Relaxing Farm: Merge Tales Review (PC)

“it’s basically Solitaire doused with hints of Candy Crush,” were the first words I spoke after opening up Relaxing Farm: Merge Tales to sample the seed.“It’s essentially the same as stacking cards and bursting sugarcane blots — but with fewer foil wrappers and a lot more agricultural products, like wheat and cheese, eggs and poultry, available to formulate synergies with.” But it was, to some extent, Solitaire. That wasn’t a bad thing; if anything, it was a breath of fresh air—a well-needed switchover from the usual farming simulation. Granted, its soil wasn’t as deep, and the fertilizer that it used to pepper its foundations wasn’t as effective or as enticing as the usual concoction of agricultural practices. But it had something: a hook—an alternate angle that hadn’t seen the light of day before. And that, for me, was enough of an incentive to cut the deck.

While Relaxing Farm: Merge Tales doesn’t contain a classically thrilling, much less compelling concept, it does do its title justice with a simple yet somewhat graceful formula that makes the agricultural arts feel both within grasp and easy to understand. By that I mean, you don’t need a wealth of knowledge to know how to churn butter or break a few eggs; in fact, you need only understand the basics—how to stack cards to generate a product, and so on and so forth. And that’s essentially all Relaxing Farm is comprised of: a short journey through a stackable farmyard that you yourself can build through powerful and authentic synergies.

Care to hear more about LeeT Games’ latest card-based farming exploit? Then stick with us a while longer as we continue down the rabbit hole, or, to be more precise, the trough.

Stacking for Change

I’ll stand by word and say that, as far as compelling farming games go, Merge Tales is still a few droplets short of a whole bucket, so to speak. Don’t get me wrong, it has the potential to grow into something special, but for what it is, and for what it does currently have to offer in its independent deck, you might struggle to find enough of a reason to stick around long enough to reap the fruits of your labor.

The game itself is relatively simple. Simply, you have a deck of cards—ingredients, animals, and general farming fixtures, to list just a few of its strands—and a layout that’s reminiscent of a Solitaire board. The idea is that you, the farmhand with a knack for celebrating the agricultural arts, can essentially merge cards in order to create appropriate stacks—collections that can either be used to fulfill requests or earn additional cash to invest in better ingredients, seeds, and liveries and what have you. The more you stack, and the more you earn, the better the decks you can unlock, thus increasing your passive income and allowing you the opportunity to build your farm and flesh it out with a wide range of produce.

While the core gameplay loop isn’t massively difficult, it does feature timed intervals, usually in the form of requests. To earn cash in these cases, you have to make quick turnarounds and complete specific stacks in an allotted time. It isn’t depressingly tough, I’ll admit, but it can be a pain in the backside to navigate, particularly during the initial stages of the journey. Aside from that, though, what you see is what you get: a charming stack ‘em up that doesn’t require a lot of strenuous effort to complete. Well, sort of.

The Ace of Spades

I will put my hands up and say that the initial phase of developing a farm and experimenting with different cards is surprisingly enjoyable. That said, it’s a novelty that quickly dampens the more you begin to notice the lack of entertainment value in the process. To give credit where it’s due, the cards and the combinations, in general, are well designed and authentic—to the point where the game is as much of an educational tool as a full-fledged card game. But that’s about as far as it goes, and it almost pains me to say it, but it does become a little repetitive and dull after just a handful of rounds. The farm itself evolves, but the interest in its development dwindles disappointingly quick.

Sadly, there isn’t much to gander at outside of the various stacks of cards that accommodate the screen — which is a shame, because it would’ve been great to see a few more details and some agricultural flair to help broaden the overall composition. It’s a small thing, but hey — it least it plays well.

Mechanically, there isn’t a whole lot for you to wrap your head around. Moreover, there isn’t much of a strategic element to it, meaning, if you’re relatively new to card games, you probably won’t struggle to make heads or tails of the board. In other words, if it’s a challenge that you want, then you might be in for a bit of a shock with just how little of a bitterly cruel learning curve Relaxing Farm brings to the table.

Verdict

Relaxing Farm: Merge Tales is very much a one-and-done sort of affair. Like most card games that struggle to emerge from their first deck, it pours all of its heart and soul into inviting the player to unveil the initial batch, but then fails to maintain momentum until the second pack sees the light of day. Such is the case here, sadly. For the first hour or so, it’s an enjoyable experience, and it provides enough information and possibilities to keep you coming back for another season. But then, once you’ve successfully played out your first deck and shoveled through the manure that is, respectfully, the requests, things do become a little monotonous and dull.

Let it be said that, for the relatively small asking price of five dollars, you should, provided that you have a keen interest in the agricultural sector, be perfectly capable of finding a fairly decent sized game here. It might not provide enough to give you a new lease on life, nor coerce you into abandoning your favorite farming simulator, but it will give you a good chance to see the other side of agriculture. Or at least, it will for an hour or two whilst you hold out for the next harvest moon.