I haven't seen or heard of any counterpart to FS series of games from Giant - does this franchise have a monopoly over licensing or something? or is it just so well done, that any other game would be an imitation.
I am not considering games like Stardew Valley - which in my opinion also have no competitive counterpart (yet) - just imitations.
Yep...Pure Farming for free on PS a while ago brought me to Farm Sim22. So glad I played it!
Cattle and Crops was touted as the Giants killer. They promised the moon and delivered very little.
I’d be interested in a game similar to this where it’s more of a management game, where you’re running the farm, buying fields and equipment and telling workers where to go, but not doing the actual farming. I could see that being fun on a tablet for casual play
I used to play John Deere American Farmer back in the Windows XP days. Game was exactly this, with 2002 era graphics and only JD equipment. I looked a few years ago and the only way I could find it was by pirating it.
I still have a CD copy of this lol played it a bunch as a kid. Coolest thing I remember was hiring planes to do what I think was herbicide ? Maybe fertilizer ? It was a cool game.
Where I live spraying is often done from planes for herbicide. It’s wild watching the turns they make at the end of the field, almost like a stunt plane
I was at work and didn't get to see it, but the field beside my house got sprayed by a plane this summer. Kids were home and they went outside to watch, really wish I could have seen it IRL lol
Oh, you mean a nice helping of crop dusting!
You can do exactly that in FS too with a few mods!
Yeah between course play and auto drive that is basically how I play in fs19.
Yes, and they're great! Now I'm a the point where I want to automate that even further. I'm going to look into the API(s) and see if I can have a field be completely managed for years w/o any intervention (other than marvelling at my "creation" from above, hehe).
Good thing I'm a professional code head!
That would be interesting to put in, it would mean you could have ambient other farmers working in their fields yearly.
It shouldn't actually be that hard to do, the hard part would be what is done with courseplay and auto drive already.
Yep. I'll check if I can trigger saved Courseplay paths from my code. If not, I'll just calculate a 100% headlands spiral doo-dad and have the harvester dump at a nearby silo when full. Park it after the job is done and wait for a year until it wakes up again. Nothing fancy, but turnkey.
I used to love Course Play. They removed many functions and turned those over to Auto Drive, so now it takes 2 apps to do what used to be done by 1.
Yeah, like a tycoon type game but purely for farming would be great to play! Have you tried Captain of Industry and also Rise Of industry, its kinda like that, but more construction, than farming (there is some farming).
I haven’t. I was hooked on the Jurassic park park building game recently, having different targets for diversity, conservation, income and helping the local economy could be interesting
I think one exists. Farm Manager 2021
There is one called Farm Manager 21 that fits this need. You higher workers, permanent or seasonal, and tell them what to do. It's not bad but last time I played started to really struggle with big farms.
What platform is that on?
I play on xbox one, so i assume its also on playstation and i know its on PC since they had it first.
Its a pretty decent game but if you want to complete the like scienario challenge things there is a pretty heavy “meta” to it. Most farms you make in that mode will start as fish or cow farms.
There's also Switch versions of it. Farm Tycoon (same as Farm Manager 2018), and Farm Manager 2022 (haven't played this one)
It's on PC and available through steam.
Ranch simulator looks promising in a year or two
I've been playing this game off and on since before it was recently released as a 1.0 version. I still have high hopes for it, but there are a lot of bugs, quirks and issues they need to work out before it's as smooth of a game as farming simulator. I love the idea of a game but it's just too frustrating to play consistently.
That hits the nail on the head tbh, its frustrating to play it constantly.
Its far from what Farming Sim is tho i hope in a few years it might get atleast to some Realistic Animal Crossing / Harvest Moon
Ranch simulator
I checked that out just now - looks promising for sure - might jump on it as its on sale!
It's currently getting some slow updates tbh, it's a bit more hands on than farming sim but I have high hopes that in a year or two it might be good
The newest one I know of is a phone app called American Farming. It was built by a group of guys who love playing FS. Lookup “the squad” on YouTube and you should find their channel and videos
Thanks! will check those out.
The Squad made a game?
Yeah watch any of their new videos. They are either playing it or advertising it
It’s only on mobile though.
Is that like farming USA?
Yeah it is actually. No logging though.
At the moment I would recommend you to stop the search, because it’s simple no other games that can challenge FS. I’ve tried all of them, since sometimes I want something new and it’s always a waste of time and money. All FS clones are shitty games, which usually have one cool idea and awful realization of whole game. And that’s kids how I’ve got all those “games” in my steam library. I remember how I’ve waited for Cattle and Crops with realistic physics and what we’ve got on release? I can’t even call this a game. And how my friends were telling me stories about fabulous Agricultural Simulator, how it’s cool and realistic. And it was just a Bugged AF Simulator. Just play FS and wait for a new challenger, if something cool will release we all will know about it.
Noted! I figured as much - FS is an amazing game series, not sure why I'm even looking for an alternative.
I'm currently enjoying Construction Simulator. Feels very similar to FS but not nearly as polished. Worth picking up on sale.
Will check that out - thanks!
For a while, there was Cattle and Crops. I believe they had a beta version available at one time. I don't know if they're still working on it or if they've given up.
Cattle & Crops is/was a much better simulator, they ended development I think Giants throttled their ability to get liscensing for brands.
Does the general player base really give 2 shits about licensed brands?
I have no background in farming but love FS. I couldn't care less what default color my tractor is.
Probably not, but, here we are.
Minecraft. You can get a ton of farming mods on it
Thats what I assumed - good to know. Newcomers would put some pressure on Giants to improve (not that they are slacking).
Thanks!
I believe the best one was Professional Farmer: Cattle and Crops but sadly it died during EA thought its still fun to play. It was focused a lot more on realism than anything Giants ever did. I'll drop a few examples.- dynamic ground physics ( snowrunner/spintires physics in a farming game ), field moisture and mud based on weather ( rain )- fertilization. You didnt jut add fertilizer to your field. You mixed your fertilizer/field depending on what NPK (Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium) you need exactly for that particular field based on what was sowed before and any of that had been left on the field (tillage)- field compression simulation ( layers simulated separately ), decreasing yield, loss of direct seeding, etc..- built in lane guidance system ( GPS autosteer )- crops had moisture, for example if you cut the grass its wet but if you leave it out for a few days and turn it over ( it also has layers with different moisture ) it will dry out
I will link a Steam review here for a lengthier list and check out the updates here its pretty amazing and I will mourn this game until I die. I love the realistic addons like the Precision Farming DLC and mods like Maize Plus and the slurry mod that adds realism, and this game was aiming for that with all these features part of the base game ( different soils were already implemented long b4 Giants thought of it ).
I am not hating on Giants, I play a lot of FS, nearing 1k hours on FS22 and had over 2k in 19, around that in 17 so yeah I am with them. I just wish they would add more of these core features instead of more implements and tractors, modders are killing it in that front.
I felt like 22 was a big improvement on sounds. It's night and day if you compare it to 19 or 17. Not talking about the tractor sounds though they are much better but the sounds of the equipment, the clanking of the cultivators, the sounds of the hydraulics, the bump when the trailer comes back down after tipping and it hits the chassis, when you turn off the engine you can still hear as the shaking winds down...little things like that.
They also implemented seasons and snow and added the Precision Farming DLC which I appreciated a lot
But in general, I agree, not much of a change, better visuals, slight improvement on the engine and thats about it. I was really hopeful about Cattle and Crops not only because it had a lot of great features from the beginning but it would've created competition which is always good.
Definately not the same kind of game but would probably appeal to the same kind of people: Snowrunner.
No need to buy anothing beyond the base game until you know if it's for you. It's a lot more fun than it looks like.
Well, that was my shout.
I already hated the terrain physics of FS but snowrunner really ruined it for me. Every time I play FS I have a hard time getting past how bad the driving experience is for a game whose main pull is driving equipment.
Yes! Snowrunner - i got into that after I watched some streamers mess around with it and found it hilarious. But when i played it it was rather involved! It was the perfect the game for just hanging back and chilling as it has a pretty good controller support.
I can definately see why :)
Yeah its a 10/10 controller and chill game. Especially with friends.
Someone else mentioned construction simulator, which is another "different genre, similar feel"
I'll throw out a wayyyy different genre that scratches a similar itch for me: X4. Space trucker/fighter/miner/industrialist game that hits the same "running a small business while still driving the big machines, but theres AI helpers that you manage for most tasks"
Very weird to say it hits the same, but yeah. Much closer to farm sim than Stardew Valley.
Farming USA 2 on mobile isn’t horrible.
Pure Farming 2018 and Real Farm were my alternatives. They were ok but I felt they lacked the depth and scale FS provides.
Couple FS YouTubers just released American Farming for mobile devices. Looks to be a decent game, more American content and more mobile friendly than fs23.
Farthest frontier is a city builder but it has crop rotation.
Medieval Dynasty I think has farming but you do other stuff in a medieval setting.
I wish there was. Giants is lazy because of it. They need competition. They lack the ability to create a modern game engine. Just like they lack the ability to create engaging content. Us modders are paving their roads for them. And then sometimes they snag one and throw it down like it's their dlc and charge us for something else that doesn't work. Sorry, I don't mean to rant, but this is what happens when a company has a monopoly over a service or product. (Think about epi-pens from Pfizer. It's everywhere. Just need a good company to come around and use a solid engine like unity or unreal. Hell, Microsoft Studios could pump out a better FS game.
Also, to add to it, I bet it's hard to hire talented ppl willing to come spend years learning and working with an obsolete system like Giants Engine 9. Won't really help them down their career path in the future. So there is also thar perspective. No new people, no new talent, and then that equates to no innovation or progression.
Sims 4 did two really deep farming simulator dlcs. Cottage Living and... one about horse ranches.
If you like mowing /harvesting, Lawn mowing Simulator is another good game
Farm Manager 21
I think there is on the ps store
There were couple of attempts - out of which i remember Pure farming and Farmer's dynasty.