This game was reviewed using Version 1.0.9. Your experience on other versions may vary.

What might be the most relaxed idle game I've played to date, running entirely on the bottom (or side) of your screen to let you multitask. Gameplay is light enough that you don't need to glue yourself to the screen to progress, but you can still invest a ton of time into min-maxing or achievement hunting if you'd like. Does not support offline progression.

Rusty's Retirement is an idle game/farming sim where you help an old robot named Rusty build up their own farm, complete with all kinds of crops, a few common farm animals, some nice décor, and even additional homes for other robots. What sets Rusty's apart from other idlers, besides the cute pixel art and cozy soundtrack, is the fact that the entire game is designed to sit at the bottom of your computer screen. While this is the intended experience, the New Game menu does give you the option to make the window vertical so it sits on the side of your screen instead—just note that you can't switch back to a horizontal view without creating a new save file, since doing this changes the entire layout of the in-game map.

The gameplay loop is simple: pick a crop from the storage menu and plant its seeds into a patch of dirt, then Rusty will automatically water and harvest them over time. There are over 40 different crops to unlock and plant, each with different growth rates, water requirements, number of harvest cycles before a new seed needs to be planted, and currency gained on each harvest. Harvesting crops earns you spare parts and biofuel, two currencies you can use to purchase new crop patches, decorations, bots to further automate the farm, and homes for new robotic residents that can offer services like new shops or upgrades. The only thing that can't be purchased are new types of crops, which are instead unlocked as you harvest crops you already have access to (e.g. harvest 18 cabbages and 18 radishes and you'll unlock carrots). Earn enough currency and you can purchase more land to make room for all the new stuff you unlock, eventually turning it into the tiny little robot-themed homestead of your dreams.

The big reason Rusty's only takes up part of your screen is because it's meant to act as a little palate cleanser while doing other work at your computer, even going so far as to have a "Focus Mode" that makes crops take twice as long to grow so you don't need to monitor it as often. In line with that design philosophy, gameplay is very hands-off even as far as idle games go, as the only things you have to do are plant crop seeds and choose the location of new facilities or decorations. That said, whether you'll use it as an occasional diversion as intended or find yourself staring at the game window for hours on end can vary from player to player. I've had plenty of idlers take up more of my undivided attention than I'm comfortable admitting, but once I got through the early game and crop harvest cycles started getting longer, I found it pretty easy to step back and just let Rusty and the gang do their thing while I worked on other, equally unproductive tasks at my desk.

Aside from being something cute on your desktop to tinker with, your unspoken goal is to make enough spare parts to buy up all the land expansions on both sides of your starting plot. How long this will take you is going to vary wildly, especially since there's no offline progression like many other idlers have. In hours, it depends on how much you micromanage crop production or whether build for efficiency over aesthetics; in days, it depends entirely on how many hours per day you leave the program running. I managed to completely fill out my farm in around 36 hours over the course of 5 days, but that's far from where the experience has to end if you're looking for more. Buying up all the land on your initial farm lets you create a new farm on a different map, and filling out this new farm will unlock yet another for a total of four unlockable maps, each with their own quirks to change the way you have to build. Achievement hunters will also find plenty to do, as you have achievements that are not only about progress made on a single farm (e.g. plant 100 decorations), but also progress made across every farm you've created (e.g. produce 1 million biofuel or 10 million spare parts in total).

You could easily invest weeks into building up farms on all five maps and grinding out every achievement, but I found myself satisfied after completing my first one and decided to stop there so I didn't burn myself out. I unlocked all the crops, upgraded all the bots, purchased all the houses, spun a big cog a thousand times, and filled every tile with some kind of crop or decoration; and I feel like that was enough to get my money's worth out of it. Rusty's Retirement certainly delivered on its marketing as a relaxing idler, and it makes for a great distraction without feeling like too deep of a time sink.

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[b][u]This game was reviewed using Version 1.0.9. Your experience on other versions may vary.[/u][/b] [h3][b][u]Short Answer:[/u][/b][/h3] What might be the most relaxed idle game I've played to date, running entirely on the bottom (or side) of your screen to let you multitask. Gameplay is light enough that you don't need to glue yourself to the screen to progress, but you can still invest a ton of time into min-maxing or achievement hunting if you'd like. Does not support offline progression. [h3][b][u]Long Answer:[/u][/b][/h3] [i]Rusty's Retirement[/i] is an idle game/farming sim where you help an old robot named Rusty build up their own farm, complete with all kinds of crops, a few common farm animals, some nice décor, and even additional homes for other robots. What sets [i]Rusty's[/i] apart from other idlers, besides the cute pixel art and cozy soundtrack, is the fact that the entire game is designed to sit at the bottom of your computer screen. While this is the intended experience, the New Game menu does give you the option to make the window vertical so it sits on the side of your screen instead—just note that you can't switch back to a horizontal view without creating a new save file, since doing this changes the entire layout of the in-game map. The gameplay loop is simple: pick a crop from the storage menu and plant its seeds into a patch of dirt, then Rusty will automatically water and harvest them over time. There are over 40 different crops to unlock and plant, each with different growth rates, water requirements, number of harvest cycles before a new seed needs to be planted, and currency gained on each harvest. Harvesting crops earns you spare parts and biofuel, two currencies you can use to purchase new crop patches, decorations, bots to further automate the farm, and homes for new robotic residents that can offer services like new shops or upgrades. The only thing that can't be purchased are new types of crops, which are instead unlocked as you harvest crops you already have access to (e.g. harvest 18 cabbages and 18 radishes and you'll unlock carrots). Earn enough currency and you can purchase more land to make room for all the new stuff you unlock, eventually turning it into the tiny little robot-themed homestead of your dreams. The big reason [i]Rusty's[/i] only takes up part of your screen is because it's meant to act as a little palate cleanser while doing other work at your computer, even going so far as to have a "Focus Mode" that makes crops take twice as long to grow so you don't need to monitor it as often. In line with that design philosophy, [b]gameplay is very hands-off even as far as idle games go[/b], as the only things you have to do are plant crop seeds and choose the location of new facilities or decorations. That said, whether you'll use it as an occasional diversion as intended or find yourself staring at the game window for hours on end can vary from player to player. I've had plenty of idlers take up more of my undivided attention than I'm comfortable admitting, but once I got through the early game and crop harvest cycles started getting longer, I found it pretty easy to step back and just let Rusty and the gang do their thing while I worked on other, equally unproductive tasks at my desk. Aside from being something cute on your desktop to tinker with, your unspoken goal is to make enough spare parts to buy up all the land expansions on both sides of your starting plot. How long this will take you is going to vary wildly, especially since [b]there's no offline progression[/b] like many other idlers have. In hours, it depends on how much you micromanage crop production or whether build for efficiency over aesthetics; in days, it depends entirely on how many hours per day you leave the program running. [b]I managed to completely fill out my farm in around 36 hours over the course of 5 days, but that's far from where the experience has to end if you're looking for more.[/b] Buying up all the land on your initial farm lets you create a new farm on a different map, and filling out this new farm will unlock yet another for a total of four unlockable maps, each with their own quirks to change the way you have to build. [b]Achievement hunters will also find plenty to do[/b], as you have achievements that are not only about progress made on a single farm (e.g. plant 100 decorations), but also progress made across every farm you've created (e.g. produce 1 million biofuel or 10 million spare parts in total). You could easily invest weeks into building up farms on all five maps and grinding out every achievement, but I found myself satisfied after completing my first one and decided to stop there so I didn't burn myself out. I unlocked all the crops, upgraded all the bots, purchased all the houses, spun a big cog a thousand times, and filled every tile with some kind of crop or decoration; and I feel like that was enough to get my money's worth out of it. [b][u][i]Rusty's Retirement[/i] certainly delivered on its marketing as a relaxing idler, and it makes for a great distraction without feeling like too deep of a time sink.[/u][/b] [quote]For more game reviews, check out my [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/42524563/]Curator page[/url]![/quote]