As expanding otherwise involves pickaxes, which break after one-square of use, pigs are enormously useful. But still, farming involves a lot of legwork and hanging around, and animals do some of these chores for you.Ĭows water your crops, chickens kill weeds and lay eggs, bees speed crop growth and pigs - wonderful pigs - till your soil and randomly expand your farmable area. And you get energised when you do a lot of farming, speeding everything further still. And you can shoot and do all this at the same time. We're squarely in arcade territory here where one button does everything - digging, tilling, sowing, harvesting, fertilising - and watering occurs automatically. Things like animals, because it won't take you long to realise farming is a chore - although, to be clear, Atomicrops is nothing like a simulation. It's quite hard taking a screenshot in the thick of battle! Especially when you're fighting the sun. There, you find all manner of goodies, like much-needed seeds as well as more valuable things that boost your capabilities and chances of survival. You'll quickly discover, for instance, you need to go out raiding in nearby enemy lands.

It's a small and short loop, but it gradually grows as you learn more. But the days are short and the difficulty rises quickly, so it's unlikely you'll last past summer or autumn to begin with. You play for as long as your one life lasts. Then it's back to your farm for a new season to see if you can do it all over again. These prizes make you incrementally more powerful. Availability: Released 28th May on PC, PS4, Xbox One and SwitchĮvery third day there's a boss fight, after which you meet the mayor of the town and receive prizes depending on how many crops you grew and therefore people you fed.If you make it through to morning, a helicopter picks you up to fly you back to town. During the day, you plant seeds, fertilise and water them, and at night you defend them, moving and shooting like a twin-stick shooter. You are the farmer of a small plot of land where you need to grow crops to earn money and feed a town. There's a lot going on, it is intense, and while it might look silly and cartoony this is a tough nut to crack.

Atomicrops is a wild and challenging blend of genres that's very moreish indeed.Ītomicrops is a farming game and a bullet-hell shooter and a Roguelike.

Free for apple download Atomicrops