Given the nature of my Steam Library, and its broad composition, is it really a surprise to find a game with the title of Flora's Fruit Farm in my collection? We won't know until I try to play and see what the game is about.
Let me reassure you that I will be assessing this game in an objective manner; and will have no bias in the assessment. I have played hundreds of games; and will play many hundreds more, so Flora's Fruit Farm must stand upon (or below) the feet of titans, giants, and juggernauts.
As its name suggests, Flora's Fruit Farm is a game about a fruit farm. It starts by you learning the basics. How to sing to an Apple Tree in order for it to grow up nice and strong; and bear juicy, large fruit. You can even use magical potions (or as I see it, deceive consumers) to make the fruit appear even larger than what it would had it grown naturally on the tree.
Combine this with the fact that the game is targeted toward a young audience, and a conspiracy theory subscriber would be donning their tinfoil hat to argue that this is a game made by "big-farm" to "normalise genetic treatment of crops" in order to extract the maximum value from the wallet of the consumer.
Is Flora's Fruit Farm just a capitalist training tool for young gamers? Given that the third thing you learn how to do in the game is "Selling Fruit", I would, at this stage; answer emphatically, "Yes."
Especially so after you complete a day's trade, and are met with the following screen:
From here, the capitalistic empire of Flora's fruit farm grows from beyond her cottage (who financed that hut, anyway?) and extends way (and well) beyond her first plot of land onwards into a veritable empire of dust, fruit, fertaliser, and capitalism the likes of which the world has never seen before in a video game.
It is a challenging game, with you being the sole farm hand, responsible for all the tasks necessary for growing the farm - singing to trees, cutting fruit; and throwing sparkly deception dust on the crop; while customers wait impatiently for you to deliver them their surely (fine) nutritional needs in a timely manner.
Overall, it is a time wasting mini game, and would probably be an exceptionally wealth-producing game if one could only pull themselves up by the boot straps and do this in the real world.
This game is an idealistic representation of what a farm really should (And could be) - however, the modern world has snatched away idealistic notions from our very hands, so Flora's Fruit Farm may just be a deceptively elusive title.
A cultural and historical marvel, perhaps - if you look at the game as a purely intellectual exercise through the lens of George Orwells "Animal Farm". Looking at this game in the context of a game, with everything else in the industry surrounding it, this is just a fungal infection upon the gaming industry.
There's better stuff out there to play. Go play that instead. Or, make like Flora, and sing to trees, throw dust at your crops, and sell fruit to passers by, and become a sucrose oligarch.
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