Blocky Farm

Genre: Management Simulation

Players: 1

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Review:

Blocky Farm is a family-friendly Management Simulation released on iOS in 2017, ported to Android OS in 2018, and then ported to Nintendo Switch in 2023. As you might expect from the title, this is a game that has players managing their own farm, with the game having a distinctly blocky “voxel”-style presentation.

The visuals here are about what we’ve come to expect from games that utilize this style. The colorful blocky 3D visuals work well enough for the game, but aren’t particularly distinctive or impressive in any way. These visuals are backed by some relaxing acoustic guitar music that works pretty well for this game’s theme and easygoing pace.

As Management Simulations go, this game favors a pretty casual approach to the genre, much like games like Farmville or Farm Together. This means that while you will still have to keep track of your resources, you’ll be less focused on working within deadlines and remaining profitable than you will be on checking in on all of your crops and animals to make sure they’ve been clicked on at regular intervals to keep things productive, with this game utilizing a real-time clock to ensure that your farm continues being productive even after you turn the game off.

Here I feel I need to mention that while this version of the game doesn’t have any microtransactions, it definitely retains the vestiges of the mobile releases of the game that did. This is to say, every function in the game is tied to wait mechanics. Thankfully, I never felt like I was wanting for things to do in this game, and given the genre and setting wait mechanics do make sense here, but I still mention it here as a warning for players who might find this to be distasteful.

There are other complaints I have about this game that I feel are far more bothersome. First, this game’s menus often don’t work properly, and highlighting your preferred option and selecting it can take far more work than it should. Second, when placing down a new building or any other tile that needs to be positioned, the game does a poor job indicating where it will be placed. Fourth, this game is stingy in how it parcels out important placements, such as field tiles (yet another indication of how this game was originally filled with miocrotransactions). And fourth, this game’s opening is extremely hand-holdy, refusing to give the player the freedom to interact with their farm how they choose until they go through multiple tutorials.

It’s a shame that Blocky Farm has so many issues, because the actual minute-to-minute gameplay here is mostly pretty delightful, with a nice relaxed pace and atmosphere. However, I think the clunky menu controls, the way the game frequently restricts you from doing things you want to do, and the stink of game design choices made to accommodate predatory monetization (even if that monetization is no longer present) all make this a less-enjoyable experience than it could have been. It’s particularly difficult to recommend this when Farm Together does much the same thing that this game does, but manages to do it in a more satisfying way. Unless you’re looking for a less-expensive alternative and don’t mind the jank and frustration Blocky Farm brings with it, I suggest you stick with Farm Together instead.

tl;dr – Blocky Farm is a family-friendly Management Simulation that has players running a “voxel”-style blocky-looking farm with casual Farmville-style real-time mechanics. The core gameplay here is relaxing and enjoyable, but it’s marred by clunky menus, as well as some restrictive gameplay design that seems partly a result of earlier microtransaction-driven versions of the game. The Nintendo Switch release lacks that monetization, but the game design still suffers from it all the same. This isn’t a terrible game, but I can’t recommend it over the similar Farm Together.

Grade: C+

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