Do you like the idea of running a farm? Planting and tending to crops? Do you also like defending yourself from hordes of crazy mutants? If so then AtomiCrops may just be the game for you, it takes the slow-paced gameplay of Stardew Valley and the frenetic bullet hell style of gameplay of games like Enter The Gungeon, puts them in a blender, sets it to high speed and pours the result out right onto the screen of your Nintendo Switch. Developed by newcomers Bird Bath Games, AtomiCrops certainly is a unique product for a developer to take on as a first title.

There isn’t much story to the game save for a very short tutorial that also serves as a bit of back story when you start up the game, after that everything pretty much goes to hell in a handbasket. The basic gameplay loop in AtomiCrops has you planting and tending to crops during the daytime and then fending off hordes of toxic mutants during the night time cycle of the game, rinse and repeat, there isn’t a lot of depth but that doesn’t mean that there is a lack of fun. There is also a fair bit of exploration involved as you roam the landscape looking for new crops to plant and there also multiple upgrades to earn such as various animals that will help you on your wasteland farm. If you manage to successfully plant, nurture, grow and then defend your crops you can harvest them and sell them off for cashews, which are one of the types of currencies in the game, cashews are what you need in order to purchase upgrades to beef up your weapons in order to fend off some of the nastier mutants in the game.

Roses are another currency with the exception that these must be grown yourself, roses serve a manner of uses when interacting with other NPCs in the games township, where you will be teleported between day and night cycles in the game. As mentioned before there isn’t a lot of depth in these interactions but it is a nice distraction blasting mutants and bugs and there are various rewards that can be unlocked through talking or flirting with townsfolk, you can even get hitched if that’s your type of thing.

The gameplay loop of fighting at night, tending to and planting crops during the day and exploring and finding new crops as well as occasional weapon upgrades when you have enough cashews to buy them is incredibly satisfying and the perfect match between frenetic action and resource management. I found myself often unable to put the game down saying to myself “just one more cycle” before bed only to look over at the clock and suddenly realise it was 2 am in the morning and I had work the next day….ooops!

I am not a massive fan of either of the genres that have been mashed up in AtomicCrops but the way they have been mashed together in this title is fantastic and has just the right balance, you will love AtomicCrops even more if you are a fan of Animal Crossing, Stardew Valley or one of the bullet-hell style games it has been mixed up with. It’s the type of game that I find fits really well on the Switch due to its portability and will be a great addition to the usual boring chore of catching public transport home from work or uni.