Atomicrops

Review

Well, your life is about to change. Most people who want to leave the big city are usually looking for a sea change. In your case, you want to leave because you inherited your uncle’s farm somewhere deep inland. You always liked your uncle, and as you wander around the farm with one of his workers, reminiscing about some fun times while checking all the fruits, vegetables and animals on the farm, you find something totally unexpected. An underground Nuclear Bunker!  As you climb down into the bunker while joking with your uncle’s faithful employee that nothing extravagant ever happens around here, the nuclear Armageddon begins. The good news is that you own a farm now, and you have every intention of growing the best crop, whatever difficulties come your way.  You are going to be well served with Atomicrops!

Atomicrops is an action roguelike/bullet hell/farming simulation game developed by Birth Bath Game and published by Raw Fury on the 17^th of September 2020 on Steam. The game is also available on Nintendo Switch, Xbox One and PS4.

What a surprising and amazingly addictive game this is is!  Your goal is to survive for up to ten years and grow interesting mutant fruit and vegetables each season, but it won’t be easy at all as you’ll have to fight mutants rabbits, other crazy monsters and bosses at the end of each of these seasons.

Each season consists of three days, including a boss fight. As you start a new game, you’ll choose one of five characters at your disposal; you’ll have one character first and four others to unlock. No matter who you choose, you’ll start with the same weapon, which is some sort of rifle that shoots green bullets. The day begins at dusk, and on your first day you’ll have a small patch in which to grow your fruit and veggies (it’s a good time to prepare the soil and plant your first potato seeds). Then you’ll have about two minutes to explore the other lots attached to your farm. Two of the lots will be accessible, and the other two will need repairs to the wooden bridges before you can access them.  You’ll find the repair kits in town, along with weapons, relics and other goodies.  

As soon as you enter one of the lots, you are immediately greeted with chaos as you find small and large patches of land with sleeping mutant rabbits and monsters around them. Each of the patches will have goodies for you to collect, but you’ll need to eliminate the main enemies attached to these patches in order to collect your rewards. You can’t miss them as they have a pink face icon above their heads. The small patch usually has either pink squirrels where you can collect new seeds that they’ve dropped, or a wooden crate which holds pickaxes. The bigger patches will have more enemies to kill, but once they’re killed, you will have two items to choose from. You can choose between two different types of animal each time (there are several animals on the farm, as you know). It might be a cow, a pig, or a hummingbird, for example. But you might be tempted by a new type of animal, the firing turret.  Some large patches will have scrolls with information that will help you to help you grow or fertilise your soil (your patch), and other large patches will give you a choice of two skills. I love this because it is basically randomised every new game, and each game feels and plays differently. There are two other things to search for on each lot: the bushes (which hold fruits that you can pick without any labour), and the next broken bridge to repair so you can get to the next lots. However, it is always a good idea to come back to your own patch at dawn to harvest your crops before the night comes along.   

At night, you’ll have to keep planting and defending your crops from three waves of enemy. It’s hectic as hell and so much fun! Each time you kill an enemy, it will drop part of its anatomy on the ground which you can pick up and use as fertiliser for your crops, making them grow faster or bigger. You can also plant hearts to regenerate your health, and roses so that you can flirt with other characters in town, and exchange the roses for goodies such as firing turrets, which you can plant on your patch. Use the pickaxes you collected to grow the size of your patch so that you can produce more goodies. When the night is over, you’ll make a trip to town.

Each plant you harvest will give you Golden cashews which you can use to buy repair kits, weapons and weapons upgrades, tractors and bags of seeds.  Roses are also a form of currency, and it will cost you a fair few roses to flirt with a character so that you can receive your goodies from them, or even get married! (But do you know how much roses cost? A lot these days!)

After the three days of hard work, you’ll see the mayor.  Depending on the quality of your harvest, you’ll receive some goodies, including the almighty Cornucopia which you can use to upgrade your farm before starting a new game. Oh, I forgot to mention. . . you only have one life; there are no second chances here! Absolutely brilliant!

The pixel artwork is colourful and delightful. The soundtrack will remain in your head throughout the night, long after you finish playing the game (especially the night-time theme) . . . it’s just Marvellous!! The game runs beautifully; it has been some time since I said to myself, “Just one more game” and then totally lost the concept of time. For me, Atomicrop is a BIG, SPARKLING GEM!   

Review written by THE CPT FROGGY for Zeepond.com!

Atomicrops Steam Store Page