Programming a farm on your phone sounds like a dare. The Farmer Was Replaced is taking it anyway. The coding game is out now on iOS and Android, and it has turned up with its brand-new expansion already in the box.
The team announced the mobile launch on Steam News on 2 November, in the same post that released The Miner Was Replaced, the game's new DLC. The post says the mobile version includes The Miner Was Replaced, so phone and tablet players get the mining content from day one. It also credits the mobile version to the team at Ateo.
What it costs on mobile
Pocket Gamer, reporting the launch on 3 November, says the mobile version offers a free trial followed by a one-time purchase of $8.99 that unlocks everything. Pocket Gamer also describes the game as million-selling, noting a million copies sold of a game where you write code to run a farm.
The idea hasn't changed. As Pocket Gamer explains it, you write short programs in a Python-like language and a drone carries out the work: tilling, planting and harvesting. Progress comes through unlocks and puzzles rather than levels.
The keyboard is the whole trick
The obvious question is how you type code on a touchscreen, and the developers have tried to answer it. The Steam post says the mobile version has a custom keyboard designed to make writing and editing code on a phone or tablet more comfortable, and admits that programming on a mobile device "might sound strange".
Pocket Gamer fills in the details: every symbol sits on one screen, brackets and quotes come in pairs, and swiping on a key moves the cursor. Pocket Gamer also says Bluetooth keyboards are supported, which is the obvious move if you plan on writing anything longer than a loop.
What The Miner Was Replaced adds
The DLC takes the drone underground. According to the Steam post, it adds a completely new section to the unlock tree, with resources such as coal and quartz, mushroom sorting, rice grown on clay and a Minesweeper-inspired challenge. Pocket Gamer counts eight new resources in total, including dynamite, and mentions excavating ancient ruins.
The base game got a free upgrade too
The bit that matters for everyone, new players most of all, is the documentation. The Steam post says the in-game docs have been reworked with rewritten explanations, more examples and better navigation between related topics. It also adds interactive code examples that run directly inside the documentation windows, a Back button, improved documentation search, and locked pages that now tell you which research you need to unlock them. Pocket Gamer adds that the free base-game update also brings smarter autocomplete and new music.
Where to get it
The mobile version is on the App Store and Google Play, according to Pocket Gamer, and the Steam post links to a dedicated mobile page. The developers also ask players to leave a review on Steam, the App Store or Google Play if they try the DLC or the mobile version.
Jax's take: A one-time unlock with a free trial is exactly the right shape for a game like this. You'll know in ten minutes whether writing code with your thumbs is charming or miserable, and you won't have paid to find out. Bundling the DLC on mobile is a generous call, too, and the documentation overhaul is the quiet hero: it's the sort of change that rarely makes a trailer but decides whether a programming game clicks.
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