Farming Camp Review - Cosy Farming, Awkward Camp Drama

Farming Camp is a game I expected nothing from. When I loaded it for the first time, I saw pixelated graphics (which I don't like at all). I also saw a farming simulator, and it instantly reminded me of this old Facebook game called exactly that, I think (I hated that game as well), and when all that is mixed together, the outcome wasn't about to be the prettiest one, to put it mildly. However, after playing the game for the first hour or so, it kind of grew on me, and after spending more than ten hours with this small adventure, I developed an opinion: Farming Camp is a nice game to feel cosy while playing it.

You play as Alessandra, a teenager sent to Evertree Farming Camp during the summer break with one goal: become the best farmer there. Each day you pick two activities, farming, animal care or fishing, plus a few smaller chores if you're up to it. During the weekends, you'll participate in cooking challenges and have time to hang out with the other campers.

At the beginning of the game, this loop tends to be quite interesting, but after several hours, a sort of repetition starts kicking in. Still, there's something properly relaxing about watering crops in the morning and feeding chickens before lunch, and if you're playing Farming Camp just to unwind from your daily routine, it will work perfectly for you.

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Alessandra is a teenager sent to Farming Summer Camp to become the best farmer there, and this story is all about that premise.

The other campers are where the game does its best work. Everyone has a clear personality, and watching friendships grow and change over the four weeks you spend there gave the whole thing a bit of heart I wasn't expecting from a farming game.

Sadly, that heart gets buried under some pretty awkward writing that feels totally out of place in a cosy game like this. The teenage bickering and name-calling between campers took me completely by surprise, and a few of the conversations felt more mean-spirited than the cosy tone the rest of the game is going for. Those exchanges feel like they definitely don't belong in Farming Camp.

The farming and animal care minigames are enjoyable enough on their own; milking, brushing, and watering are the activities that never get boring and give you some strange satisfaction. They're what kept me coming back even when the story started pulling me out. But the game trips over its own feet more than once. I had trouble picking up hay in the barn more than a few times, the kitchen kept letting me interact with the wrong ingredient, and one evening the washing-up minigame simply refused to let me touch the sink. Small things perhaps, but once you experience enough of them, they start to bother you.

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The gameplay loop in Farming Camp is passable, but a repetition and accumulated bugs can ruin the experience.

Fishing has the same problem in a different way. Sometimes it just didn't count towards my daily total, even after I'd clearly caught something. When your whole day is built around hitting a points target, a bug like that can get more frustrating than you might have thought initially.

Visually, Farming Camp goes for a hand-drawn, top-down look, and it mostly suits the game's cosy ambience. I played the game on PlayStation 5, and it performed perfectly throughout. The pixelated art doesn't stand out compared to plenty of other pixel-art games; it's not the best, not the worst, it is passable, and coming from me, that might even count as praise.

I wanted to love Farming Camp, but in some moments, the game simply refuses to be loved. The core loop of farming, fishing and looking after animals is pleasant, and the camp setting gives it a bit more personality than most games in this genre. But between the bugs and a story that leans harder into teenage drama than cosiness, it never quite settles into the comfort experience it's clearly aiming for.

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Farming Camp is a game suited to be played in short sessions. The longer you play, the rough edges become more visible.

Conclusion

Farming Camp has the foundations of a good cosy game: a likeable cast, a clear daily rhythm, and minigames that are satisfying in short bursts. What holds it back is everything around that core loop, a story that can turn unpleasant, and enough small bugs that something goes wrong most days.

If you can look past those obvious flaws, there's a decent summer camp sim hidden in here. Just don't expect the smooth, comforting experience the cosy genre usually promises.