You run a ranch on an alien planet, using a vacuum gun to suck up bouncy, cartoonish slimes and carry them back to pens to feed and sell. Different slimes eat different food, and mixing the wrong two in one pen can cause a mess you have to clean up. It is a cheerful, low-stakes farming game with a jetpack for exploring, good for short relaxed sessions.
Gameplay video
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Screenshots & review notes

The short version
There's an easy, low-stress joy to this one that stands out in a genre often obsessed with grind. It's cheerful without ever feeling shallow.

In the hands
The jetpack-and-vacuum gameplay loop is simple to pick up but keeps expanding as new slime types and corral upgrades unlock. Pacing stays relaxed throughout.

Look and sound
Its candy-colored alien frontier is a genuinely pleasant place to spend time, and the whole thing runs without a hitch on the Switch's smaller screen.

The long haul
Good for short sessions or long binges alike, with enough content to justify sticking around. A great pick for younger players or anyone wanting something gentle.
Frames captured from the gameplay video above; notes are our own take on the game.
What it's like to play
You explore a colorful, hilly alien range in first person with a vacuum-like tool, sucking up bouncy jelly-like slimes and the food they eat, then carrying them back to your ranch and depositing them into pens where they happily hop around. Feeding a slime the right food produces a currency called plorts, which you collect and sell for money to expand your ranch and buy new gadgets and areas to explore. Controls are simple, just movement, aiming your vacuum, and switching between suction and launching stored items back out.
Your goal is mostly self-directed: explore further across the range to find new slime types and secret pockets of land, expand and organize your ranch to house more of them efficiently, and earn enough money to unlock new gadgets and areas. Mixing two slime types together in the same pen creates a hybrid largo slime, which is worth more but carries some risk of an uncontrollable mess if the pen fills up or the wrong slimes combine. A story mode with light narrative direction and a fully unlocked open version are both included, and either can take twenty to thirty hours to fully explore.
There is very little threat here beyond the occasional slime overflow, so anyone looking for tension or challenge may find it too relaxed, and some late-game resource collecting can start to feel repetitive. What it offers instead is a cheerful, low-stress sandbox that is easy to pick up for a short session or lose an afternoon to. It is an easy recommendation for players who want something gentle and colorful to unwind with.
