy, right?
Is what you would say if there weren’t 16 total species of these bouncy aliens that all have a different diet! Most of the slimes usually eat only fruit, veggies, or meat, and some even eat ash or even water to produce plorts! However, some slimes can be fed a plort that they can’t produce to become a Largo Slime (for example, if I feed a Pink Slime a Tabby Plort, it will become a Pink Tabby Largo), which can make feeding easier for those slimes.
The majority of slimes also have a favorite food: something in their diet range (meat, veggies or fruit) that, if fed to the correct slime, will result in double the plorts being made by the slime!
But each slime also has different quirks that can make ranching them difficult if not given the right accommodations. Phosphor slimes can fly and if exposed to sunlight for too long, they disappear. Honey slimes are docile, but their plorts can attract other slimes into eating them, possible creating a Tarr slime (a monstrous slime created from a Largo slime eating a plort that it doesn’t produce, which mercifully doesn’t appear in game if you play in Casual Mode). Tabby and Hunter slimes have proficient jumping abilities, making it easy for them to escape their corrals. The list goes on!
You can also take requests from the Range Exchange. This is where you trade slimes, plorts, and food objects to other ranchers present in the game in exchange for potentially some new item and Newbucks! Different ranchers have a different area of requests (for example, Mochi Miles will usually ask for plorts, Ogden will ask for fruits and veggies, Viktor will ask for slimes, and so on), so you have to be alert and prepared for what the ranchers will ask next!
Even though the game has a LOT for you to keep track of, that’s exactly why I like it! I have brought up that there is a sequel to this game, but I don’t really think I’ll buy it. There’s WAY too much nostalgia that’s in the OG game for me.
See ya next week (possibly)!
– Nova S.