For Mobile Friday this week is i tried out Sumikkogurashi Farm, also known as Sumikko gurashi Farm: Gonna Make a Garden, on my iPhone 14 Pro. The game is also out on Android and whilst it's not new, it has been celebrating over 5 million players recently and in this video i started the game with the recently released 5.0 release.
Simply put, this is a game where you inherit a farm and it's up to you how you make it. the game's tutorial tells and shows you the basics, but stops short. once the tutorial lets go of you, the screen is awash of red exclamation marks, a huge map full of things you can interact with yet or aren't high enough level for, and it expects you to play. all the tutorial needed to do was take me to the Quest, Running Start, or Order sections, do one with me and then let me continue. so in the beginning of taking control i'm a little lost.
It also takes some time to understand the rhythm of the game. you need experience points to level up and money to buy things. but the game does a bad job of explaining how to get both regularly and it takes nearly the full 50 minutes with the game for me to get a sense of the rhythm needed to progress. before that, the game's speed had slowed down and had begun to feel like a grind. This is a game where you are meant to do things, turn it off, and come back to it later. there's very little to do with the game whilst you wait.
But these complaints are not unique to this game, they can be used to describe nearly every other farm management game, as well as other styles of games. with that said, there are many positives that set this game apart. the biggest is the theme, Sumikko gurashi (すみっコぐらし). the game is full of these characters as well as costumes to dress them up in. the world design feels very appropriate, as do the bright vibrant colors. as this is the 5.0 version of the game, there is also a huge amount to uncover as you play.
In this video i got to level 10 and it already felt like the game was opening up. i ended the game knowing that i could buy a train station, i could help with global goals, and i had barely started to understand the Events taking place and the bonuses associated with them. And then there's my own house and decorating it, as well as decorating and designing the layout off my farm. near the end of the video i went to other farms and they were all very different from each other.
Sumikkogurashi Farm isn't a game to be played for an hour straight. it's to be played on and off. it can use notifications to inform you when it needs to be interacted with. when you do play it, there's always a few things you could be doing. I would say this would make a great commuting game apart from that there was an extra 93 MB download. the game does ask you first before downloading it. But i'd still say it's probably best to get the tutorial out of the way, as well as that download, and then play it whilst your out and about.
