Although I was wowed by the opening UI design and the evident polish of the game, in the opening stages of Farmingo, I found myself coming in with a critical attitude. Did have to go through the opening tutorial twice to get a hang of the mechanics, and wished the instructions would have been spaced out in between player inputs to ensure they were following along correctly (particularly couldn't figure out you could get rid of the grass by clicking it multiple times with the hoe).
I think in the opening stanza, I must've muttered to myself, "oh, a Stardew clone," and this unreasonably raised my expectations (well, Stardew Valley is a Harvest Moon clone, so we're all getting our ideas from somewhere ;) ).
Found the game to be quite grindey at the beginning, and wasn't quite sure what the in-game metric (money) was good for. However, when the upgrade system kicked in, and looped back to making the mechanics less cumbersome + more empowering to the player, this is where this game really kicked off for me. I found myself getting sucked into racing to hoe the field to plant, water, and harvest the next wave of seeds, and using the money made to advance my farming ability. I ultimately ended up playing the game for as long as it would let me. A strong progression system can make all the difference.
The charming pixel art, music, and UI were cherries to a farmhouse apple pie. This was a fun little game, and I appreciated that it did lead to a win condition instead of continuing endlessly, which considering how the game suddenly hooks you, could have definitely occurred for many players.
An ultra-impressive solo effort, as always from this developer.
