Still little known in the media but already much appreciated during its long phase of early access on PC and Xbox One, started last August on console and even in January of 2016 on PC, Slime Rancher reaches its final shape and comes to attention in these days also for its introduction in Games with Gold in August 2017 on Xbox One, surprisingly revealed as a real hit in this release of free titles. At first glance perhaps you would not say, but the game developed by
Monomi Park is based on an excellent – however bizarre – idea and develops it in the best way in a balanced and deep structure, which perhaps also benefited from the long period of early access to which he was subjected. It tells the story of Beatrix LeBeau, an enterprising girl who, tired of the usual routine, decides to leave the Earth and travel for a thousand light years to the “Far, Far Range” sector of space, to make her fortune dedicating herself to breeding of slime.
Yes because the strange planet is uninhabited by mankind, but it is quite lively as regards the local alien species, which correspond to different types of slime:
In short, Slime Rancher puts into practice one of the ancient principles of the cultivation of the earth, which sees in the excrement an important source of wealth , translating too literally this concept: there is therefore to manage a ranch of alien creatures entirely focused on poop production.
NOT REALLY A SHOOTER
Were it not for the aesthetic choice decidedly tending to “kawaii”, to see the framing in subjective or the strange weapon embraced by the protagonist would think of a shooter in subjective, perhaps in Metroid style given the alien setting.
Nothing more wrong: Slime Rancher is a sort of management that puts us in control of a ranch armed with a single all-round tool able to suck and shoot slimes and materials,
with the possibility of expanding the equipment and the equipment of the farm by investing the hard earned money. The subjective shooter style setting makes the action particularly dynamic,
with the need to engage in various phases at a fast pace, from the exploration of the planet to the constant control of the situation at the ranch, which is why it also becomes important to upgrade its equipment to allow faster travel and greater transport capacity.
When the situation becomes more extensive and complex, the limitation of the subjective frame emerges for a game of this kind, which would perhaps require a more extensive and comprehensive look at the ranch’s progress, but the subjective one makes perfectly the idea of what can mean to be the only human on a planet full of chaotic creatures that must be taken care of.
At the center of all this there are in fact the slime, alien beings that come in various types, shapes and sizes and of which we will soon have to learn every feature and variant being the basis of the entire economy of the game. Creatures can be vacuumed and released inside special enclosures that we will arrange and modify according to the needs to safely contain the various types of aliens.
It is not just a matter of collecting aesthetically different creatures, but of managing in the best way a real alien ecosystemwhose components evidently have an innate tendency towards total chaos, driven essentially by two priorities in life:
eating and producing “plort”. The latter is the element around which the economy rotates, and must be suitably aspirated and released into a special machine that deals with the payment in a manner directly proportional to the quantity and quality of material collected.
LOVED / HATED SLIME
It soon creates a relationship of love / hate for these creatures, so cute but also so difficult to manage. From this point of view , the work done by the developers in the construction of an artificial intelligence able to follow the different species different behavioral patterns very simple but also well characterized.
Pink slimes are the first that are on the planet and are relatively easy to handle, eat anything and are not harmful but if left unchecked and in large quantities can arrange to climb one on top of the other to escape from fences, moreover their plort
is not as profitable as that of other species. The red or blue rocky slime produces high quality and well paid scraps but they behave unpredictably and can cause damage when they move fast. Then there are the flying ones, the nocturnal ones and the giant ones,
just to give examples, and for each of these varieties it is necessary to find a suitable containment system (raising the fences, closing them upwards, protecting them from the light) and a right method of supply.
