Skip to main content

Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
TagsGame Engines
A jam submission

FarmboyView game page

Farming simulator made for RPG Maker 2025 Game Jam
Submitted by JohnDoeGames — 21 days, 2 hours before the deadline
Add to collection

Play game

Farmboy's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Presentation#1003.3333.333
Gameplay#1082.8332.833
Overall#1172.8332.833
Engagement#1252.6672.667
Theme#1292.5002.500

Ranked from 6 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Leave a comment

Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.

Comments

Submitted(+1)

Hello! I enjoyed the game, it was really a relaxing experience. I really appreciated that there is no punishment, but instead there is a reward for taking good care of the crops. the process of growing crops overall is pretty fun and relaxing, I particularly enjoyed the fact you can use extra items to temporarily or permanently increase the yearn.

Though there were a bunch of things I wasn't convinced about: selling items requires crafting, but it takes so much time to craft them, sell them, buy salt, craft more, sell them, buy more salt to craft more... I felt the entire experience got hindered a little by the fact that to sell a lot of crops you have to spend a good amount of time menuing.
Also, personally I would've made the interaction with crops faster: having to press a button three times to care of a crop (interact, choose option, and close confirm window) became a little too much in the long run. Definitely having everything work with a simple press, and relegate the crop removal to another button would've definitely helped a lot.
As a extra note, I felt fishing and animals were completely irrelevant and optional. Also I noticed a small lag each time you close a textbox.

If you're interested, I streamed the game. Here's the VOD: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2482223881

Developer(+1)

I'm glad you enjoyed the game. I love seeing people play my stuff, so I am def. going to watch your twitch video. 

Sorry for the late reply. Summer... I am using my computer less as long as that hot, glowing ball of fire is in the skies. :p

Developer

Hey man. I loved watching your twitch. I laughed a lot. It was a pleasure to watch you play my game. And you were spot on, that you have to talk to mom to update the map. I loved how it took you an hour to realize you got more from plants if you equip the undies you get at the start of the game. :p 
What you say about having to click the crops so many times, is a complaint I've heard before. I hope to update the game soon with less player input per crop. Thanks for entertaining me and giving useful feedback. 

Submitted(+1)

Excellent game, I'm very impressed! I found the game to be very engaging and addictive, with varying objectives that required a lot of engagement (selling, fishing, farming, etc). Small touches like the objectives at the top right corner really helped me focus on the core objectives without getting distracted. I found the game to be a little too fast paced, as I struggled to keep up with the needs of the crops, even earlier on - simply slowing down the crop life-cycle may help players keep up.

Additionally, the graphical and music styles match the tone very well. I felt the sprite choices were really cohesive, and overall kept with the fam-sim theme. For a little improvement, some important features (such as water) blend in well with the surrounding decoration - some means of highlighting them when necessary may help communicate important information to the player.

Overall, I had a lot of fun, and get very addicted to it. Good luck with the jam! 

Developer

It is true that the game is fast paced for a farming simulator. I did this on purpose, to make the whole game playable in an hour or so. If it wasn't for the jam, I would have made the wait for vegies to grow and fish to be captured longer. In fact, it was longer before, but I shortened it to make it fit the 1 hour limit. 

I am working on an update, where you can hire Wietse to maintain crops, after you completed all their quests. It is too late for the jam, but I will add that feature later for sure. Because it is indeed impossible to keep up with all crops at the same time. 

I am glad you enjoyed the game. I was gonna play yours in a response, but I already did. You playing my game was probably your response to it. 

Thanks for your feedback. 

Submitted

I hate to say it, but I ended up getting bored. I feel terrible to say that. Farming sims are my favorite genre, and it really hurts me to say I don't enjoy one. Presentation was great though. Loved the crops visibly growing. If you hadn't told me on the forums how to sell things, I never would have figured it out. Beautiful game, disappointing engagement. I wish there was more to explore.

Developer

Engagement could be improved. There isn't much to it (now) than farming and fishing. I agree. But how long did it take for you to get bored? I mean, if you've played for an hour, then I get it. You've reached the end, of what may seem an endless game. If you were bored before that, than I did something wrong. :p 

Submitted(+1)

I got bored about 20 minutes in I'd say, and stuck around another 10 to try to stick it out. Honestly, the engagement is the biggest issue that I came upon. Initially, it was a nice diversion that I could talk to chat and play at the same time, but once chat quieted down, and I was just focusing on the game, is when I began to get bored pretty quickly. It's not a bad game at all, just not one I could play for the full hour.

Submitted(+1)

I played the game for a while until I got tired of juggling the tasks sometime after delivering the corn (I was NOT being efficient I played for 40min or more). I enjoyed it more like an idler/clicker game than a farm sim proper, and that's not a bad thing, I enjoy those games.

  • Crops: nice that you don't have to buy seeds and you can use the same crop as a seed!  A pity you cant sell crops raw but i guess it would break the balance. I'm not entirely sure what doing all the hoeing, watering etc for he crops does, maybe just makes it go faster? They're already WAY too fast as it is so it didn't feel necessary (at least with the frequency it has now). Going together with this, I don't see the point of bothering with consumables (pesticide, fertilizer) since they're already so fast.
  • Animals: felt a bit meh. The ten minute cooldown felt eternal compared to the blistering pace of crops and fish, and the prices for their recipes didn't seem worth the time either. It's nice that they don't need any upkeep though and that some like the Swan are flat bonuses (thought I never know if his bonus affected the pond where it was or all of them.
  • Fish: The filler task, it was completely fine. It was a bit confusing that I never knew if could get ANY fish type from ANY spot or if I had to move spots.
  • Recipes: here is where I complain. The shop interface was a bit of a clunk for all the trips I had to make to buy salt and pepper and it made the recipes a bit of a pain. Especially the constant extra text from the Hunter. Sir, please. Be quiet and give me the functions without filler. I'd recommend makign the supply sotre be a direct click from the hunter's able that skips all his dialog and brings you directly to the supply shop.
  • Tools: Here you lost me. I get the feeling there should have been a wider range of tools and bonuses, but as it is i only broke my fishing rod once and just replaced it, it felt very unnecessary. Same with the lucky undies, felt like a missing feature. Additionally I don't think the game mentioned they broke at all so I was extremely confused over having duplicate tools in the shop.
  • Since there is so little hud already, my suggestion would be to make one with your tool's durability and consumables (water, pesticide, poop). At least when the menu for adding pesticide/crap pops up.
  • Heavy suggestion to smooth out the pace of interaction: If i select to do something, just do it, don't give me a text box about it. Maybe add a very brief animation/sprite change to it, but the constant textboxes, especially in the shop and crops, that amount to "I do the thing" became annoying.
  • A little signal for when animal's cooldown is ready would be great, be changing their sprite or making them emote with a bubble, or even just a popup that doesn't interrupt gameplay.
  • Eventually I stopped playing because I felt I had seen everything by then. Nothing new was really happening except for the rabbit popping up (which was a cool little mini-mini game!). If it was a much smoother flowing experience I would have played more in the spirit of an idle game, but the constant moving around and clicking through menus got annoying (worse I couldn't rely on the mouse alone since some events like fish don't react to it). I'd say it'd be worth it to go all in the idler aspect and make the entire map one or two larger ones and fully enable using the mouse to direct click or move the sprite automatically to the target. Then again, that's just my take.
  • Finally: I live with mom? Ok. Single room house? Ok. WHY DO I HAVE A SINGLE DOUBLE BED THO? SUSPECT. AND SHE HAD MY UNDIES? XD

In general I enjoyed it but it lacks something to make stay. Could go full out farm sim with more content and stuff to do (automation upgrades, more facilities etc) or full on idler with a smoother controls. A bit of flavor dialog when completing objectives would also be nice, or SOMETHING to give an arching quest or goal to the game and keep me hooked. We're so used to towns with characters and relationships in farming sim that I feel it's natural to miss them here, though not very fair as it would be an entire game's worth of work (or more).

Overall a very functional game I enjoyed it for around 40 mins till its grip loosened and I didn't feel like continuing. Needs more oomph to keep me there for longer. Still good work!

Developer(+1)

That is very useful feedback. Specially the message boxes being annoying is something to take to the drawing table. 

I want to reply to a few of your statements:

  • Hoeing, watering and fertilizing does increase the output. Each action puts +1 in the output of the plant. You can do 4 actions per plant, meaning +4 if you did them all. You will harvest 5 fruits per plant. If you wear the lucky undies AND you have your bunny rabbit bonus, which both doubles the output, you harvest 20 fruits per plant per round.
  • Animals felt meh? Yeah, you're right. Animals were kind of there at first to make it more of a farm. To have something to buy. I mean, you need a reason to make money, right? You say it's nice they don't need any upkeep, but I didn't even think about that! That is a great idea. :p 
  • Recipes interface in weird. Actually all the menu stuff looks weird. That is mainly because items and equipment are natively meant for battle purposes. Not for farming. I don't use any state or something, but windows like the shop window is designed to show those stats. 
  • Yes you find any fish in any pool. You do have to move spots though, because you run out of fish. 
  • Yes there is a notification saying your rod breaks. And it is twice in the store, because you can either pay for it with 120 gold, or 1 golden carp. 
  • The animal cooldown... Now that's a tough one. The animal cooldown is calculated at the moment you interact with it. I can however redesign it to work like the pishing ponds, but that would mean more parallel events running on the map at the same time. The problem is that when you have a full farm, all the activity at once is causing lag. Even though most events just run a single check every few seconds, it would mean the game freezes a moment every few seconds, if I have to many of those running at the same time.  I've heard this complaint before and I am thinking of a solution.
  • Pace of interaction is great feedback. I'll look into it.

And this:

  • I understand that you finally feel like you've seen it all and stopped playing. The targeted time was 1 hour for me. I, who know exactly how to go to the next stage the quickest, exploiting all the glitches, take an hour to complete all the farming quests (not the fishing quests though...) So, if you've played over an hour, you've probably have seen everything. I'm glad you've enjoyed it for so long. I will def. see what I can do to make more game play after the first hour. 
  • Yeah, I didn't think of giving mom a bed. But it is FarmBOY, not Farmman, so that totally justifies l iving with his mom, I guess. :p And if you live with your mom, she washes your undies. :p 

Thank you so much for your inclusive feedback. It's very useful and I always enjoy hearing people enjoyed my games. I'm glad you didn't find any mayor bug, other than annoyances with the dialogue and the HUD.