Stardew Valley-like idle sim farms while you work

Rusty’s Retirement is an idle farming simulator that does the work for you — while you work. The game, which was released on April 26 by Mister Morris Games, sits at the bottom of your computer screen and basically runs itself; simply plant some seeds and Rusty and a team of cute robot pals will get to work turning the crops into biofuel, which can be reinvested in your ever-expanding farm.

You start with a small patch and three crops — radish, wheat, and cabbage — and go from there. Rusty will water and harvest the plants while you’re working elsewhere on your computer. Once you’ve got enough money, you can buy upgrades to speed up the process with automated robots, more crops, beehives, and animals. The way I’ve been playing it is simple: I keep it locked on the bottom of the screen, so I can always see it. When a patch is empty, I’ll throw some seeds down. Every so often, I’ll notice that I’ve got enough resources to buy something new — my most recent purchase was hiring a friend for Rusty who helps with farm chores.

Some might think having a game always open at the bottom of your screen might not be good for productivity, but I’d say Rusty’s Retirement been the opposite — great for my productivity. It’s keeping me actively engaged at the computer, a little treat I can play with once I’ve completed a task or two. In fact, I’ve got it open right now while I’m writing about it; after every few sentences, I spent a few seconds planting seeds in the spaces that Rusty has already harvested. It’s subtle enough to not be distracting, while still being a nice little dopamine hit every once in a while. Paired with its lo-fi, soothing music, it’s been a mainstay at the bottom of my screen.

There’s no real narrative, and that’s part of the experience. It’s just Rusty on the farm. There’s no incentive to do anything but be leisurely. There are some things about the user interface that bug me a bit, like its small farm area that’s quite cramped at the beginning, but it works because of the slow pace: There’s no need for the space to be much bigger.

The beauty of Rusty’s Retirement’s leisure seems to have led to a positive consensus among people who’ve played the game so far, too. On Steam, it’s got a 97% overwhelmingly positive user rating, and it’s quickly moving up the charts on database tracker SteamDB, where Rusty’s Retirement is said to have amassed a peak of more than 20,000 players as it continues to trend upwards.

Rusty’s Retirement is available on Windows PC via Steam for $6.99.