Review: Farmer Bundle (Nintendo Switch)

Farmer Bundle is a collection of puzzle games published by Silesia Games. However, don’t let the title deceive you; it’s not a single game that comes with DLC or anything like that. If you get this title, you’ll be downloading three separate games onto your Nintendo Switch: Instant Farmer, Floating Farmer, and Island Farmer.

Screenshot from Instant Farmer

All three titles in Farmer Bundle are more or less the same. However, they do have slight differences to make each title its own. Let me get the premise out of the way; all three games are puzzles where you need to rearrange blocks in order to create a farm. Upon getting the games, I thought I’d be getting to rearrange my own farm, but the layout is already predetermined. You won’t be growing any crops. They’ll instantly grow when you complete each level, and then you’ll move on to the next. There’s nothing wrong with this, of course, but I was under the impression this game was half farming and half puzzle, not 100% puzzle.

Having the farm as the background for these puzzles is a nice idea, though. The graphics are simple, since it’s all blocks, but they’re pleasing to look at. However, the theme of farming didn’t do anything for me while playing each level. It added some unique rules to unscrambling the blocks, but the puzzles themselves didn’t hold my attention for long. One reason for that is the puzzles were repetitive across the three games with only slight changes.

Screen shot from Instant Farmer

Now, I know what you’re thinking; puzzle games are often repetitive because puzzles have a certain set of rules to complete them. The thing is, in Farmer Bundle, you need to learn the rules for yourself (at least, in Instant Farmer you do). Each level adds more blocks than the previous one, increasing the difficulty as you go. The difficulty wasn’t an issue, but because each puzzle had one—and only one—goal and outcome, it grew dull after a while.

Let’s take a look at each game in Farmer Bundle. I played Instant Farmer first, throwing myself to the wolves. The game consists of puzzles, and that’s it. There are no high scores, no timers, no hints. It also doesn’t explain what you need to do, but it’s easy enough to figure out since the first level is so small. You swap one block with another anywhere on the board until the game tells you the level is complete. The main point is to place soil blocks beside water blocks to help the soil grow its crops. When all the soil blocks are able to grow their crops, you beat the level.

Screenshot from Floating Farmer

Since the game doesn’t explain anything to you, you can imagine my confusion when sprinklers became involved in later levels. I had no idea what they were because they didn’t work unless they were next to a water block. It took me far too long to realize I needed the sprinkler blocks to be the connection between a water and soil block. I got halfway through the 50 levels before I’d had enough and moved on to the next game.

I played Floating Farmer next. To be honest, this was my least favorite one. After a couple of levels of this particular game, I was yearning to go back to Instant Farmer. In Floating Farmer, the goal is to create a path from the farm animals to their pens. Also, the farm is floating in the air for some reason. When you complete a level, it goes back to the ground.

Screenshot from Floating Farmer

Floating Farmer does explain the controls and rules. However, it does so with the title “Island Farmer.” (Spoiler alert, Island Farmer is nothing like Floating Farmer.) Luckily, the rules were correct, even though the title of the game was wrong.

However, the movement in Floating Farmer is different from swapping two blocks anywhere on the board. You can only swap two blocks within the same row or column. When you do, all the blocks in that row or column shift over. This way of maneuvering the blocks made it so much harder for me. I will say my brain can’t comprehend that type of movement in puzzles, which is why I never play them.

Screenshot from Floating Farmer

Needless to say, I got through the first ten levels out of 50 and then had to be done. So, I moved on to Island Farmer, which is my favorite of the three. It’s also the simplest of the three games in Farmer Bundle.

Island Farmer is another game that doesn’t explain the rules or controls to you, but it’s simple to pick up because it’s easier than the other two games. The point of Island Farmer is to put a scrambled farm back together. You don’t need to create paths or place certain blocks together to create something.

Screenshot from Island Farmer

This title is mostly a memory game. Each level shows you the farm put together. When you’re ready, you hit “play,” and the blocks will scramble themselves. Then, you can swap two blocks together from anywhere on the board to put the picture back together again. Once you had a block in the correct spot, it sparkled and couldn’t be moved again. Honestly, I would have liked it if the other two games had that feature or even an option to turn that feature on or off.

I’ve always been a huge fan of memory-matching games, so Island Farmer was a breath of fresh air compared to the other two games in the bundle. Unfortunately, this particular title only has 20 levels, as opposed to the 50 levels the other two games each have. I got through them all within an hour.

Screenshot from Island Farmer

Overall, Farmer Bundle wasn’t as exciting as I hoped it’d be. I really only enjoyed one out of the three games, and it happened to be the shortest. I like my puzzles to be casual, so I’m not upset that there were no timers or high scores. On the other hand, it would have been nice to have something to work toward. For example, it’d be interesting to know if the puzzles could be completed within a certain number of moves. It’d give me an extra goal, thus adding replayability.

I don’t think I’ll revisit any of these games. However, if you enjoy these types of puzzles, then Farmer Bundle might be a good option to pick up and play once in a while.