Reap What You Sow

Sandbox games allow players to take their time and enjoy a particular activity for as long as they wish, without having to follow linear story paths or deal with annoying scripted events. On the other hand, they can also get boring if there aren’t enough options when it comes to gameplay. Hence, the perfect blend is difficult to obtain, yet it works out incredibly well once someone figures it out, as it’s the case with Minecraft.

Reap What You Sow is a very interesting game that mixes a couple of unusual elements together, and the result is something that has the potential to keep you busy for hours on end. In short, this is a roguelike/action game with RPG elements and farming all rolled into one. Thus, besides the fact that you can explore the map in search of treasure and monsters, you can also cultivate plants and have entire fields of sweet corn.

You have three different classes to choose from in the beginning, and each one of them features certain abilities that allow you to excel in a certain field. After that, you start with a few seeds and a scythe, which can be used to start your first culture. Naturally, the harvest yields more seeds, and that’s how you can extend your farm and gather resources at an increasing pace.

The other half of the game is spent exploring the map and trying to unearth treasure by unlocking chests and various other containers, which may yield you precious stones, or various potions and items. On top of that, you can also accept quests from NPCs, which usually ask you to gather a certain quantity of a specific resource. It’s not at all an innovative system, but it works in this case.

Since this was designed for the Gameboy jam, the graphics are designed to make you believe you are playing on Nintendo’s legendary console. Thus, almost everything is greenish in color, and the overall graphics quality is pretty low. This shouldn’t be a problem for retro fans, given the fact that the quality of the sprites and the tiles is actually quite high.

In the end, the weird elements that form Reap What You Sow happen to work quite well together, especially if you are a fan of retro games. Thus, the game can keep you busy for many hours if you get hooked on the sandbox gameplay mechanics.