Bottom-of-the-screen idle games have become a new mini-trend in gaming lately. Rusty’s Retirement really kicked the trend off, and Tiny Pasture is looking to capitalise on the cosy, cute, and minimal effort and stakes that let these games thrive. Whilst the adorable pixel art, idle animations, and idea all sell a relaxed and cosy vibe, tiny also applies to the amount of content too.
There are 17 animals to unlock in Tiny Pasture, and you’ll start off with a rabbit. Each animal begins as a cub version of itself, requiring a cooldown before it turns into an adult. You can click and drag the cubs around and they’ll leave coins behind them for you to collect. Coins are useful for buying food, decorations, or more animals. Once animals reach adulthood, they then generate coins at a rate per minute and if you click them, they’ll drop all the coins they’ve gained so far for you. Animals come with different star ratings that relate to their coin generation but the better the animal, the longer their cooldown as a child.
Each pasture has an animal slot limit and coins are required to open more slots. More slots equal more coins, and so the gameplay loop begins. Earn coins, feed animals to keep them healthy, collect coins, and spend coins. New animals are unlocked by earning thresholds, raising a certain type of animal to adulthood X amount of times… and the somewhat random poop scoop. Animals will randomly poo and you can either triple click them to clean them up, or buy an upgradable magic broom that will clean them up for you. I found the amount of poo is much smaller than any earnings you get or animals growing up and this locked several animals out from play for over ten hours of idling.
There are also some other things aside from the magic broom that can automate your pasture. A beehive will collect money from animals when their purse is full. A treehouse will drop food every so often, although never often enough to truly sustain a busy pasture. You can also breed animals, but you lose the parents and gain one, usually improved star rating cub. I didn’t breed too many animals as I found I was gaining enough money from selling animals and buying replacements quickly.
Aside from a few pretty decorations… that’s it. The unlock and upgrades are slightly misbalanced. Whilst Tiny Pasture looks lovely and provides cute idle animations, I found myself thinking, “is this it?” very early on. Indeed, this was it. Tiny Pasture is a bit too hands-off and breezy for my personal preference. Other bottom of the screen games have more things to do, and I prefer those. This is a personal preference thing, though. If all you want is to drop some food every few minutes to keep your cute tiny animals and ghosts (yes, ghosts and zombies are a thing) then this is the game for you. If you want something more involved… you’ll outgrow this idyllic land long before it reaches its potential.
Review copy provided by the publisher. Tiny Pasture is out now on Steam.
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