Saturday Casual Gaming 210: Idle Harvest

Every so often, I'll come across a game with "Idle" in the title, and it'll take more effort than I think it will. This is the case with Idle Harvest, a game by Tetronomics. This Kongregate-based game has a fun art design and simple music and cute sound effects. It's very, very obviously trying to sound like a combination of Stardew Valley and an SNES game, so it gets props from me.

The game begins with a cutesy pink-haired girl telling you that you're "way cuter than the carrot told her", and it just gets stranger from there. Essentially, you have money-laundering demon-crops which are being used to support a slowly growing adventurer's guild. They set up shop outside of your farm, and every day in game is used to build up the town, improve businesses, and/or just earn a boatload of gold. My personal favorite character right now is Dijon, the Rogue. He's the builder for the town and makes shops for all of the other characters. The pink-haired girl, Avery, helps you harvest Strawberries and you harvest carrots. I haven't gotten very far (I'm on Day 5 or 6 right now), but it's already been a lot of fun!

It's hard to find pictures of this game on Google...

Your crops are arranged in tetronimos, just like Tetris, only you place them at will, rather than having to place what falls. You start with one carrot in a 3-brick L-shape, and eventually, you can buy strawberry seeds in a 3-brick line. You can rotate pieces so they fit better. The rocks in your field can be removed slowly by either clicking rapidly or holding down your mouse button for a set amount of time. If you fill all empty spaces in your field with crops/sprinklers, you get a production bonus. The little sparkly blue dot flying around the screen is a pixie, and if you click it, it will give you gold!

There are three basic forms of currency - gold (for crops, shops, and picks), blue gems (for most other perks), and Time Shards. Time Shards help you build and improve shops & crops and also are used to buy potions from Rosemary's Apothecary. Everything is pretty easy to figure out, since Avery & Dijon walk you through everything early on.

This looks like a fun little game, and I look forward to continuing my Idle Harvesting journey!

Go Enjoy Something!
FC