A Review of Tap Ranch

First of all sorry for the long absence on the blog. I don't have a good excuse for you so I won't waste your time with a poor one.

Well, then on to business! There was a request a while ago after I reviewed Tap Birds to do a similar review for Tap Ranch. Unfortunately at the time, my play time on TR consisted of a whole ten minutes. Having played up to level 16 now, I feel I can make a good review of the game.

First, I have to admit I was lukewarm about this game going into it. While TB and TF offer beautiful backgrounds, and pretty fish and birds, Tap Ranch didn't really appeal to me artistically. Who wants to to site around watching a cartoon chicken bob its head around? I also had trouble with the name. a ranch is normally a large farm that specializes in one animal (my grandfather had a mink ranch, for example). This game seems more like a homestead, which may be part of its appeal. It projects nostalgia about how farm life used to be before all the big companies took it over.

Now, on to the game. Let's start with the good points. Bay View's third game has definitely eliminated a lot of the irritating aspects of TF and TB. First, there is no need to switch tanks or aviaries. All of your farm is in front of you all the time. You just pinch to zoom in and out. The algae and poop has been eliminated along with the constant feeding. Instead of tapping 50 times to feed, you just tap once a day to water and all is well. They also have a one hour sunflower for those who don't like waiting the standard four. The graphics, while cartoonish, are acceptable, except for the rabbits that look more like pigs. The best are the bee who do a little jig above the alfalfa before producing honey.

Tap Ranch is also a wonderful game for those who like mathematical calculations. The calculations are quite complex since a product could go through many changes. Should I just sell my alfalfa for the 5 coin profit or should I buy a beehive and a cow to earn an extra ten coin profit? These are all questions a speedster like myself would consider as we race to the end. Unfortunately the end is not well defined here, but perhaps a mansion on the biggest plot of land would be a good finale.

But there are problems with Tap Ranch, which revolved around the use of the Ranch Buck currency. Ranch bucks cost the same as Bird Bucks and Fish Bucks, but the prices are much higher. Some of the crops, such as raspberries are bought with Ranch Bucks, which doesn't make sense to me, since they are not decorative, are not particularly profitable, and are sold off in a couple of hours, never to be seen again. Who would waste 3 RB on that?

The biggest problem however, is the livestock feeding feature. Many of the crops, Corn, Wheat, etc, can be fed to animals or processed in machines to increase profit. For example, I can feed corn to my chickens and they will produce eggs. This is all good and interesting, but the problem is that it takes for ages for the chickens to process a good-sized harvest of corn. Each egg takes a minute, and I can only put in three-eggs worth of corn in at a time. I also have to collect the eggs and put them into my inventory before I can sell them. This all takes time, lots of it, and sorry to say there are few things as boring in the gaming world as watching chickens dunking for corn and waiting for an egg to pop out. Sorry to say, but I have better things to do.

The only way to solve this problem is to either sell my crops without giving it to the animals and therefore forgo the extra profit or by using automatic operations (AO). AOs make the feeding and collecting processes automatic. Leaving you free of this boredom. Problem is they cost RB, a lot of them (granted they are on sale right now as I write this). You get 20 free ones with every level up but they only last a minute. You need 15,000 pack for 400 Rb if you want any freedom from this nightmare. Of course that will set you back $20 or so, and even those 15,000 will only last you about a month. Is TR worth, $20 a month? Not for me it isn't but perhaps for some.

In short, I played TR quite regularly for a week, got up to level 16, but got too tired looking at my cows, sheep, bees, chicken chewing away to continue. Perhaps if the RB prices were to fall a bit and more AO were given I might want to continue, but in its present state I'll pass. For those of you who want to relive the homestead life,however, please give it a look.