Slime Rancher is currently free to Xbox Live Gold Members who download it in the month of August, and is available for purchase on Steam. The gameplay consists of running an interstellar farm where players suck up the cute creatures known as slimes and feed them fruit, vegetables and meat so they can sell the crystals slimes excrete (plorts). On the surface, it’s a simple farming simulator, but it’s addicting and worth a try! Here’s five tips to get your ranch started on the right foot.

Invest Smart

Investing in the wrong plots early game doesn’t necessarily hurt your farm at all, it just makes it a much longer process to earn money. You only have a limited number in your starting area, and they cost money to dig up. For example, one of the first plots I bought was a chicken coop to help feed my tabby slimes, but these slimes quickly escaped and ate my chickens in the night, a tragedy. As a result, I had no money to build higher walls on the slime plots and my chicken coop stood empty and useless for a few days. My best tip here is to buy a few plots for various slimes, and then a farming plot so you can grow your own food. It’s also worth investing in the higher walls/air barriers for the plots as it stops the larger slimes from jumping out… and eating all those chickens you spent so much time harvesting.

Keep Them Separated

Early in game it can be tempting to just throw all the slimes you have into the same pen, or just leave them wandering around your farm. Don’t do it. If a larger slime eats a plort that isn’t one of its base colors, it turns into the tarr, a multicolored blob of nasty that goes around destroying all your slimes and attacking you. The only way to get rid of the tarr is to either toss them very far away (tedious if there’s more than one), wash them off with water (for which you need an upgrade), or incinerate them (which takes up a plot). All of those options are going to cost money, and it’s much easier to just invest in a couple of tall-fenced plots than to deal with the tarr.

Don’t Worry About Plort Prices (At First)

One of the main mechanics in Slime Rancher is selling plorts (the strange rocks that slimes produce when fed) on the open market. The prices of plorts go up and down depending on the day and other factors in game. It can be tempting to try and hold out for pink plorts to go up in price, but initially players just need the coins so they can upgrade their farm. Where it really matters is when the player is selling rarer plorts, and even then, it can be frustrating holding onto them as they take up inventory space. Eventually you can purchase a silo to hold plorts until they are valuable, but to start, it’s best to just sell the lesser ones. Later on, if you want to get really into plort trading, it’s best to make a spreadsheet of their prices so you can track when they are moving up, down, or are at their all-time highs/lows. Yes, slime rancher gets you to track stock in an Excel sheet…

Smash Crates

Scattered around the world are small wooden crates that can be smashed open by sucking them to your gun and then tossing them at a rock. These often contain rare slimes, fruits, and plorts. It’s a small thing, but I initially ignored them and missed out. You will also notice treasure pods hanging around, but you won’t be able to open them until after purchasing the lab (an area just behind your house), and it’s going to cost 10,000 coins.

Keep a Variety

It’s easy to cross-breed all of your slimes initially to create larger versions that can eat anything (the smaller versions usually have only one food group), but keeping a variety can be helpful. The trade post in the middle of your ranch will often ask for base level slimes, and they can be a pain to run out and get. The easiest solution is to begin keeping a variety of slimes, fruits, and plorts in stock as soon as possible. The trading post offers great deals and can help net you some quick resources or coins. This is another good argument for investing in a silo early on as the rewards are worth it.

Do you have any tips for beginners we missed? Let us know in the comments section or reach out on Facebook/Twitter.