With colorful graphics and adorable slimes, Slime Rancher is full of fun and enjoyment. The singleplayer, first-person ranching/farming game, lets you explore an alien world far from Earth. The game has been out for over two years, and has over 10 million downloads. Slime Rancher is developed by Nick Popovich, who previously made the award-winning Spiral Knights. Others involved in the project were Mike Thomas, Chris Lum, Ian McConville, and Harry Mack.

When you first start out the game, you are on a planet called the Far, Far Range, which is 1,000 light years away from Earth. A few pink slimes hop about your ranch, while a pile of carrots lay at your feet. The tutorial explains the controls, such as using the spacebar to jump and holding right click to vacuum up slimes and objects for the default PC controls. As you progress in the game, you will unlock mail from NPCs, as well as new features like the Slime Science lab, the 7Zee rewards club, various sideline quests, and the Range Exchange. You can also explore many areas by unlocking them with keys obtained from feeding giant slimes called gordos and find hidden treasure pods. 

The objective in the game is mainly to care for slimes that you can collect from the wild, as well as unlocking parts of the story, areas, and blueprints. You ranch slimes inside corrals, and earn money by feeding them and selling plorts. The game can be played infinitely if you wished. Slimes will not despawn over time in your ranch unless there is a glitch, so you can keep them in their corrals. Tarrs are a feature in 5 Day Rush and Adventure mode, and they will destroy other slimes and damage the player, but they don’t appear in Casual mode, allowing you to free-range slimes. Picking up plorts can be difficult though, so drones, which can be created through slime science, can help. It is fun to try to do a challenge on a new save file, or a speedrun of the game (reaching the end area in the Glass Desert as fast as possible). You can do the same chores infinitely, such as feed slimes, since slimes get “hungry” after a set amount of time, and harvest the fruits and vegetables that grow in after a while, such as Odd Onions and Mint Mangos. I tend to spend entire in-game days (24 minutes long) doing various chores, but it doesn't get boring.

The slimes themselves are an essential part of the game. You can build gardens and coops in your ranch, as well as corrals, incinerators, silos, and ponds. All of these offer a way to take care of slimes. The corrals are used to keep slimes inside, so they do not invade your ranch. Puddle and Fire slimes however, can not live in corrals, because they will vanish. Ponds keep puddle slimes safe and fed, while ashes from the incinerators satisfy the fire slimes. Phosphor slimes disappear in daylight, so the ̈̈Solar Shield ̈ upgrade for the corrals keeps them from doing so. Each slime has a unique trait, such as the boom slime ́s explosions and the quantum slime ́s teleportation.  All slimes, however are useful to you in some way, whether it is the market value of the plort you get from feeding them, or the use of their plorts in slime science. Due to the various uses of the plorts, I have at least one of every type of ranchable slime on my ranch as largos, which are combinations of two slime types.

There are many areas inside Slime Rancher, and each needs a key to unlock other than the Dry Reef, and some need plorts as well. You can get keys from feeding a gordo slime until it ̈pops ̈. When it does pop, it will drop slimes, 2-3 crates, and either a key or a teleporter based on which gordo you popped. Gordos you use a ̈gordo snare ̈ to get don't drop either keys or teleporters. A weekly event called Party Weekend spawns a Party Gordo in one location across all save files and games, and you can pop it to get a special reward: ornaments, which can be used to decorate your ranch. Each area unlocks new slimes, food, gordos, and mechanics, except for the vaults accessed after the end credits. The soundtrack of the game changes depending on the area, like the tense firestorm music in the desert, or the loop of similar music in the ruins. The game ́s nighttime has a slightly altered version of the music. All the music soundtracks are played in a loop, even when you pause the game. The game contains 3D graphics regardless of what graphics mode is in use. Slime appear to realistically bounce around, while carrots appear like a real life carrot. The chickens are silly, rolling and tumbling around while clucking loudly. This makes it look as if you were inside the game itself, which I enjoy. 

  The game is currently in version 1.4.0 . If you wish to play, it can be played on a PC, Xbox, and PlayStation 4. As of now, there are three sideline “quests”. In these 3 modes, you help the NPCs do things such as collect plorts, fruit, and bug reports. Each side quest can be unlocked by having a specific area, ranch location, and range exchange done with them. For example, Odgen requires you to unlock the Moss Blanket area, unlock the Overgrowth ranch expansion, and do an exchange with him. There are two other NPC sideline quests as well. There is no dialogue, but there will be text popup that tells a story.

However, be aware that it costs $20, so if you do not wish to spend cash you are unfortunately unable to play, unless you have purchased it for free during the time Epic Games had it on sale for a week, or are using the demo version, which lets you play Slime Rancher for an hour on a save file before the trial ends. Also, the game may lag if you have a slow PC, and it can take a while to start up at times too. However, despite these setbacks, the game is still fun to play. Also, lowering the game’s visual and audio quality can make the game faster, though at the cost of more detailed 3D art.  Even at low quality, however, the game will still be great graphically, and the cost is worth the amazing game.

If you have paid for it and haven't played yet, I strongly recommend you go do so now. This fun game can be played at any time, and is good casual fun for people who just want to relax. If you wish to stand still and listen to the calming soundtrack, then that is possible. As the game says at the end of the credits, ¨For every new pioneer on every new frontier: Be brave. Be bold. And stay wiggly.¨