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Just one run of the demo and i’m completely sold, now on PC+Mobile (Cloud) | Pesticide Not Required

1K View2023-12-22

Pesticide Not Required

8.0

Pixel GraphicsArena ShooterAction RPGAction RoguelikeActionFarming SimBullet HellRoguelike

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✨Overview

Just one run of the demo was all it took for me to be completely sold on this absurd farming survival rogue-lite game — Pesticide Not Required, showcasing a rampaging frog armed with weaponized plants and farming tools. While the game is slated for release early next year and is not out yet, I had the opportunity to play the available Demo, and boy it did a really good job of Demoing the game.

⭐️Score: 9/10

Pocket Playfest: An Indie Celebration 2023 Winter Edition

In a recent hands-on exclusive experience this past weekend, I had the privilege of testing a handful of titles on TapTap's experimental cloud gaming service, setting the stage for this 16-day event where indie game developers show-off their creations exclusively on the TapTap mobile platform — fully playable PC games without the need for an actual PC, Android/iOS version, or the need to download the games and install them. Granted, you’d need to have a reliable internet service to be able to stream these games, and preferably are located in US and Canada for consistent play and latency, at least for now.

🔗Join the Playfest >>
https://www.taptap.io/events/playfest2023winter

📅 Schedule

Dates: December 23, 12 AM PT - January 7, 11:59 PM PT.
Playfest Winners & Player Rewards Announcement: January 8, 12 AM PT.

For my personal cloud gaming experience in this specific, please see further below in the review.

📖Premise

The premise is simply absurd; that's the single word I would use to describe this game. Just when I thought I had seen every permutation of indie genres out there, another one arrives with an unlikely mix of farming sim and bullet hell roguelite genres… Farming sims are supposed to be relaxing, and this still is?

A frog is out to defend its farm, all while attempting to plant weaponized crops that sprout bombs, pitchfork, and seeds, all used as weapons. Not only that, the frog also wants to mine and fish while caring for pets, all at the same time. A pretty HUGE responsibility for this poor Frog.

🎨Graphics and Art Style

Pesticide Not Required features pixel art retro-style visuals that perfectly complement its quirky premise. The character animations are low-bit quality, but the actual mobility is actually fluid and smooth, especially how the enemy units and the frog slides across the map and how the UI and Menu’s are animated.. The colors are a bit muted though, and during night time it can get harder to see.

🎮Gameplay

The gameplay of Pesticide Not Required is a harmonious blend of bullet hell, horde survival, and roguelite elements, with a unique twist of farming mechanics. Players are tasked with mowing down waves of enemies, cultivating crops, and crafting ultra chaotic bullet-hell rogue-lite builds.

Everything you have in this game comes for cultivating crops. Weapons? Planted and grown. EXP? Planted and grown. Gold drops from enemies? You get to buy new seed to plant, or expand your plot to plant more crops. Farming is ingrained in this bullet hell rogue-lite and it works really well. To top it off, the game features day/night cycles and the shop only opens during morning time.

🕹Controls

The game controls as a twin-stick auto-attack shooter, so you’d have to aim using the right stick or mouse to aim on certain attacks. Some attacks auto-aim, but most do not. It’s a bit disorienting seeing the frog not changing his orientation around while you aim in a different direction, and sometimes I lose track of the mouse, but you get used to it after a few minutes of play. Still, I would have loved a completely auto-aim mechanic like in Vampire Survivors.

Planting crops, watering them, and gathering them all works automatically, you just have to get in proximity to trigger the action. The same goes for Mining, Fishing, and other activities on the arena like interacting with the Store.

⚔️Combat

You don’t need pesticide because YOU are the pesticide, in the form of a bullet hell-spewing frog, dodging and weaving through swarms of enemies while unleashing their own barrage of attacks. The variety of weapons and the ability to craft unique builds with 40+ stats ensure that each run feels fresh and exciting. The game truly succeeds in making the player feel like the unstoppable force of nature that the frog represents.

🌾It’s still relaxing, what the hell?

The combination of ultra chaotic bullet hell elements, mowing down hundreds of foes on the screen with ultra-fluid frame rates, and retro-style farming sim visuals is perfectly fine-tuned to be oddly satisfying. Playing the game is almost, if not already, a therapeutic experience.

⏫Progression

Pesticide Not Required is a rogue-lite so almost everything resets when you die or beat a map. But there is still persistent skill tree upgradesthat provide a sense of long-term progression,as well as unlockable new frog (or frog-ish?) characters that have different characteristics, keeping players invested in the game over multiple runs.

⚖️Conclusion

Pesticide Not Required’s absurd premise, coupled with the perfect balance of bullet hell chaos and farming tranquility, creates an experience that is both entertaining and therapeutic. As I said earlier, just one run of the demo was all it took for me to be completely sold on this game. Unfortunately it’s not out yet, but if it was, I’d highly recommend it to any Vampire Survivor fans out there looking for their next fix… especially if they also happen to love Farming Sims.

☁️General Cloud Gaming Experience

This past weekend, I had the chance to be chosen as one of the testers for an experimental cloud gaming service by TapTap, and I must say, it holds a lot of promise. The quality is seriously impressive - we're talking sharp HD resolution, not like your typical streamed game. Looks and feels native and doesn’t feel like its streamed. The performance is also smooth (60FPS), with good frame timing (by visual observation only, as there was no tool to monitor this). There’s currently no way to play at a native 16:9 with black bars, as the screen is stretched out to the phone’s screen.

📶Cloud Latency

In my experience, my latency during the test phase was around 200ms --- only because the servers are currently located in United States for now and I'm connecting from asia. Even then, It’s still a bit playable, especially for games that are not latency sensitive like point and click games or those with simple controls. Having said that, it’s just a matter of server location and having lots of servers. It’s understandable since this is just a testing phase with limited servers. If a datacenter is nearby, I am positive that I’ll have a smooth and fluid experience, same with those living in the US or Canada. It works like a charm on 5GHz wifi, but the experience took a hit on 2.4GHz, so won’t recommend that.

🕹Cloud Touch Controls

Now, onto the user interface. I'm a fan of how each game has its own custom on-screen buttons, tailored to the specific control scheme. It works like a charm for simpler games, but things get a bit tricky with more complex ones.

🔃Cloud Accessibility

Accessing the service is a breeze - the Instant Play integration is right there on the game page, next to Download/Steam/Play buttons. Loading times are impressively fast, and I love that I can minimize the TapTap app and return to the game still streaming. Progress is not yet saved between streaming sessions, so it’s clearly just for testing purposes. Overall, it's been an interesting experience, and while there are some kinks, the potential here is exciting. Definitely surpassed my expectations.

🌩Specific Cloud Game Experience

Pesticide Not Required delivers a fully playable experience on the cloud, relying solely on the left stick for character control. The menus are mostly navigable using touch controls, making it arguably the best game I've played on the cloud thus far in both gameplay, user interface, and accessibility. Despite featuring real-time combat, the health system is forgiving, allowing for a few mistakes here and there. As a result, its dependency on latency is not as pronounced as in the other rogue-lite games I've tested.