In real life, farming can be a tough job with many rewards for farmers who enjoy working outside and tending to animals. In recent years, game developers have crafted farming games that range from cute to serious to intricate. We’ll explore the most addictive farming games available for phones and computers in the past few years.

Stardew Valley

Consider Stardew Valley to be part farm simulator and part role-playing game. The game works on a day-and-night cycle, so time management does matter, making the game more realistic. Since many of the farming efforts within Stardew Valley revolve around building a business and helping a community, there are many ways to grow and explore, including searching mines for ores and treasures and buying and raising livestock and farm buildings as the farm grows in capacity.

Like a real community, the neighbors and merchants in Stardew Valley are crucial to your success. Getting to know NPCs and learning to maintain these relationships later is important to the game’s overall storyline.

One largely unspoken part of Stardew Valley that makes it so addictive is the sense of calm the game provides. Aside from some mini-games and a bit of hack-and-slash within the mines, the average role-playing or farming game enthusiast will be driven to keep playing because the game is simple and mostly stress-free. At the beginning of the 2020 pandemic, Stardew Valley and games like it became very popular or their ability to remind us to take it slow while providing a relaxing soundtrack and storyline at a time when the rest of the world was uncertain.

Minecraft

Some will find Minecraft a bit surprising for this list. Minecraft is very much an open-world game with the ability to collect items and build just about anything. The game also lets you create and run a farm, including animals and livestock players can raise and eat.

One significant difference between Minecraft and other farming games is that farming within Minecraft is driven by the need to eat and trade instead of running a real business. Gamers can exchange crops for emeralds, which buy almost anything from traders. These items can be transformed into helpful skills, like alchemy and crafting, on the game’s various tables.

Farming is one of the many parts of Minecraft, but the game as a whole is wonderfully addictive without having the pressure of time that other games apply.

FarmVille

Ever since FarmVille launched on Facebook in 2009, social media gamers grew attached, attracting an average of 32,000,000 daily users and a peak of over 85,000,000 prior to its developers shutting it down in September 2020. But what made FarmVille so addictive? The New York Times explains the role of expanding social media use in the late 2000s and early 2010s as a well-designed springboard to make FarmVille an exceptionally popular yet simple game that users would play a few times a day while checking to see what was happening with family, friends, and anything else they could find on Facebook.

In terms of being addictive and fun, FarmVille was a bit unique in the sense that farmers relied upon their neighbors to repeatedly check in to help one another progress. Moreover, grown crops died relatively quickly if not harvested, forcing players to check their status on a regular basis.

Farming Simulator

This list wouldn’t be complete without one of the most famous farming games of all time, Farming Simulator. Farming Simulator is the first game on our list that offers a greater sense of realism as players get up close and personal with authentic equipment. This title allows you to get more immersed in growing crops, raising animals, and harvesting.

Much like Stardew Valley, many gamers and outdoors aficionados will find Farming Simulator soothing, deep, and customizable enough to keep them playing stressless for hours.

Pure Farming 2018

Part of what makes Pure Farming 2018 addictive is the ability to do just about anything on the farm, which actually makes this title quite challenging. This sandbox game title offers farming gamers a tutorial but also throws in more serious scenarios to overcome. While Pure Farming 2018 isn’t as deep or complex as Farming Simulator, the game itself is gorgeous and pushes farmers harder than other titles.

After playing a few of the other games on this list, download this game to truly appreciate what it is like to be a farmer.

Farm Together

Consider Farm Together a much more in-depth farming game than FarmVille, which has the same cooperative gameplay. Farmers have the choice to farm by themselves or open a farm with the help of friends and the community. Some players who downloaded Farm Together thought it was a straightforward game until they dug in and realized just how much nuance the game provides.

Conclusion

Whether you play the options discussed above or a slot game with casino bonuses like Farmland Frenzy, farming games are fun! Gamers can immerse themselves in the idea of having a farm without needing the capital to own a vast amount of land or buy a fleet of tractors. Serious and casual players will find themselves learning farming games quickly and easily, all the while enjoying what are often very relaxing times of sowing seeds, harvesting, and raising animals.