Project 01 · Game

Real Farm Simulator

Living the fantasy of farming in rural Brazil, with 100K+ downloads and a 4.4★ rating

Genre:: Farming RPG, Simulation
Scope:: Creative Direction · Game & Systems Design · UI/UX · Art Direction · Level Design · Optimization
Development Time:: 2 Years
Team Size:: 2
Tools:: Unity · Blender · Photoshop · Figma · Miro

Project Resume

Overview

A farming RPG and open-world sandbox for mobile where players live the fantasy of running a family farm in the Brazilian countryside, free to grow it and live it their own way.

Platform Mobile (Android)
Team Size 2
Duration 2 Years
Engine Unity

Key Features

Plant, tend and harvest fields with real agricultural machines
Raise cattle, pigs, chickens, shrimp, tilapia and other animals
Manage the farm from an in-game phone with an app for every job
Borrow, invest and grow rich through your own work
Process every harvest and sell it where and when it pays best
Explore a huge open world inspired by the Brazilian countryside

My Role

Chief Creative Officer & Game Designer

Set the creative direction and game design, led a team of up to five, sought partners and investment, and built 3D assets, materials and UI.

Designed the systems, turning real farm experience into gameplay
Designed the user flows and UX and created every UI of the game
Directed and produced the art, 3D models and visual optimization

Design Brief

The first version of the game was a hit, with a loyal community asking for a new and better one. Real Farm Simulator had to win it back with a realistic, good-looking farming RPG for people who work the land and for casual players alike. It also had to trade the huge map of large-scale farming for a smaller, condensed and more intentional map, built around a family farm and light enough for any phone.

Constraints

Two audiencesPeople who farm for a living and casual players who have never farmed.
Adaptable visualsBeautiful on strong phones, better looking than rivals even on weak ones.
Faithful to the farmClose to real farm work, adapted so repeated tasks never become tedious.
Free-time productionNo budget, and a huge amount of content to make for a small free-time team.

Design Goal

Win back the players of the first game, who had nothing like it, only unfinished games or market leaders focused on management. Keep the nostalgia and the feeling of acting on things directly, improve the systems with game design, and make the tedious parts of realism worth doing or quicker. Let players work in a countryside that looks like the one they grew up in, on any phone.

From the first harvest to a wealthy farm

Start in debt. Farm your way to wealth.

FarmHarvest the first field and pay the first loan.
SellSell at the right time and place to earn more.
GrowReinvest profit in land, machines and production.

Player Experience Pillars

FantasyA real farmer's life in Brazil
Manual InteractionEvery task done by direct action
SimulationReal machine physics and processes
FreedomA farm sandbox played their own way
Intentional RealismAs real as possible while still fun

Design Solution

We moved the fantasy from large-scale farming to a family farm, with limited land that a small team could fill and any phone could run. Direct interaction replaced buttons wherever an action makes sense in the world, the menus moved into the character's phone, time was compressed to fit short sessions, and the game starts in debt to give players a clear first goal from the first minute. The smaller farm also left room for production and animals, new kinds of work beyond the fields.

Key Design Choices

Immersive InteractionDirect actions on each object replace buttons, so the simulation feels real and each task becomes a choice.
A phone for the farmThe phone holds the tools that run the farm, so players manage it as a real farmer would, inside the fantasy.
Time in their handsA harvest takes months to be ready, so an in-game day is a week, but players can speed time up or slow it down.
A bank at the centerStarting in debt gives players a clear first goal and an early lesson in how the farm and its economy function.
A family farmLarge-scale farming became a smaller farm with more to explore, so any phone can run it and new activities fit.

World & Visual Identity

The visuals had to be beautiful and smooth on any phone, based on the trees, flora and architecture of the Brazilian interior, with the cozy, nostalgic feeling of places players live in or grew up in, so they feel right at home.

Visual Principles

Cozy Brazilian interiorNostalgic places, as people remember them
A real country townReal architecture, down to the cracked floors
Familiar texturesCommon textures of the region, reproduced by hand
Low poly with rich texturesLight 3D models with detailed, realistic textures
Simple materials and lightSimple lighting and reflections for mobile

Results & Learnings

Results

100K+ downloadsReached 100K+ downloads and a 4.4★ rating on Google Play, with players across Brazil and Latin America, while still in beta and made with no budget at all.
Up to 50K daily playersBetween 10K and 50K players online every day for months of the beta, peaking with each update, and creators whose videos of the game reached 5K to 100K views.
Weekly LiveOpsShipped new machines and implements every week, chosen from what players asked in creators' video comments, plus month-long updates for big features.

Learnings

Tools inside the fantasyPutting the farm's systems in the character's phone kept deep management inside the fantasy, with apps players already knew how to use in their own lives.
Design for two audiencesA farmer's knowledge became a game only once it turned into systems with clear choices, costs and rewards, so farmers and their children could play with ease.
Optimization by designPlanning the level design around optimization, hiding heavy areas from view, let a huge, beautiful world run on weak phones and still push the strongest.

Media

The work, up close

Project gallery · 37

A countryside farm supply store modeled for the town

Roles

Roles & Responsibilities

Creative Direction

Led the creative direction of the whole game for two years
Coordinated a team that grew from two to five people
Pitched the game to brands and investors for partnerships
Defined the fantasy, the game design and the visual decisions

Game & Systems Design

Designed every system, turning farm knowledge into game mechanics
Rebalanced and redesigned the systems when tests found a problem
Created the quests, the narrative texts and the player onboarding
Wrote every kind of documentation and kept the project organized

Economy

Built the economy around adding value to every product
Set and balanced the price of everything, close to real averages
Shaped the bank, its loans and the credit for paying in installments
Balanced the money flow of quest rewards and every buyer's price

UI/UX

Designed the HUD, the menus and every other UI and UX of the game
Created the game menu as a phone and each one of its app screens
Planned the user flows and the controls for driving and farm work
Shaped and balanced each direct interaction for fun and realism

Level Design & Map

Conceived the open world and each one of its areas and assets
Designed the environment so that no stretch of the map feels empty
Laid out the areas for crops, houses and animals, with their own look
Built the player's starting farm and the town around it

Art Direction

Set the art direction and the pipeline for every asset of the game
Defined the face count and texture limits of every 3D model
Defined the materials, the lighting and the post-processing
Set up the skyboxes for each time of day, weather and season

3D & Optimization

Modeled the trees, plants and vehicles in an optimized way
Created and painted the ground textures across the whole map
Built clusters and LODs for objects, buildings and towns on the map
Designed the quality settings for weak and strong phones alike

Playtests & LiveOps

Ran closed playtests with 1,000 to 10,000 players to stress the server
Ran the open betas of the game, which grew to 100,000 players
Shipped new features every week and bigger monthly updates
Recorded playtest videos to hype players about the next updates

Full Case Study

Real Farm Simulator Case Study

Core Loop

Borrow
Invest
Produce
Sell
Repay

Each system of the game has a small loop of its own, the life cycle of a crop or an animal. The core loop of the game itself sits above them and basically runs on money. Players take a loan and invest it in something that raises the farm's productivity, like a faster machine or a stronger fertilizer, use it to grow crops and goods, then sell at the right moment and repay the bank, and a clean record unlocks a bigger loan for the next one. Turning resources into more resources is the real skill, and the goal grows from paying off the first debt to getting as rich as possible, with the best farm they can build.

Fantasy & Interaction

Feature Introduction

Living the life of a family farmer

Real Farm Simulator simulates family farming in the Brazilian countryside. Players start on a small farm bought with a bank loan, with basic machines and a crop ready to harvest, and build their wealth with the space they have, expanding it over time with new land, free to run the farm their own way as long as the bills get paid.

It was made for people who already live it. Many players work the land or are the children of farmers, so the game had to feel like home, based on the countryside of Minas Gerais, São Paulo and Goiás and on family farms across Latin America.

Three pillars hold the game, fantasy, manual interaction and simulation. The fantasy is a farmer's life, manual interaction puts every action in the world with almost no UI, and the simulation keeps machine physics and processes close to reality, so a real tractor driver can repeat the maneuvers they know, yet anyone can learn them.

Design Principles

Players should recognize their own countryside in every road, house, church and tree, so the farm feels like a real place in rural Brazil or Latin America
A family farm is the heart of the fantasy, a small place where players build their wealth with their own hands and their own choices
Real processes stay faithful to the field, and only the steps that would make them boring are cut, accelerated or given to a hired worker to carry out
Freedom comes first, so every piece of land has an ideal use, yet players stay free to turn it into whatever kind of work their farm needs

Showcase

The countryside as reference

Countryside Visual

The trees, flora and architecture of the Brazilian interior, kept close to the real thing, so the game looks like the view from the player's window.
Small-Town Life

A small town that lives on its own schedule, so every trip from the farm feels like running errands in a real country town of the interior.
Vehicles & Implements

Tractors, combine harvesters, trucks and implements based on machines used across Brazil, so anyone who worked the land knows them.

Feature Introduction

Direct interaction in the world

An early version had a menu for almost every task, and players had to search through them for the simplest job. The audience wanted a casual game that felt like real work, so the farm moved into the world and every action is done by hand.

The player has no abstract inventory. Every item is a physical object that is picked up and carried around the farm, and storage exists as physical places too, like a shed, a box or a fridge, each one opened through a menu of its own, so players organize the whole farm in their own way, weighing a quick trip against a tidy one.

Every action follows the same rule. Players aim the center of the screen at an object, a highlight shows it can be used and one contextual button acts at once. Elements of the scene work like their real versions, at the part that does the job, and precise points such as a hitch show a faint circle that grows when aimed at.

Design Principles

No menu or UI stands between the player and an action, so every object of the farm is picked up or interacted with directly, as in real life
Menus meet the world in clear physical places where items appear and get stored, so choosing on a screen always ends in work in the scene
One aim and one button work on every object, so players learn the pattern once and use it on everything new they find across the farm
Immersion and fun are the goal of every interaction, so players feel like farmers and build the story of their own farm in their heads as they work

Key Elements

01 Items & InventoryPhysical items stored in physical places
02 Buying ItemsBought online or picked up at the counter
03 Interactive ElementsScene parts that work like the real ones
04 Interaction PatternOne aim and one button for every action

Behind the Feature

How the interaction was built

01 One Aim, One ButtonCenter aim · Highlight · Contextual button · Physical storage

Goal

Put every action of the farm in the world

Remove the menus that stood between the player and the simplest farm job
Make every item a physical object that is picked up and carried around
Let players learn one pattern once and use it on everything they find

Constraints

Real work for a casual audience

Keep each action quick enough for players with only a few minutes a day
Reach small, precise points like a hitch without any fiddly camera control
Work the same way for tools, machines, animals and storage on the farm

Process

Actions mapped first I listed every action of the farm, from tools to hitches and storage, and mapped each one to an object in the world, so no job needed a menu to start and each one had a place to happen.
Aim from the center Every interaction starts from the center of the screen, so looking at an object targets it, and a highlight confirms it can be used before the player presses any button.
Precise points Small targets like a hitch show a faint circle that grows as the aim gets closer, so a precise action needs no extra camera control or zoom to get right in a vehicle.
One contextual button A single button acts on whatever is aimed at, at the part of the object that does the job, and storage lives in places like a shed, a box or a fridge, opened like any other object.

The decision that made it work

One aim and one button for the whole farm

A single pattern covers every object, so the first lesson of the game teaches all of them. New tools and machines need no new controls, and the player spends each minute doing farm work while the interface stays out of the way.

Result

The farm became the interface

Players worked the farm with their own hands, from picking up a tool to hitching an implement, and organized their storage their own way, so each session built the story of their farm in their heads with no menu in the way.

Feature Introduction

A phone that runs the farm

The home screen of the in-game phone with a notification badge

Deep management could not break the fantasy, so the systems of the farm moved into the character's own phone. The character takes it out of the pocket and the camera looks at its screen, and on the HUD a single phone icon shows the game's logo, switching to a bell with a dot that shakes when something new arrives.

The phone is a tool before it is a menu. Its apps control the farm itself, from the routes of the autopilot and the drone to the silos and everything in production, and even the store changes with where the player stands, buying online from the farm or in person at the counter of the shop in town, as a real farmer would.

Attention is split in two levels. The icon on the HUD only says that something is new, and each app counts what is waiting inside it, so players decide when to stop the work and look, while the farm keeps every process running in the background.

Design Principles

Every system the player controls fits inside one phone, so the whole interface stays part of the world the player lives in and works in
Each app copies a habit players already have outside the game, so managing a whole farm on the phone needs almost nothing new to learn
Notifications bring the farm to the player wherever they are, so what is ready gets collected on time and long tasks run without constant checks
The phone stays quick to use on a small screen, with one app for each part of the farm, so every job is a tap away from wherever the player is

Feature Breakdown

The apps on the phone

01 MessagesQuests and chats in a messaging app

The messaging app with a quest from a neighbor

Messages

Quests and chats in a messaging app

In the countryside, people solve most things by message, so the town reaches the player that way. Quests arrive as requests from neighbors in a messaging app, yet accepting one means driving to the person's house to talk face to face. The phone brings the town closer while every quest still happens in the world.

Function

Bring the town's requests to the player's pocket, like a real chat

Design Approach

Decisions made:

Model quests as requests from people the player knows in the town
Use a messaging app players already know so quests need no new UI
Require meeting in person to take a quest, pulling players into town
Keep quests and chats with neighbors together in one messaging app

Player Impact

Allowed players to...

Read a quest at once, in an app that looks like the one they use daily
Feel needed by their own town as requests for help arrive on the phone
Meet each neighbor at their house, turning a message into a visit
Keep in touch with the whole town without leaving their farm work

02 NotificationsAlerts for everything that is ready

Notifications

Alerts for everything that is ready

A growing farm runs many processes on different clocks, and no player can watch them all at once. The phone warns when something is ready, players add reminders of their own on the calendar app, and each app counts what waits inside it, so long processes keep running while the player works anywhere else on the farm.

Function

Keep the player aware of the whole farm from anywhere on the map

Design Approach

Decisions made:

Let the farm call the player when something is ready to be collected
Let players set reminders of their own for the jobs they plan ahead
Turn the phone icon on the HUD into a shaking bell when news arrives
Free the player from checking each process while they work elsewhere

Player Impact

Allowed players to...

Collect each batch at the right moment, warned by an alert on the phone
Run several processes at once without stopping to check on each one
Plan their own week on the farm with reminders they set on the calendar
See at a glance which app has something waiting, from its own count

03 Calendar, Weather & MarketSeasons, forecast and prices in one place

Calendar, Weather & Market

Seasons, forecast and prices in one place

The farm runs on decisions made ahead of time, so the phone gathers everything a farmer plans with. The calendar shows the seasons and the right windows for each crop, the weather app shows the coming days and the market app shows prices before and after today, so each app answers a different horizon of the same plan.

Function

Put all the farm's planning in one place, the player's own phone

Design Approach

Decisions made:

Gather every planning tool of the farm in the apps of a single phone
Give each app a different horizon, the season, the week and the market
Show crop windows on the calendar so seasons guide what to plant next
Show past and future prices so selling becomes a decision made ahead

Player Impact

Allowed players to...

Plan the whole season on the phone before they spend a single coin
Time their field work and long trips around the rain in the forecast
Pick the best moment to sell from the price history and the outlook
Put crops, weather and prices together into one plan for the farm

04 Map & RadioA map of the region and a radio for the long drives

The local map app with every house in town

Map & Radio

A map of the region and a radio for the long drives

A large world means long drives and many places to find. The map app shows the town and the farm from above with an icon for every kind of place, and delivery quests in the stripes painted on the ground, while the radio plays the music of the region or a playlist of the player's own, so each drive feels like country life.

Function

Make finding the way and each long drive on the map feel like home

Design Approach

Decisions made:

Draw the town and the farm from above, with an icon for every place
Give delivery quests the stripes of the delivery areas on the ground
Use regional music to make long drives part of the countryside fantasy
Let players save a playlist of their own from a link in the radio app

Player Impact

Allowed players to...

Find any neighbor, shop or quest in the town without getting lost
Spot where a delivery has to go by the stripes they know from the ground
Feel at home on long drives with the music of the region on the radio
Make every drive their own, with a playlist of the songs they like best

Impact

How the phone shapes each session

Check

The bell on the HUD and the count on each app show what is waiting, so players take out the phone to decide what to do next.
Answer

Quests and chats arrive like real messages, so players answer their town and drive out to meet each person in their house.
Manage

The bank, the market and the workers are one tap away, so players run the whole farm without ever leaving the world.
Belong

Every app copies a habit from real life, so players feel at home with the whole interface of the farm from the very first minute of play.

Farm Systems

Feature Introduction

The balance behind every system

The whole game rests on one balance, between simulation and comfort. The players work the land or grew up on it and wanted to feel the real job, yet they have only a few minutes a day, so every system was built by asking which real steps make the work feel true and which only stand between the player and the result.

The steps that carry the fantasy stayed, each one as a decision with a cost, and the repetitive ones were cut, sped up or handed over. Where players differ, the balance became their own choice, from how fast time runs to how much of the farm they work by hand and how much they leave to the autopilot or hired workers.

Farming is the center and the source of most income. Machines carry the work, time sets its rhythm, animals and production fill the wait between harvests and the town breaks the routine, each one answering a problem crops alone would leave open.

Design Principles

Every step of a real crop has a place in the game, and each skipped task lowers a score that sets the size and quality of the harvest
A machine should reward a real driver's knowledge and still welcome someone who never drove one, so realism and ease of use grow side by side
A few minutes a day have to be enough, so long processes keep running while the player is away and the farm never asks for constant attention
Every resource has more than one use, so what is left over from one activity becomes the input of another and the farm wastes as little as possible

Feature Breakdown

Farming

The field, the work it asks for and the help that grows with the farm.

01 Soil & Crop RotationSoil care and the right crop for each season

Soil & Crop Rotation

Soil care and the right crop for each season

As part of the planting flow, the soil has to be prepared and cared for, and this system turns that care into a choice. Crops follow the seasons, so one planted out of season grows poorly or may not flower, and planting the same crop again and again weakens the soil until the field produces less. Rotating crops keeps it strong.

Function

Push players to diversify their crops and live every planting step

Design Approach

Decisions made:

Make crop choice matter over time by letting soil reflect past plantings
Reward crop variety and let repeated planting slowly cost a field yield
Use the seasons as a calendar constraint that shapes what to plant next
Make preparation an investment that raises the productivity of a field

Player Impact

Allowed players to...

Plan rotations across their fields and seasons before planting anything
Weigh the most profitable crop of the moment against the soil's health
Recognize how the preparation of a field shows up in its productivity
Learn real soil practices and earn more from each field with them

02 Crop ManagementA field routine that shapes every harvest

Crop Management

A field routine that shapes every harvest

The game pushes players into a routine that keeps each crop at its best. Each crop has a score that starts at a normal harvest, falls with each skipped task until the plant dies or climbs far above it with better supplies. It changes in real time, so a missed step can be made up later, and it sets both harvest size and quality.

Function

Turn field work into a daily routine where every choice has a cost

Design Approach

Decisions made:

Turn each management task into hands-on work for the farming fantasy
Balance a crop score that better supplies raise and skipped tasks lower
Grade supplies so higher spending raises harvest size and quality
Keep cheap supplies viable so volume competes with quality as a strategy

Player Impact

Allowed players to...

Choose cheap supplies for big plantings or better ones for rich harvests
Skip steps to save time or money, accepting a smaller or cheaper harvest
Recover from a missed step later with a full routine and better supplies
Plan a field routine that fits the time they have in each play session

03 HarvestWhere the season's work turns into income and growth

Harvest

Where the season's work turns into income and growth

Harvests turn farm work into income and set the game's pace. Yield depends on how well each field was prepared and managed, while harvest time varies with field size and machines, making each harvest an instinctive gauge of when to upgrade or rethink how the farm is run. Progress comes from reading each harvest and acting on it.

Function

Generate income and push players to invest at the right moment

Design Approach

Decisions made:

Use harvest income and timing to set the pace of the farm's progression
Make yield the measure of how well each field was prepared and managed
Balance field size against field quality as two paths to similar returns
Use harvest time as a gauge of when to upgrade or change the approach

Player Impact

Allowed players to...

Sense by instinct when to invest in better machines or better supplies
Weigh buying more land against getting more out of the fields they own
Trace a good or poor harvest back to the decisions made before it
Apply real harvest patterns that work in the game as they do on a farm

04 GPS, Workers & AutomationOptimize and automate the long hours of work

GPS, Workers & Automation

Optimize and automate the long hours of work

Time and effort are farm resources, and players differ in how much work they want to do by hand. Automation was built as a scale of involvement where each step trades more of the hands-on simulation for time to earn in other ways. Each step was balanced so each player finds the mix of work and freedom that is most fun for them.

Function

Save time, optimize the work and free players for other tasks

Design Approach

Decisions made:

Balance the player's time against how much of the simulation they keep
Separate effort from time, so the autopilot spares one and workers both
Scale automation by how much involvement each player wants to give up
Treat saved time as a resource players can invest in other farm tasks

Player Impact

Allowed players to...

Decide which tasks deserve their direct attention and which to delegate
Weigh the cost of hired help against the value of the time it frees
Simulate only as much of the farm work as they see fit at any moment
Keep a growing farm running without personally handling every task

Feature Breakdown

Machines

Machines that behave like the real ones, with the force, wear and tools of each job.

01 Physics & Driving ModesAuthentic vehicle behavior with accessible controls

Physics & Driving Modes

Authentic vehicle behavior with accessible controls

Vehicles carry the farming fantasy for people who work the land and people who never drove anything. Physics follows reality while controls stay simple, with full manual driving or an automatic mode that shifts and accelerates as players pick where to go. Anyone can learn, and real drivers find their own techniques already work.

Function

Make realistic driving accessible to any player with little effort

Design Approach

Decisions made:

Make vehicles respond and sound like real ones for the farming fantasy
Keep the controls simple enough for someone who never drove before
Keep physics true to reality so real-world maneuvers work as expected
Add an automatic mode that shifts and accelerates so players only steer

Player Impact

Allowed players to...

Drive any farm machine with ease yet explore a deeper layer of mastery
Apply real farming knowledge to work their machines more effectively
Choose full control of gears and speed or let the vehicle handle them
Feel the difference between each kind of machine and vehicle they drive

02 Vehicle CapabilitiesMatch vehicle capability to the demands of each job

Vehicle Capabilities

Match vehicle capability to the demands of each job

Vehicles are tools with different strengths, so choosing one is part of planning work. Each capability follows real machines, whether force to pull heavy implements, speed to cover distance or capacity to carry and harvest more, so a better vehicle opens new work. Players learn what each vehicle does best and match it to a task.

Function

Define the right vehicle for each job and reward investing in it

Design Approach

Decisions made:

Differentiate vehicles by the force, speed and capacity each one offers
Make vehicle capability a decision in both investment and planning work
Use realistic gearing to express the trade-off between force and speed
Make capacity set how much a vehicle carries or harvests on each trip

Player Impact

Allowed players to...

Match a vehicle's capability to the weight and demands of each task
Shift between force and travel speed as the work in front of them asks
See when a better vehicle pays off in fewer trips or faster work
Use what they know about real machines to judge what each one can do

03 Environment ImpactWear and weather as part of owning a machine

Environment Impact

Wear and weather as part of owning a machine

Owning and working a machine had to feel like the real thing, for the fantasy of running a farm. Wear grows with age and faster with misuse, and the environment changes how vehicles perform, so each machine's state becomes an ongoing responsibility. Players learn to judge when to repair a machine or trade it for a better one.

Function

Simulate real wear and reward careful use and timely replacement

Design Approach

Decisions made:

Simulate wear and dirt as part of the fantasy of working real machines
Make misuse accelerate wear and raise the long-term cost of ownership
Use weather and terrain to affect machine condition and mobility
Give each machine a working life that ends in repair or replacement

Player Impact

Allowed players to...

Recognize when a machine should be repaired, upgraded or replaced
Learn how careful use keeps a machine working longer at a lower cost
Adapt their fieldwork whenever rain and mud affect machine mobility
Weigh the upkeep of an old machine against the price of a new one

04 ImplementsSpecialized tools expand what vehicles can do

Implements

Specialized tools expand what vehicles can do

Implements decide which jobs a vehicle takes on and how a farmer plans work. Each one's real weight and function change how its vehicle behaves, so a weak vehicle cannot pull it and maneuvers must be adapted, and some require specific vehicle technology. Growing the farm means pairing each tool with the right vehicle to use it.

Function

Expand each vehicle's role with tools made for specific farm jobs

Design Approach

Decisions made:

Treat each implement as an investment that expands what a vehicle can do
Make implement weight part of every decision about which vehicle to use
Differentiate implements through their function and handling demands
Let each implement's physics change how its vehicle drives and behaves

Player Impact

Allowed players to...

Plan which implements to buy around the work they want to take on
Judge whether a vehicle has the power and technology an implement needs
Understand how each implement changes a vehicle's role and behavior
Adapt their driving and maneuvers to the implement each vehicle carries

Feature Breakdown

Time & Seasons

A speed of time in the player's hands, seasons and weather.

01 Time SpeedSeveral speeds to change at any moment

Time Speed

Several speeds to change at any moment

Players differ in how much time they have and how real they want the farm to feel, so the pace of time became their choice. Several speeds can be changed at any moment, and each one shifts the balance, as faster time asks for quicker work to plant and harvest on schedule and slower time stretches the farm toward real life.

Function

Put the pace of the farm in the player's hands at any given moment

Design Approach

Decisions made:

Offer a range of speeds that trades realism for progress per session
Let players change the speed at any moment, as often as a task needs
Make faster time demand quicker work to keep up with planting on time
Keep a realistic speed for players who want to live the farm in full

Player Impact

Allowed players to...

Slow time down for careful work and speed it up to skip the waiting
Fit the farm into the few minutes of free time they have on each day
Choose how much pressure they want, trading speed for tighter timing
Play at a realistic pace, living a week of the farm across a whole day

02 Seasons & HarvestA year of work that fits into play

Seasons & Harvest

A year of work that fits into play

Compressing time had a second purpose, to fit a whole year into play so the seasons could shape the farm and its work. Each season has its own windows to plant and harvest and the cold months ask for crops of their own, so the year becomes a cycle of work that players plan ahead, as real farmers do with their own calendar.

Function

Turn the year into a cycle of work players plan season by season

Design Approach

Decisions made:

Compress the year so seasons arrive within the length of normal play
Give each season windows to plant and harvest that follow real crops
Give the cold months crops of their own so winter keeps its own work
Use the calendar as the guide that ties each season to the next job

Player Impact

Allowed players to...

Plan the farm across the whole year, as each season changes the work
Plant each crop in its own window to get the best harvest it can give
Keep the fields productive through winter with crops made for the cold
Use the calendar to know when each crop should go into the ground next

03 WeatherRain, storms and fog that change the work

Weather

Rain, storms and fog that change the work

A farm routine repeats every day, and the weather keeps each day different. It follows the seasons and changes the conditions of the work, as rain leaves mud that slows vehicles and fog makes the roads harder to read, so the forecast on the phone matters before any big job. Players learn to plan their work around the days ahead.

Function

Vary each day of the farm and make the forecast part of every plan

Design Approach

Decisions made:

Vary the weather with the seasons so no two days of work feel alike
Give weather real consequences on the roads, the fields and visibility
Place puddles at random so mud never forms twice in the same place
Show the forecast on the phone so weather becomes something to plan

Player Impact

Allowed players to...

Choose the work of each day according to what the weather allows
Check the forecast on the phone before a big job or a long haul by road
Live a different day on the farm each time they come back to play
Adapt their work when fog or mud changes how the farm can be worked

Feature Breakdown

Animals & Production

Animals that fill the time between harvests, and production that adds value.

01 Income Between HarvestsAnimals that produce while the crops grow

Income Between Harvests

Animals that produce while the crops grow

Animals pay on rhythms of their own, some every day and others in batches over longer periods, so each species covers a different gap between harvests. The mix is the player's choice, set by the time they can give each day and the money they need before the next harvest, the way a real family farm balances its income.

Function

Keep money coming in while the player waits for the next harvest

Design Approach

Decisions made:

Give each animal its own production cycle, close to the real animal
Mix short and long cycles so animals cover different gaps in income
Let each player build their own mix of animals by time and income
Keep animal income steady so the farm never depends on one harvest

Player Impact

Allowed players to...

Keep money coming in every day while a field takes months to be ready
Pick the animals that fit the time they have to care for them each day
Weigh daily income against larger batches when choosing their animals
Mix animals and crops into a farm that runs on their own schedule

02 Care That Builds a RoutineA care score that shapes every animal

Care That Builds a Routine

A care score that shapes every animal

Animals use the same score as the crops, so care is a daily decision with visible results. Water and food keep the score up, time on the pasture raises it, and neglect lowers it until the animal reproduces less or loses quality, and a forgotten one dies. Each species asks for different care, so the routine grows with the herd.

Function

Turn animal care into a routine where every neglect has a cost

Design Approach

Decisions made:

Apply the crop score to animals so care works the same across the farm
Let neglect lower reproduction and quality before it costs the animal
Reward time on the pasture with happier animals that produce more
Vary the care each species needs so the routine grows with the herd

Player Impact

Allowed players to...

Build a daily routine around the animals that depend on them to live
Trace a drop in production or quality back to the care they skipped
Recognize when each animal reaches the best moment to sell or harvest
Expand the herd only as far as they can keep up with its daily care

03 Town or Home ProcessingProcess in town or build the farm's own facility

A rural butchery with meat hanging under a red awning

Town or Home Processing

Process in town or build the farm's own facility

Every raw product can become one worth more, in town for a fee from the first days or later in a facility the farm builds for itself. The town keeps adding value open to anyone, and owning production is a large investment that pays far more over time, so players decide how far to take each product and when to build.

Function

Make each product of the farm worth more before it is ever sold

Design Approach

Decisions made:

Give each raw product a chain of processing where every step adds value
Offer processing in town for a fee so value is open from the start
Make owning production a long-term investment that pays far more
Make the buyer matter, so a processed good pays most where it is valued

Player Impact

Allowed players to...

Turn a raw harvest into products worth more before they sell it
Weigh the town's fee against the cost of building their own production
Grow from a small producer into a business with its own production
Find the buyer that pays the most for each product they process

04 Hay, Compost & EnergyOne resource with many uses

Hay, Compost & Energy

One resource with many uses

Resources work on several levels, so what one activity leaves behind becomes the input of another. Leftovers from the fields feed the animals or decay in a covered pit into fertilizer and gas, which can be sold or turned into power, one of several energy sources. A farm that closes these loops spends less on supplies and bills.

Function

Turn every farm leftover into feed, fertilizer, gas or even power

Design Approach

Decisions made:

Give each resource more than one use across the levels of the farm
Turn leftovers into inputs so animals and fields feed each other
Offer several energy sources with different costs as long-term choices
Reward closed loops with lower spending on supplies and power bills

Player Impact

Allowed players to...

Turn the straw and hay left after a harvest into feed and fertilizer
Make their own fertilizer and spend less on the supplies from the shop
Weigh the cost of each energy source against what it saves over time
Run a farm that wastes less and buys less of what it can make itself

Feature Breakdown

A Living Town

Feral hogs, neighbors and the law, the variety that breaks the routine.

01 Feral Hogs & HuntingA real pest that pays while the crops grow

Feral Hogs & Hunting

A real pest that pays while the crops grow

Feral hogs were added to break the routine with a real pest of the countryside. Invasions come now and then, hunting them is legal and pays through a bounty and the meat, and a hog can hurt the player, who slows down until treated, so each hunt weighs reward against risk. The wait for a crop becomes time that can still earn.

Function

Break the routine of the farm and pay while the crops are growing

Design Approach

Decisions made:

Use a real pest of the countryside to break the routine of the farm
Bring invasions now and then so the routine is broken without warning
Pay each hunt through a bounty and the meat to make it worth the time
Let hogs hurt the player so every hunt balances its reward with risk

Player Impact

Allowed players to...

Earn money from a hunt while a field is still months from harvest
React to an invasion and protect the land the way real farmers do
Weigh the bounty of each hunt against the risk of being slowed down
Prepare for the next invasion with ammunition and medicine at hand

02 Neighbors & QuestsPeople who ask for help and remember you

Neighbors & Quests

People who ask for help and remember you

Quests turn the town into a source of work and income. Requests arrive by message, asking for help, goods or a delivery to another town, and pay above a normal sale because someone needs it now. Each quest, chat and purchase in person grows a friendship that lowers prices and opens more stock, so treating the town well pays.

Function

Give the farm people to work for and a reason to explore the town

Design Approach

Decisions made:

Send quests by message from people in town who need something soon
Pay every quest above the normal price, because someone needs it now
Build friendship through every chat, quest and purchase made in person
Tie friendship to lower prices, more stock, better pay and discounts

Player Impact

Allowed players to...

Earn more by answering a request in time than by selling at market
Weigh a quest's urgency and pay against the work on their own farm
Buy for less and find more items at the stands of friendly neighbors
Find quests along the road as well as in the messages on the phone

03 Police & CrimeFreedom with consequences

Police & Crime

Freedom with consequences

A sandbox is only free if players can also act badly, so the game lets them attack or even kill a neighbor. Every crime brings the police, who search the farm and can put the player in jail with a fine, and neighbors remember aggression, so freedom stays real while the small town keeps feeling like a place with its own rules.

Function

Keep the sandbox free while making every crime cost the player

Design Approach

Decisions made:

Keep the sandbox free enough to let the player attack or kill a neighbor
Answer every crime with the police so freedom always has a consequence
Make jail and fines the cost of being caught, felt in time and money
Let neighbors remember aggression so a crime outlasts its punishment

Player Impact

Allowed players to...

Act freely in the sandbox, knowing that every crime brings the police
Run and hide from the police while the officers search the whole farm
Weigh the freedom of the sandbox against the jail time and the fine
Live in a small town with rules, where breaking one has a price

Behind the Feature

How the farm systems were built

01 Condition ScoreOne rule for crops and animals · Care raises · Neglect lowers · Yield and quality

Goal

One rule for everything that grows on the farm

Make care a daily decision with a visible cost, for crops and animals alike
Let neglect lower the result and good care raise it above a normal one
Keep cheap supplies viable, so volume can compete with quality

Constraints

A real routine in a few minutes a day

Let a missed step be made up later, since players are not always online
Keep the score readable without turning the whole farm into a spreadsheet
Keep one rule while each element asks for its own kind of care

Process

One shared mechanic Crops and animals run on the same score, so one system covers everything that grows, and a player who learns it on one crop already reads every other crop and animal.
Care tasks as weights I listed the care tasks of each element in a table with a weight each, so every task done raises the score and every task skipped lowers it by a known amount.
Real time and recovery The score updates in real time from a normal starting point, so a late task can still be made up, while long neglect lowers yield and quality until the element dies.
Balanced on a routine I tuned the weights so a normal routine gives a normal result and graded supplies push above it, then tested how much neglect each element takes before it is lost.

The decision that made it work

Use one score for everything that grows

A single score for crops and animals meant one rule to learn and one place to read the result. Care pushes it up and neglect pulls it down, and the score sets the size and quality of what the farm produces, so care shows in the income.

Result

Care became a routine with visible results

Players read each harvest and each batch of production as a report card of their daily care, fixed their routine element by element and chose between volume and quality as two real strategies to grow the farm.

02 Driving for EveryoneReal physics · Manual or automatic · Gearing · Implement weight

Goal

Real driving that anyone can learn

Reward the knowledge of real drivers, whose techniques already work here
Welcome players who never drove a machine before, with very little effort
Make each vehicle a tool with its own strengths for each job on the farm

Constraints

Physics stays true while controls stay simple

Keep the physics true to reality, so real maneuvers work as players expect
Keep the controls simple enough for someone who never drove anything
Let the weight of each implement change how its vehicle drives and turns

Process

Physics from the machine Each vehicle was set up from the real machine's mass, power and traction, so slopes, mud and turns behave as a farmer expects and real techniques work as they do in the field.
Manual or automatic Players choose full manual driving or an automatic mode that shifts and accelerates on its own, so a beginner only steers while the physics underneath stay intact.
Gearing as a trade-off Realistic gearing sets the trade-off between force and speed, so a vehicle strong enough to pull heavy implements is the slow one on the road between fields.
Implements as load Each implement adds its real weight and drag to its vehicle, so a weak vehicle cannot pull it, turns get wider and some tools only work with a specific vehicle technology.

The decision that made it work

Add ease on top of the physics

The automatic mode simplifies the controls while the physics underneath stay true, so the same machine serves a farmer who knows it and someone who never drove. Realism and ease of use grow side by side in every vehicle.

Result

Real drivers and beginners shared one farm

Beginners learned to drive with the automatic mode in a few minutes, real drivers found that their own techniques worked, and choosing a vehicle for each job became a real decision of planning and investment.

Impact

How the systems shape each day on the farm

Plan

Today's choices decide what the farm becomes later, so players learn to think ahead and shape a plan of their own before acting.
Pace

Players set the speed of time and how much of the farm work to delegate, so every session fits the free time they have on that day.
Invest

Every result hints at the next step, so players turn what they earn into growth and feel the farm advance through their own choices.
React

Hogs, quests and neighbors interrupt the routine, so players stop what they planned and adapt to what the town asks of them.

Design Iterations

01 From BFS to RFSA lighter game with a clearer fantasy

01 From BFS to RFS

Problem

Large-scale farming was too heavy for the map and phones

The first version, Brazilian Farm Simulator, was about large-scale farming, with crops anywhere on the map, even in town. In tests, players planted about 50 kilometers of it and then complained that the game got heavy.

Cause

Unlimited planting on a huge map had no ceiling

Nothing limited where crops could go, so the map was too big for a small team to fill and too heavy for most of the phones in the countryside to run.

Solution

Moved the fantasy to a family farm with limited land

Limited land gave the game a ceiling that the map, the team and the phones could all live with. A smaller farm also moved the depth from how much is planted to how well the farm is run, closer to the family farms most players knew.

Change the fantasy from large-scale agribusiness to a small family farm
Mark the land with fences, trees and forest, leaving fields clean to plant
Add production plots so a smaller farm still offers many kinds of work

Result

A lighter game with a clearer fantasy

Players got a game closer to what they wanted than the one they asked for, which was to plant everywhere. The limit stopped being a restriction and became the shape of the fantasy, a farm small enough to know by heart.

The map stayed full and ran on far more phones than the old version
The family farm gave the fantasy a clearer and more personal heart
The new version grew through betas to as many as 100,000 players

02 A Day Is a WeekAn iteration that became a whole system

02 A Day Is a Week

Problem

Real crops took far too long to play

Close to the real pace, planting and harvesting took too long. A real crop takes months, some up to six, and the people who play work in the fields and have only a few minutes a day to spend on a farm of their own after work.

Cause

Real time does not fit a few minutes of play

A farming game lives on the crop cycle, so a cycle measured in real months left players waiting for days with nothing to do on the farm.

Solution

Built a calendar of its own, with a speed control

The calendar was compressed and the crops were left intact, so each one keeps its real season and its length next to the others, with a six-month crop taking about 24 days. A speed control lets each player choose how close to real time they play.

Make a day of play stand for a week of the farm and four days a month
Let players raise or lower the speed of time at any moment of play
Keep the planting and harvest windows true to each crop's real season

Result

An iteration that became a whole system

Time stopped being a wall between planting and harvest and became a tool in the player's hands, so the same crop fits a player with five minutes to spare and another with a whole free evening to spend on the farm.

A whole crop cycle fit into the short sessions of the audience
Players worked calmly, then sped up to reach the next step
The calendar grew into a full system of time, seasons and weather

03 The Drop ZoneMenus and the world met in one clear place

03 The Drop Zone

Goal

Make storing a load a physical act

Before the unloading system, items went straight into a warehouse or a silo with no step in the world. The game needed a physical way to store a load and collect sacks, with no menu getting in the way of the life on the farm.

Approach

One clear spot for every exchange

The spot where items change hands had to be visible in the scene and the same at every warehouse and silo, so players learn it once and use it everywhere.

Solution

Painted a striped rectangle at every drop spot

A marking that reads as a loading spot at a glance became the signal, the same at every place that takes a load. Two ways to use it, a whole load at once or a single item thrown in, kept it quick both for the truck and for the hand.

Paint a rectangle of yellow and black stripes at every warehouse and silo
Store the whole load through the menu with the truck parked on the stripes
Send any item thrown into the rectangle straight to storage, no menu

Result

Menus and the world met in one clear place

Storage gained a place in the scene, and the line between the menu and the world became visible on the ground itself. It set the pattern that storing, delivering and selling follow across the whole game.

Unloading became parking and throwing, with no menu in the way
Deliveries to neighbors and sales at the silo used the same stripes
The warehouse menus and the physical world met in one clear spot

04 Crop ClustersHarvests of 100 thousand plants without a stutter

04 Crop Clusters

Problem

Huge fields could freeze the game at harvest

Players can plant across the whole map, and a harvest can mean around 100 thousand plants at once. Each plant growing and being harvested on its own would freeze the game, and a harvest could never be allowed to stutter.

Cause

Every plant was its own object to grow and remove

Growing and removing that many separate plants cost far too much for a phone, above all at the moment of the harvest, when thousands change at once.

Solution

Grouped plants into clusters on the ground

Each plant stopped being an object of its own and became part of a group the engine treats as one, with every stage of growth shown by texture alone. The cost of a field stopped growing with every new plant it held in the field.

Group the plants into clusters placed right on the vertices of the ground
Draw every growth stage of a crop on one single face of each plant cluster
Swap the texture of that face as the crop grows in the field over weeks

Result

Harvests of 100 thousand plants without a stutter

Performance stopped limiting the size of the farm, and the fields lost none of their look up close. A technical problem was solved with an art decision, the kind of trade that ran through the whole optimization.

Harvests of around 100,000 plants ran on phones without a stutter
Players planted across the whole map without freezing the game
Every growth stage of a crop stayed visible to players up close

05 Map OptimizationA large, full world that runs on a phone

05 Map Optimization

Problem

A huge, full map weighed too much on phones

The open world was huge and full of trees, grass, farms and towns, and seen from the top of a hill it asked the phone to draw far more than it could handle, so the game slowed down in the busiest views of the countryside.

Cause

Every object was drawn on its own, near or far

Each tree, building and prop was drawn separately at any distance, and the busiest areas could be seen from the mountains around them, all at once.

Solution

Clusters, LOD, 2D cards and hidden views

The question changed from how to draw less to what the player really sees from each place. The answer mixed technical tricks with level design, deciding where trees, hills and towns stand so the heaviest views never happen at once.

Test clusters of trees, towns, farms and grass across the whole open map
Mix 3D models with 2D versions, and merge farms into one block far away
Hide busy areas behind trees and turn the camera around to find heavy views

Result

A large, full world that runs on a phone

The world kept everything that made it feel lived in, and the heaviest views stopped asking for more than a phone could give. From then on, every new area of the map was laid out with its cost in mind.

The open map kept its full size and density while running smoothly
Farms and towns showed from far away at no extra cost to the phone
Players could climb any hill and look across the whole countryside

Economy

Feature Introduction

Money as the main progression

There is no XP and no player level. Money is the main progression, alongside the land and the production it buys, and the credit to borrow more is what opens the game, so the bank sits at the center of the economy. The game starts in debt, with the loan that bought the small farm, and paying it off is the first goal.

Credit grows with trust. The loan limit and the card tier rise with earnings and on-time payments, lowering interest and fines, and debt is real too, with monthly bills and daily fines on late payments that can take the whole farm to bankruptcy.

Credit takes the place of levels on purpose. A bigger loan opens bigger machines and more land the way a new level would, but late payments push the limit back down, so progress depends on managing money well, the same skill a real farm asks of its owner, and every step forward carries the risk of a step back for the farm.

Design Principles

Players start in debt and learn the bank in the first harvest, so the loan becomes a tool to grow the farm and never just a burden to carry
Trust has to be earned, so paying on time raises the loan limit and the card tier, and every late payment pushes them back for the months that follow
Debt has real weight, with interest, bills and daily fines, so players feel the risk of borrowing more than the farm can pay back by the next harvest
The aim of the sandbox is to end with no debt and as much money as possible, so every loan is a step toward that goal or away from it

Feature Breakdown

Credit and debt

01 Starting in DebtThe first loan bought the farm

Starting in Debt

The first loan bought the farm

Starting in debt gives players a clear first goal and teaches how the economy works. The farm comes as if bought with a bank loan, with a crop already planted and some money left, so the onboarding teaches driving, harvesting and selling by doing them, and the first harvest is enough to pay off the loan and open the next one.

Function

Teach the whole economy through the very first harvest, by doing

Design Approach

Decisions made:

Turn the loan that bought the farm into the first goal of the game
Open the game at harvest time so the first goal can be reached at once
Make the first harvest of the game big enough to pay off the first loan
Teach through play with an onboarding more interactive than indicative

Player Impact

Allowed players to...

Know their first goal from day one, paying off the debt on the farm
Learn to drive, harvest and sell by working on the farm right away
Pay the bank back with their first harvest and earn the next loan
Take a new loan once the first is paid and start investing in the farm

02 Loans & Card TiersCredit that grows with trust

Loans & Card Tiers

Credit that grows with trust

Loans let the farm grow before the money is there, with monthly interest close to real rates and bills due every month. The limit rises in tiers with earnings and an on-time record, and the card climbs from blue to black, lowering interest and fines and allowing installments, so trust with the bank becomes a resource of its own.

Function

Let the farm grow faster than its savings, with a debt to manage

Design Approach

Decisions made:

Let players borrow for machines, land and production they cannot afford
Raise the loan limit in tiers by earnings and record of payments
Make the card climb from blue to black, lowering interest and fines
Add monthly bills so the farm always carries a fixed cost to plan for

Player Impact

Allowed players to...

Buy the machine they need now and pay for it over the following months
Unlock bigger loans by paying every installment on time, no fines
See the bank's trust grow at a glance as the card changes color
Weigh every loan against what the machine or the land will bring in

03 BankruptcyDaily fines until the farm goes under

Bankruptcy

Daily fines until the farm goes under

A payment left overdue gets a daily fine that keeps growing until the farm goes bankrupt. A bankrupt player can start a new farm or try to rebuild with what is left, so every debt has a real end. The goal of the game is the opposite, to end up with no debt and as much money as possible, with a thriving farm to show for it.

Function

Give debt a real end that every new loan has to be planned around

Design Approach

Decisions made:

Add a daily fine to every overdue payment, growing with each day late
Let the fines keep growing until the farm goes bankrupt if unpaid
Let a bankrupt player start a new farm or rebuild with whatever is left
Set a farm with no debt and as much money as possible as the final goal

Player Impact

Allowed players to...

Pay their late debts first, before the daily fines grow out of control
Borrow only what the farm can really pay back, with bankruptcy at stake
Fight back from bankruptcy, rebuilding the farm with what is left of it
Play an endless sandbox with a clear aim, to end rich and free of debt

Behind the Feature

How the economy was built

01 Credit as ProgressionNo XP · Loan tiers · Card from blue to black · Daily fines

Goal

Make managing money the progression

Replace XP and player levels with credit that opens bigger machines and land
Teach the bank in the first harvest, by paying off the loan for the farm
Make every loan a step toward the final goal of a farm with no debt at all

Constraints

Real debt that stays fair and readable

Keep interest close to real rates without making the farm feel stuck in debt
Give debt a real end, so borrowing too much always carries a visible risk
Show bills, limits and fines clearly on the phone, where players manage it

Process

Starting in debt The game opens at harvest time on a farm bought with a loan, so the onboarding teaches driving, harvesting and selling while the first debt is paid off with the crop already planted.
A credit table I built a table of loan limits, interest and fines per tier, tied to earnings and on-time payments, so trust with the bank works as a level that late payments can push back down.
A card that climbs The card climbs from blue to black, and each tier lowers interest and fines and allows installments, so a good payment record makes every next loan cheaper to take.
Fines that compound An overdue payment gets a daily fine that keeps growing until bankruptcy, and a bankrupt player starts a new farm or rebuilds from what is left, so every loan is planned around that end.

The decision that made it work

Let credit take the place of levels

A bigger loan opens bigger machines and more land the way a new level would, but late payments take it away. Progress depends on managing money well, the same skill a real farm asks of its owner, with a risk on every step.

Result

Every loan became a decision

Players used credit to grow faster than their savings and planned each loan around the next harvest, so borrowing became a strategy with a real cost and paying on time became a goal they chased on their own.

Feature Introduction

Selling as a job of its own

Growing a harvest was only half of the farm. Selling had to be a job of its own, with as much room for skill as planting, so a player who reads the market well can earn more from one good sale than from a whole new crop, while a player who sells in a hurry leaves money behind on every load that leaves the farm.

Each sale answers three questions, where, when and to whom. The channels set where and to whom, each with its own price and the amount it takes, and a market that moves every day sets when, so the same harvest earns very different money in the hands of a player who plans the sale and one who sells it at once.

Players can even earn without growing. Produce bought cheap from neighbors can be resold when prices rise, and goods in stock can answer quests that pay above the market for urgency, so the farm also works as a trading business.

Design Principles

Every product has more than one buyer, so the same harvest earns more or less with each choice of where, when and to whom it is sold
Prices move over time, so holding stock and selling on the right day can be worth more than planting and growing another whole crop from seed
Urgency pays, so quests buy above the market and a player with goods in stock earns from what the town needs at that very moment
Trading is a way to play, so produce bought from neighbors can be resold for profit by players who would rather deal than plant

Feature Breakdown

The market and the trade

01 Stock MarketPrices that move with the market

Stock Market

Prices that move with the market

The moment of a sale had to matter as much as the harvest itself. Prices on the train follow a stock market built on real food prices, falling when the global stock of a product is high, and the phone shows two months of past prices and two ahead. Storage has no limit, so players can hold their grain and sell on the right day.

Function

Turn the moment of every sale into a decision the player plans

Design Approach

Decisions made:

Base the train's prices on real market prices that move every day
Let the train buy any amount of a product at the current market price
Drop prices when global stock is high so supply shapes every sale
Keep the warehouse unlimited, so holding stock never blocks a sale

Player Impact

Allowed players to...

Hold their grain through a low market and sell when the price jumps
Follow the market day by day as real food prices move it up and down
Sell any amount at once through the train, at the market's price
Earn more from a well-timed sale than from planting a whole new crop

02 Trade & ResaleBuying from neighbors and selling to whoever needs it

Trade & Resale

Buying from neighbors and selling to whoever needs it

Neighbors sell what they grow at family stands, and their produce can be bought cheap, kept in storage that has no limit and resold when the market rises or when a quest asks for it. Quests pay above the market because someone needs the goods now, so a player with stock on hand earns from the urgency of others.

Function

Let players earn as traders without growing all they sell

Design Approach

Decisions made:

Let neighbors sell what they grow at family stands, open to anyone
Let quests pay above the market for urgency, from any source
Let neighbors sell produce that can be resold when prices rise
Reward knowing the market, so selling well is as valuable as growing

Player Impact

Allowed players to...

Weigh price against speed, amount and the drive each buyer asks for
Buy cheap from a neighbor's stand and resell for more when prices rise
Stock up on goods ahead of time and deliver when a quest asks for them
Earn as traders without growing everything, buying low and selling high

Selling Channels

Where to sell

Core Idea

Each product sells in several places, each with its own price and the amount it takes, with the train following the market and quests paying for urgency.

Design Goal

Make where and how much to sell a real choice, trading price against speed, amount and the drive it takes to get each load there.

Channel	Price	What it takes	How much
Train	Market	Stock-market price · Rises and falls	Any amount
Silo	Low	Fixed price	Any amount
At the door	Low	Silo price minus freight · Picked up at the house	What is left out
Shops	Medium	Fixed price	Medium amounts
People	High	Fixed price · Sold in person	Small amounts
Town, by truck	High	Driven by the player · Above the silo price	What the truck carries
Quests	Urgent	Above the market · Someone needs it now	What the quest asks

Impact

How the economy shapes each decision

Borrow

Loans buy machines and land before the money is there, so players invest early and pay the farm's growth over time.
Pay on Time

Paying on time raises the limits and the card tier, so players protect their record and make each payment before its due date comes.
Time the Sale

Prices rise and fall with the market, so players read the price history on the phone, hold their stock and sell on the best day of the season.
Pick a Buyer

Each channel pays its own price for its own amount, so players match every load to the buyer that pays the most for it on that day.

Cards

Monetization inside the world

Currencies
Soft & Hard Currency
The game is free to play and runs on two currencies. The soft currency, the farm's money, comes from harvests, sales, loans and rewarded videos and buys most machines, and the hard currency, bought with real money, pays for premium machines built with far more detail.
Rewarded
Rewarded Videos
Instead of leading with packs of money, the bank app offers rewarded videos that pay the soft currency, enough over time for a new tractor. Players choose when to watch and how many, so an ad becomes a small deal with their own bank, and packs stay for those who prefer to pay.
In the world
Ads in the World
Apart from a single banner on the screen, every ad lives in the world, on billboards along the roads and as spots between songs on the radio, read by a hired narrator, so this intrinsic in-game advertising earns while the player keeps working and the farm never has to stop for any ad at all.

Development

Art, playtests and LiveOps

The farm map built in 3D from the color plan, with roads, fields, trees and a lake

The PDI in 3D

The same PDI built in 3D, an early version of a map that changed a lot over time.

01 From the first build to the final lookVisual evolution

Visual evolution

From the first build to the final look

First buildFinal

The game that came before worked, but it looked unfinished, and the new one had to be beautiful and still run on any phone. Every model got a limit of faces and stayed low poly, with the detail in textures painted by hand from patterns of the region, and materials with gradients lit the scene well without real-time lights, so each version looked better than the last one while running lighter on every phone.

02 Versions

The old game, then Real Farm, rebuilt from scratch to look far better.

04 Playtests

Test rounds that grew from 1,000 players to 100,000 in the open beta.

05 Settings

Quality options, from resolution to post-processing, to fit any phone.

The result

A countryside players recognize as their own, beautiful on strong phones and still smooth on the weakest ones in the field.

3D Models

Interactive 3D

Four areas of the countryside town

Player Reviews

Reviews

What players said

Nilce S. B.
Google Play · translated

Honestly, the game is great. It lets you do a lot of things that more famous ones don't, and this is still the beta of the beta. The game has a lot of future. Congratulations to the developers.
Enzo E.
Google Play · translated

Great simulator, great to see a Brazilian developer focused on a fully Brazilian farming game. Good map, gameplay and tractor models, and completely free. They could add workers, new machines, bigger seeders and newer harvesters. It has a lot of potential, and focused like this it will go far.
João E. S.
Google Play · translated

It's a Brazilian game and I'm a supporter of it. I watch the ads to get the rewards, but also to help the company. I really liked the game, and as an influencer I already know some of what's coming. I'm leaving my words here with 5 stars.
João F. C.
Google Play · translated

The game has a big future ahead, and for me it's already incredible. The tractors are amazing, with 3D details even on the wheels. I hope it keeps growing, because it's incredible even in beta, and my honest score is 100.
Gabriel C.
Google Play · translated

A really great farm game. It should be the best farm game on Android, with graphics this real. The tractors, the implements, the animals, the seeders, the harrows, being able to harrow anywhere and the textures of the grass.
Augusto A.
Google Play · translated

For a first version of the game, simply surprising. I hope more updates keep coming. Apart from one model of tractor, I didn't find a single flaw in the game, and I'd love to see more old tractors.
Moizés O. D.
Google Play · translated

The game is spectacular, I really liked the graphic quality. If the work on the project keeps growing and multiplayer really comes, this game will dominate the farm games scene.
Alexandre H.
Google Play · translated

You can open new fields, that's really great, a legend is starting. In five hours of play I bought a lot, two tractors and a harvester. Super recommend it, it's really fun to play.

Conclusion

Design Conclusions

Real Farm Simulator taught me scope. Moving from large-scale farming on a huge map to a family farm let our small team build a game that felt complete, and the smaller farm turned out to be room to grow, with animals, production and new systems that a giant map had never had space for.

It also taught me to translate. The knowledge of farms came from people who lived them, and my job was to balance how much of each real process stays in the game against how much convenience players get, until the simulation felt real without ever turning into a chore for the player.

Design Takeaways

Balance simulation and comfort

Every real process costs time. I learned to decide, step by step, how much of it stays and how much becomes convenience, keeping what makes the work feel real and cutting what only repeats it.
Filter what players ask for

Players asked to plant the whole map, enjoyed it for a while and then ran out of things to do. They know what they want but rarely its effect, so I filter each request through what keeps them playing.
An immersive onboarding

Starting in debt gave players a clear goal and taught the whole economy through a single harvest. I learned that a well-chosen first goal can do most of the work of a tutorial.

A player holding an orange heavy balloon, the inventory showing two heavy balloons

Next project

Super Hacka Kids

A colorful water-balloon MOBA for everyone.