Weather Farmer review
:: CLOUD CLICKERPrice: Free
Version: 2019.1.4
App Reviewed on: iPhone XR
Graphics/Sound Rating:
User Interface Rating:
Gameplay Rating:
Replay Value Rating:
Overall Rating:
Weather Farmer is an idle game that changes with the weather… literally. Using weather information from Dark Sky, players generate varying amounts of energy based on how they’ve deployed weather cubes they’ve purchased. This idea is definitely a gimmick, but there’s enough other stuff to like about Weather Farmer’s design that you can have fun with it whether you care about the weather or not.
Cloudy with a chance of cubes
In Weather Farmer, you work with an advanced AI to generate clean energy. You do this through the construction of weather cubes, which produce variable amounts of power based on your current local weather conditions. This may sound complicated, but it’s simpler than it seems. You want to deploy solar cubes to efficiently generate power when the sun’s out, wind cubes for when it’s windy, etc. You get the idea.
The game starts with you simply tapping your screen to generate power, but once you accumulate enough watts to build your first cube, things start taking care of themselves just like all good clickers do. You can spend power you’ve amassed to purchase things like additional cubes or other upgrades. No matter what you buy, everything is in service of letting you generate more power, whether that be through active tapping or passively letting it generate automatically.
Any way the wind blows
The weather-driven gameplay in Weather Farmer makes it feel unlike any other clicker I've played before. Where most other titles like this revolve around just buying things to make numbers go up, this game forces you to plan around the weather to maximize your output. If you really want to be playing efficiently, you want to redeploy cubes to harness specific weather conditions as they're happening, which makes for a game that keeps you from ever feeling too comfortable with whatever setup you have.
Another really neat thing about the game is it actually forces you to dial into the current and upcoming weather conditions around you if you want to be playing at peak performance. Using data from Dark Sky (which, by the way, is probably the best weather app out there), Weather Farmer is surprisingly capable as a standalone weather app. It just so happens that this one has a clicker built into it as well.
If planning around the weather doesn't sound fun to you, don't worry. You don't necessarily have to follow the weather intently to enjoy Weather Farmer (though your power generation might be a little slower). The game is packed with other separate challenges and random events that can deliver a dynamic-feeling experience without relying on its gimmick.
Clear clicker
Free clickers and idle games can be fun, but only usually up to a point. Inevitably, there's some kind of pinch point that gets in the way and blocks your progress unless you're willing to watch ads, pay money, or grind for an ungodly amount of time. Surprisingly, this isn't really the case with Weather Farmer. To be clear, there is a premium currency in the game that you can pay for to speed things up, but Weather Farmer doesn't shove it in your face, nor does it force you to watch ads to collect it. You can simply collect the free amounts of the currency and not have much of an issue.
A big part of what makes Weather Farmer so enjoyable is its minimal and clear interface. Everything is clearly laid out and explained, without any sort of superfluous pushes to spend money or overdone visual flair. This restraint ends up making Weather Farmer feel like a premium experience, even though its price suggests otherwise.
The bottom line
I'm not sure you'd want to use Weather Farmer as a replacement for your weather app anytime soon, but it is a fun and engaging clicker that may get you to look at weather in a new way. It's definitely a bit of a one-trick pony, but that's ok for a game that's free.