Farm for your Life [Xbox]

Developed and published by Secret Item Games, Farm for your Life is a strange game, encompassing a farming/time management sim, with the threat of zombies. You’ll quickly learn how to utilise your farm, planting crops and taking care of livestock in order to build up products for your little apocalyptic restaurant; catering to the misplaced souls that have nowhere else to go for a meal.

As you progress you’ll be able to hire helpers in return for shelter and a daily meal, and this makes a big difference to the operation of your restaurant. More helpers means more people to allocate tasks, whether that’s tending to the crops in your farm, or serving customers, or even keeping the dishes washed! But, more helpers also means more mouths to feed, so you’ll need to up your farm production in order to keep up with demand - and it’s not always as easy as it seems.

The aesthestics are quite simple, with a cartoon-y vibe and rather goofy looking characters. As well as your farm and restaurant areas, there are forest areas that you’ll need to visit frequently to gather wood, and these areas are all sort of inter-linked, eventually leading back to the main area.

Learning recipes requires you to do a short mini-game, and then you’ll be able to produce new meals for your customers, but first you’ll have to unlock the recipes themselves, or purchase them from vendors. My biggest gripe was making sure to have enough plates and cups for your customers, as well as managing stock of the correct ingredients, as you can end up pretty stuck if you don’t have enough to plate up a meal for a customer that’s already taking up a seat - especially if you can’t afford to trade away for more crockery when needed. I backed myself into a corner by running completely out of various produce, which meant that my ‘staff’ refused to work, and I could barely keep up with the demands of my customers, so they just stayed there, taking up valuable restaurant space and I couldn’t shift them as I didn’t have the relevant food to serve.

Overall, it’s a decent enough wee game if you’re into these kinds of farming sims. The additional challenge by having zombies getting in the way of everything, combined with customers that will drive you up the wall for all wanting drinks when you simply don’t have enough cups to deal with them all, makes for an entertaining yet frustrating time. Available for £16.74 on the Xbox Store, it does feel quite expensive; however, there is a demo available if you want to give it a try to see if you like it without risking your money, so I’d definitely recommend you go for that first if you’re unsure.

In the end, we decided to give Farm for your Life the Collecting Asylum rating of 6/10.

Are you interested in Farm for your Life? What do you think about it?
Let us know in the comments below!

- V x

Thank you to Secret Item Games for the Farm for your Life Xbox review code!