On the prowl for another zombie survival game, I gave The Last Farmer a try. A zombie outbreak in the desert with a military group going around taking advantage of the remaining survivors. I needed to build up from nothing and fight across the lands in search of what was going on.
The game starts you off in a nice little corner of it. You get access to a small body of water. Along with an abandoned building that has some workbenches you can repair to increase the number of items you can craft.
Since this place already had some great coverage. I ended up making this my main base. There were just two locations that I would later need to seal off with some walls and gates. It is a bit of a shame zombies would spawn inside the area I was building out of. At least my walls helped deal with oncoming hordes later down the road.
The game has a bit of a storyline and missions set up for you to work on. Early on you are working towards having a car. Gas is however quite limited. So, I ended up enjoying the car for the short time it was alive. Making it an amazing way to get around the map when I had it.
First, however, I needed to craft some of the basic tools. Then I'd start to work on getting the missing parts for the car including tires, engine, and any remaining parts. For that, it was time to go out and explore around the map a bit.
The map itself is quite a decent size. This is only a section of it I've ended up exploring so far. With certain parts of it being blocked off and having to fight the military trying to limit and control the few people remaining in my local area.
This game is quite a bit about you going out and raw resources like metal to seeds. When you go looting you usually don’t find actual items with expectation to things like guns. Ammo was however limited, so, most of my zombie-killing adventures were done with a club or spear.
Like any zombie survival game, there was no shortage of enemies to take out. They also respawn quite quickly. Creating some highly valued areas for looting raw resources feeling even overrun by zombies.
Zombies were not the only things I'd have to deal with. Quite early on a group armed to the teeth showing up in military transportation told me I was under their protection and would have to pay a fee or else.
That fee ended up being potatoes. The first time they came around I had some potatoes to pay them off with to go away. Then I had quite a string of bad luck. Zombies got into my compound and destroyed my garden planets.
After I got everything set up once again. I went away on a massive exploration adventure for a couple of in-game days. By the time I got back my crops were all dead. Making me miss the deadline and causing the military group to seek me out and try to kill me. They however failed.
After that, I build a more proactive area for my garden. I also try not to go out on multiple-day trips when I have anything growing. Food grows rather fast in this game. The plots also need things like water and fertilizer. You also only get about half an hour or so to pick anything that grew.
I was a little disappointed I did not get to grow anything right on the soil itself into some massive farmer. It however makes sense needing to use planters since desert soil is not that great to grow things in. There just ended up not being as much crop growing a game with this kind of name as I'd expect to be doing.
As I would start to slowly explore around the map I'd once in a while find a new blueprint. This would allow me to unlock things like metal tools, a fertilizer machine and so much more.
A lot of the time I was just going around breaking down pallets for wood or a wash and dryers for metal. Some locations were quite stacked in resources along with many times large amount of zombie spawns.
Meanwhile, there were lots of homes outside of towns to loot as well. With a lot fewer zombies wandering around. They were usually quite limited on resources to gather from breaking things down.
There are also NPCs around the map that are traders and even offer missions as well. Some of them require you to assist before they will trade with you. While others offer missions as a way to earn some spending money to buy goods.
This also seemed to be quite a good reason to expand my farm to have goods to sell. For the most part, however, I choose to ignore the traders. I was more interested in exploring and getting my supplies then sitting back in my base farming.
Most times I just tried to be back in my base on days a zombie horde would spawn. Thankfully zombies are not that bright and I was able to funnel them through a gap I could not close in my walls next to a mountain. This made them quite easy to manage and remove.
Final Thoughts
While this game is not listed as an early-access game. It sure has that feeling. While there is enough of a game to keep you busy for hours bashing zombies and running them over in your car. There does come to a point where I'm hoping more depth ends up getting added to the game at some point.
I also wish the daytime cycles were a bit longer. For a while, I'd try to be back in my base every night. After a while, I just learned to scout for a building with a bed in it and use whatever building I could find as shelter. Even more so once my car was totaled and I was unable to repair it. Making it quite hard to get to further away locations in a single day's worth of light.
Information
Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about The Last Farmer.
Disclosure. A review copy of the game was received for free.
The game doesn't feel like it's going to be the GOTY of the year, but it has everything in its favor to leave a mark on the player and leave us with an experience somewhat different from other games, that's something I'll know just by playing it.
It’s no were near anything like that. It was also made from my understanding a solo game developer who just enjoys making a couple of games a year. It is a little basic and I do wish there was a bit more depth to it.