You are Beatrix LeBeau, and you've moved to the Far Far Range to farm slimes. These strange blob-like creatures are all over the place. They eat then they poo 'plorts', which are used for all sorts of things. Pink Slime plorts are used for things as varied as household cleaning products and coffee sweetener. Tabby Slime plorts are taken by athletes to improve their performance, though overuse can result in 'uncontrollable butt wiggles'. (Hehehe.)
The idea is you vacuum up some slimes, take them to pens you've constructed on your ranch, feed them, vacuum up the plorts, and sell them. This is more complicated than it sounds. You have to feed different slimes different things (they have favourite foods too), so you need to grow veggies, chickens etc as well. To make this easier you can create hybrid (largo) slimes (crossing Pink Slimes with other slimes can make them less fussy about food). To create a hybrid you feed a slime a plort from another slime.
A large part of the game is exploration. There are lots of areas to unlock, with slime keys you get from gigantic 'Gordo' slimes. How you get them is a little mean, since you feed them until they explode. Still, they don't have to eat the stuff, so I suppose it's their own fault.
The areas have different dangers. Feral Slimes are particularly nasty, ferociously attacking you if you go near them. The Tarr is a type of slime created when a hybrid slime eats the plort of different slime. It's black and rainbow coloured and looks scary. And it will destroy all slimes (and ranchers) in its way, given the chance. (The games's Slimepedia informs you that water can stop these guys, though it also says, "Alternatively, many ranchers recommend running away with their arms waving, screaming." An option I often like to use.)
Some slimes aren't deliberately dangerous but are still problematic, like Rad Slimes (which give off radiation) and Boom Slimes (which explode). To farm these tricky slimes you need different equipment and care regimes on your ranch. Other slimes need specialist environments too. For instance, Phosphor Slimes need darkness, and Puddle Slimes need water.
Those are the basics, then. It's hard to explain why it's so good, but it's just so, well, charming. The slimes are super cute. It's fun to expand your ranch and add new pens and gadgets. The latest update has introduced further farm automation in the form of drones. (The most useful automation comes in the form of automatic feeders and plort collectors, which give you a bit more time to go exploring.)
It's fun finding rarer slimes and rearing them. Failure isn't too harsh, since you just end up back at your house with a bit of time having passed, having lost what you were carrying. You can decorate your ranch and house, if you want to, and there are little quests where you fulfil orders for people, and 'star mail' that progresses the story, such as it is.
The only down side to this is that it gives me motion sickness really quickly! (Dad and Seb don't have this issue.) Googling the problem shows that I'm not the only one. Adjusting the Field of View did help a bit, but the game still makes me sick. I think it's just too fast paced for my brain... Poor old brain...
[You can also play on PS4 and XBox One.]
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