Atomicrops - plow, plant, and pow on a farm

[geggis]

Oh man, I’ve been talking at length about this in the action roguelite thread! I feel a bit daft for not starting a thread myself but there didn’t appear to be much traction.

A few quotes pulled together for posterity outlining my journey so far. From back in June when it hit v1.0 on Epic:

@geggis

It’s Nuclear Throne meets… Stardew Valley? It’s not chill at all.

Here’s the fun intro:

Atomicrops Reveal Trailer

Yep, it’s a post-apocalyptic rootin’ tootin’ shootin’ farmin’ game. During the day you clear the mutant-filled wilds surrounding your patch of land, gather seeds and other resources, then try and get back to your plot in time to sow and grow them before morning. Unfortunately night time beasties will try to eat your crops so you’ve got to protect them. If you survive till morning you’ll be lifted out of there to sell any produce you were able to harvest for cashews, which you can spend at the market on more seeds, pickaxes to expand your plot, scarecrows, farm animals to help you nurture your crops, better weapons etc. and even give roses over to potential partners to help you out.

I must iterate: it looks and sounds so sweet but it’s brutal and ramps up quickly. It’s not a sim either, it’s pure arcade action, and once you die you start again. There are some persistent meta-progression elements but I’ve not managed to secure many of those yet. The seasonal loops with boss battles at the end of spring, summer, fall, winter etc. are fun bookends with some really lovely ‘festivals’ to reward you for overall success. I’ve been having a blast with this.

The pixel art and animation is by the fantastic Toby Dixon who worked on Nidhogg 2.

A few weeks ago, just before the Steam launch and update:

The action roguelite thread

I’ve literally just come off Atomicrops after a rough time trying to crack year 3. Looking forward to the update; that’s a lot of new stuff so I’m excited! Atomicrops is one tough game though and after a brief hiatus I’m still discovering new things, item synergies and tricks. There are some mighty puns here.

Nine days ago:

@geggis

I’ve just hit 36 hours with Atomicrops and only yesterday did I discover one of the other persistent upgrade characters so now I have two at the hub. I think I should have discovered them earlier but… well, there’s a lot of different things to be juggling and balancing in Atomicrops!

There’s day time and exploration (as well as factoring in tunnels to get back quickly), growth time, sowing, expanding your plot, weeding, watering, fertilising, harvesting, tractors, pigeons, defending and of course the overarching days, seasons and storing cashews and roses for upgrades so you’re ready for the bosses. It’s Nuclear Throne with breakneck high pressure resource management. There’s a lot more to this game than meets the eye.

At 36 hours and counting, I think it’s fair to say I’m loving it, but it takes a while to get into the very particular rhythm of the game. Once you start getting a feel for the different items and potential synergies the binary upgrade options (this farm animal or that one, this item or that, this weapon or that one) start to feel a lot more meaningful. One of my best runs was with weed wacker (cut weeds faster) coupled with vinaigrette (weeds can be harvested) so I was able to dash around energised, weeding and racking up cashews, seeds and fertiliser. I play with a controller, by the way.

The visuals are busy and there’s the odd time when I’m not sure what hit me but for the most part they strike a good balance between lively and discernible, somehow. It’s pretty insane.

I don’t think you’ll need to look at the wiki because I don’t feel like the game has many hidden tricks. There is perhaps one very basic but key thing that they may have added to the tutorial since I played it: sowing four of the same seed (or tree) in a square and using enough fertiliser will combine them into a mega crop.

Today I managed to beat year 3 and, just now, year 4, so I’m very happy with my progress!

A few things from the update: the new weapons and items are excellent and add a lot more variety. I’m really looking forward to trying out the new character I just unlocked too. My favourite major change is switching heart beets to heart beet seeds. Before, killing enemies or looting would randomly drop hearts that instantly healed you. This was fine but it was fairly random and meant risking your life to heal up. The new system means you can store your heart beet seeds and plant them when you need to heal (and with the tip above there’s a risk/reward element at play here too).

Here are some basic tips I wrote for TurinTur but I’d avoid them if you’re wanting to maintain the element of discovery.

I wrote this earlier today:

@geggis

So I reached year 9 (of 10) on Atomicrops over the weekend(!!) and while I’m only two years away from finishing the main game, the difficulty has been steadily amping up and I might be reaching the end of the road now; it’s moving into what I feel is bullshit territory. More bullets, faster bullets, faster enemies, a little tankier perhaps, and flying shrunken heads drifting in vertically and horizontally throughout the year. Okay, fine. The biggest problem however, is enemies that charge you–fast–from off-screen. There’s no warnings or cues so it becomes a split-second reflex flick to knock them back and hopefully kill them before they connect with you. In the plains area we’re talking wasps, bulls, bats, bugs, beeson, bullet barrages and the aforementioned shrunken heads. At least with bullet hell you’ve got some time to react and there are usually patterns, but here it’s a lot faster and looser so it’s messy and very difficult to control without adequate firepower/protection. I’m going to try for a little longer!

A few general longer term criticisms [spoilers]: the ant colony meta-progression is kind of pointless. It helps, without a doubt, but while it presents itself as an interesting series of choices (choosing one closes off another), it’s not: you’re just exhausting a list of upgrades that you’ll eventually fully unlock anyway. A lot of them are incremental improvements that you just forget about (but I’m sure if you rolled them all back you’d feel it). The best upgrade/discoverable is the time capsule which transfers some of the fertiliser, seeds and items from your previous run. It’s a nice early game boost. There’s also an ‘Atomicats!’ thing which remains a mystery to me. Seems like fluff but no idea yet. At present the character balance is a bit off so I suspect that to be tweaked in the next patch.

I think overall the core gameplay loop is unique and very interesting and I think its opacity has been a big draw for me: working out how best to play and discovering various things with each session. I fear leaving the game and coming back to it later because I’ve built up a lot of muscle-memory and a large part of the experience is gauging and juggling numerous elements in real-time to be as efficient as possible. It reminds me a little of Void Bastards or Cryptark in that regard. And while it’s not a heist game, you do have to scout the outer wilds, raid the ‘low-hanging fruit’ camps, look out for escape tunnels and get out before the sun goes down.

And about 30 minutes ago!

The action roguelite thread

My reflexes were on point and I kept the camera and reticule locked ahead… I’m now on the final year. Gourds make the best bullet hell guards.

@peacedog

Trying to aim for a specific square with your last pickaxe is a bit troublesome, and like I said I keep uprooting turrets by accident.

Yeah, these two things are by far my biggest and most persistent bugbears with the game. I try to use the pickaxes before night just so I don’t use them in silly places while I’m trying to dodge bullets (I’ve given the devs some feedback on this). Scarecrows behave similarly to turrets as well. Worse: if you accidentally uproot them and leave them on the floor as you get airlifted out, you lose them! No idea why they just don’t go straight back into your inventory.

@peacedog

Things I’m unsure of:

1. What are the fleshy pod things for.
2. Is the ant hill the only persistent upgrade mechanic?
3. Why didn’t I realize, on my best run, that flight would make the need for repairing bridges irrelevant until late in the run?

1. Hmm, not sure what you mean here.
2. There’s at least one more.
3. I’ve only had wings once and it took me a moment to work out what they were for!

@peacedog

I acquired one that was supposed to hoe soil when I ran on it, but wouldn’t you know it I had flight so no running. I like this aspect, as well as the helpers.

Oh wow, that’s cool and unfortunate!