Games I Like! - Slime Rancher
by Anzu <3I would never have guessed that I would think of slime as a good thing. Once I got something really slimy on my paw and it was awful! I spent an hour scrubbing it under the tap. Even Eiko couldn’t figure out why the slime was so tough to get out. When I saw Slime Rancher, though, the little slime creatures in it looked so cute I just had to try it. Since I started playing I’m a bit more okay with slime, but only if it’s in a video game. I still don’t want to touch that stuff...
When I first arrived on this mysterious planet all I had was a cute, dome-shaped house and a few plots where I could set up corrals for slimes, make gardens and chicken coops, that sort of stuff. There were also a couple of big terminals. One for handing in plorts where I could earn money to improve my ranch, and another that would assign tiny missions where I could get a variety of goodies if I completed them. I had a really neat gun-looking thing but it doesn’t kill anythings, which was a huge relief to me. Instead it’s kind of like a vacuum where I can suck up slimes, plorts, fruits and veggies, et cetera, then blast them out somewhere else later.
Not sure what to do, I wandered into the desert valley to find things to suck up and take back to the ranch. I’d barely left and I found an open area with a bunch of pink slimes hopping around laughing and making all sorts of happy sounds. It was wonderful! I sucked them all up then noticed some carrots and fruits laying around so I sucked those up too. Then I saw some pink gem-looking things on the ground. These must be the plorts! I had one tank left so I sucked up the plorts as well. Making my way a little bit deeper into the valley I found more pink slimes and more plorts laying around. There was no room left for more slimes, but I could gather up a few more plorts. There were some blue slimes bouncing around in this area but they would have to wait. With my tanks full, it was time to head back to the ranch.
Selling the plorts gave me enough money to make one corral to put my slime in, so I got that set up and shot all of the pink slimes into it. They were still bouncy and happy. I noticed when I aimed at them the game told me what they like to eat: everything. Convenient! I shot a bunch of fruit into the corral and the slimes started munching on them. A little bit after, plorts popped out of them!
Sasuke was in the room watching me play when this happened. We just looked at each other, eyes wide and he asked, “Is that...what I think it is?”
I was mortified and blurted out, “I don’t want to think about it! >_<”
Sasuke looked at the screen a bit longer, scratching his cheek, “Hmmm... Maybe it’s just a chemical reaction!”
Sasuke’s a genius! “Yes, let’s go with that!”
After gathering up the new plorts and selling them, I headed back into the valley to get some of those blue slimes I saw. My pinkies needed friends! When I got back to the clearing, I found the blue little guys and started sucking them up. I’m not sure if they’re playful or rambunctious but they would roll into a ball and bop me. It hurt! I lost some hit points! I managed to gather them but it was a bit tougher than the pink ones. Curious about the valley, I explored a little further. There was a tunnel up ahead so I when through it and eventually came to one more clearing by the ocean.
There were a lot of pink slime here and some really big ones that I couldn’t suck up. Then in the grass I saw something grey moving around. Getting closer, it was easy to see what it was. My whiskers perked right up. It was a kitty slime! It looked like me! I knew I had to take it back to the ranch. We were going to be best friends. Excited, I zipped back as fast as I could.
I could still only afford one corral for my ranch and blasted the little blue guys I found in with the pink ones. They’re all so cute! They’ll be great friends. I also put the little kitty slime I found in there. I hoped the others would get along well with her. I noticed, then, that when I aimed at her she preferred to eat meat and I only had one chicken, but there were a ton of carrots and fruit laying around. It didn’t seem fair that the pinkies and blues would have a feast but kitty couldn’t. So, I gathered the fruits, the carrots, and the chicken up and shot them all into the corral for the slimes to munch on saying, “Be nice to kitty everyone!” and then went skipping back into the valley in search of chickens. I could hardly wait to get back and see my cute little slimes’ smiling faces with happy tummies full of snacks.
There were a few chickens a little ways in that I sucked up quick and then I decided to explore a little deeper to see what there was. I eventually came to an area with a whole bunch of little kitty slimes! Fantastic! I hummed to myself as I sucked them all up to take back. More friends! <3 I started making my way back, sucking up some extra carrots along the way.
Finally I started making my way up the last little hill before my ranch. Kitty could finally enjoy some delicious chicken and be introduced to some new kitty friends. However, when I entered the ranch it was chaos! Most of my pink and blue slime were gone. Instead there were these scary black ones with sharp teeth, rainbow scars, and frowny faces everywhere. Even worse, they were gobbling up the normal slime! What the heck was this?!? I ran in shouting, “No! No! No! No! No!” but there were so many monster slimes. Then I saw kitty. She was surrounded by three of them. Suddenly one of them grabbed her with a tentacle and started pulling her closer. She was trying to get away! Her face looked like she was screaming, “Noooo!” I ran over as fast as I could trying to suck her away to safety yelling, “Don’t touch kitty!” but I was too slow. She got gobbled up too.
There was no time to cry, though. As soon as the monster slimes were done with her, they looked in my direction and started chasing me. They hit me really hard and I was losing hit points fast. All I could do was try to escape to the canyon. Maybe I could outrun them. Eventually I was deep in the canyon far away from the ranch. The monster slimes didn’t follow me here. There were some pink slime laughing and bouncing around, but I wasn’t in the mood to laugh. I stayed there by the water and looked at the waves. I just wanted everyone to be friends. What happened?
After a long while, I finally felt brave enough to go back to the camp. Somehow I was going to fight those monster slimes and make everything better. When I got there, though, they were all gone. No slimes anywhere. How? Confused, I thought I should save my game and turn it off. I had some research to do. I went upstairs and hopped on the computer. After an hour of checking around, I learned that it’s actually a bad idea to put a bunch of different slimes in the same pen. As it turns out, they eat their own plorts (ew!). Sometimes they even eat the plorts of other kinds of slimes. That causes them to turn into the monster slimes (they're called Tarrs). I didn’t know. This was all my fault.
Then I heard a little clink next to me and saw a cup of tea on the desk. Eiko was next to me now. “You did the best you could” he said, “None of us could have guessed such a thing would happen.” I nodded and sipped the tea. Earl grey, my favorite. Exactly what I needed.
The next day I got back to it. From now on I would be much more careful. The corral that was already built would be for blue guys only. It didn’t take too long to fill it up because there are quite a few of them a little ways in to the canyon. Then I gathered all of the carrots I could find and fed them to the slimes. I slowly started making money again and saved enough to make a second corral and make high walls for both of them. Finally it was time to gather kitties again. I went to the area by the ocean and found some to take back. I also remembered to get a bunch of chickens this time for them. So, I had two corrals side by side and each had only one type of slime in them. They were well fed and safe.
I did this again for the next couple of game days and the corrals were starting to look pretty full. I noticed something, though. Sometimes the blue slimes and the kitties would be lined up at the walls of the corrals that faced each other. I think they wanted to be together. Part of me thought it was super cute, but I also felt bad and it was hard not to worry. What would happen if they got together and accidentally turned into Tarr again. I wanted them to be friends and they looked like they wanted to be friends too, but it wasn’t safe for them to be together. I sighed and left to focus on other things.
There were a lot of slimes now and they had big appetites so I had to start making my own food on the ranch. Luckily, I had a decent amount of money from all the plorts that I’d been selling, so I added one garden and a chicken coop. The garden is pretty neat because I just have to shoot a fruit or veggie into a little hole and it will make a whole garden of those and I get a bunch of that fruit or veggie everyday. It’s nice because then some of the slimes can be fed super quick each morning. The chicken coop takes more work. I had to gather up a bunch of hens and a couple of roosters so that they could make more hens over time. It’s pretty slow, though, even after adding all of the upgrades to the coop its not super fast. I’ll toss in little chicks and leave them in the coop to grow as well. At least the canyon seems to have lots of new hens and chicks showing up all the time. It means I have to hunt a bit more but the kitties won’t go hungry. I fee bad when they haven’t been fed yet and they look famished, so I try to feed them as soon as possible.
While exploring, I’ve come across some super gigantic slimes hidden in different areas as well. They just stay put and I eventually I have to feed them...a lot! They have the same preferences for food as the tiny ones that they look like but they eat so much! It’s so cute too because when I aim my gun at their mouth they open up like saying, “Aaaawwwwwww!” and they’re ready to eat! I found a giant pinkie and blasted 20 carrots into its mouth. It still wanted more! O_O I went and gathered 20 more carrots and shot them into its mouth too. Suddenly it’s eyes went wide and it exploded! WHAT?!? It turned into a bunch of tiny pinkies so I guess it was okay... The neat thing was that it left a key for opening mysterious doors around the island. As I found more of these super hungry, giant slimes I fed them and got more keys and sometimes a teleporter. Then I figured out they were super important for exploring new areas of the island.
Between this, making more money from selling plorts, and doing missions I was making enough money to seriously build up my ranch. I even opened two new areas where I could put more corrals, gardens, and stuff. One is even underground, so I can collect glow in the dark slimes that only come out at night and keep them safe (they don’t like daylight!). Shibao loves these slimes. He’ll watch me play sometimes and always reminds me to, “Feed the nightlights!” <3
Right now, I just unlocked the door to a totally new area of the island and it’s beautiful! The area is called Moss Blanket. I love blankies! It’s a giant forest full of green trees, moss on the ground, and little lakes and ponds around it. I would absolutely love to have a picnic here if there weren’t so many exploding slimes around. They don’t die when they blow up but it’s like they have all this energy in them then ka-plow! You don’t want to be near them when that happens. Even they look stunned if they hit each other with explosions. When I first discovered them, I very carefully sucked them up and put them in a corral far away from everyone else. Now they’re on a steady diet of chickens and exploding as much as they want. There are a bunch of other new slimes here too like puddle slimes, honey slimes (I love these guys!), and even hunter slimes that are super sneaky (they wear bandanas, look kinda like cats and can make themselves invisible!).
I’ve been gathering these as much as I can but get so worried because they all hang out in the same place. There wind up being lots of Tarr that show up there. =( I’ve learned that there’s an upgrade for my gun that lets it shoot water, so I always blast Tarr with water when I see them because that destroys them. It doesn’t matter how busy I am, I will never let the Tarr terrorize the other slimes again if I can help it. I always stop to save them now. Never again.
This is what I’ve been doing over the last week: collecting honey slimes, gathering chickens for the boom slimes that keep exploding, and trying to find more hunter slimes (they’re really tough to find!). I also have to spend a lot more time making food now! There are a lot of slimes at my ranch and they all seem to have healthy appetites, so I spend entire days in the game taking care of my gardens and chicken coops, then going into different areas just to suck up more food and put it in my silo for later. I feel like a real farmer all of a sudden!
One thing I haven't done a lot of, though, are missions. Sometimes I’ll do them. Sometimes I won’t. I only accept them if I think I can find all of the slimes the person wants out in the wild. I’ll never take slimes out of my corrals to complete missions. I don’t want to separate any slimes from their friends. That’s super cruel and I don’t like that!
So, that’s what it’s been like playing Slime Rancher. It’s cute and it’s colorful. There are a ton of different slimes to find and lots to explore. You even have to do serious stuff like taking care of your ranch and making sure to grow enough food to take care of all the slimes you bring home. It’s all been a lot of fun and I can hardly wait to get back to it. I also learned that sometimes when you try to do something with good intentions it still might not work out how you thought it would. Sorry kitty... =(
Written between sessions of Earl Grey tea...
The slimes really like to play together a lot!
The tabby and rock slimes look like they want to be together but I'm scared the Tarr will come back...
The giant slimes know when you're about to feed them and say, "Awwwwwww!"
I get worried when I see a bunch of different slimes together like this. Please be careful you all don't turn into Tarr!
I love how green Moss Blanket is. I'd definitely have a picnic here if there weren't any exploding slimes.