I downloaded an idle game, Tiny Pasture, onto my work computer this morning. Like Rusty’s Retirement before it, Tiny Pasture lives at the bottom of my desktop screen, overlaid on the windows I’ve got open. In this case, five bunnies are running back and forth on Polygon’s CMS while I attempt to write this post. Created by developer CaveLiquid, Tiny Pasture was released on Monday and has surpassed 10,000 concurrent players on Steam — clearly, there are a few thousand of us who are enamored by our new little, digital pets.
Tiny Pasture is more pet care and management than the farming simulation found in Rusty’s Retirement; in the several hours I’ve had the game open on my computer, I’ve slowly amassed a stable of five rabbits, all of which periodically drop coins. Coins are how you expand your pasture, be it with new animals, decorations, or helpful facilities — I got a beehive that automatically collects coins. I’ve also got to feed my rabbits carrots or cabbage, ensuring they’re kept healthy and well fed. Clicking on them occasionally for pets keeps ‘em happy — and collects coins, an added bonus. As you might expect, the rabbits poop, so I click on their droppings to clean it up.
There are other animals to unlock, too, like corgis, cats, capybara, pandas, and parrots. Ghosts and zombies can live on your farm, too, but I’m not too inclined to try to raise those. Animals can be bred, too, to unlock different rare colors and markings.
I’m finding the progression of Tiny Pasture to be perfect for an idle game. The way coins are amassed means that I have to wait — simply watching and occasionally clicking — and have patience before I can more actively upgrade the pasture. Having to wait is the only reason I’ve been able to finish this post. It’s a real treat to take a break every so often to check in and see what’s up, then be able to move back to whatever I was doing seconds later. A little burst of dopamine certainly isn’t hurting my work day.
The little bursts of joy games like these give — high reward for low investment — is, perhaps, why desktop games like Tiny Pasture, Weyrdlets, and Rusty’s Retirement are having a moment: Who doesn’t want a cute, low stakes distraction?
The post This post took too long to write because I’m distracted by my digital rabbits appeared first on Polygon.
