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Can you play Rusty’s Retirement while at work and still get work done?Let’s find out

Let’s find out

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Mister Morris Games

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Mister Morris Games

The title screen for Rusty’s Retirement, an idle game you can play over the top of other work.

I’m playingRusty’s Retirementas I type this article. This cute farming sim runs at the bottom of your screen as you go about your working day. You can plant crops, hire watering robots, harvest blueberry bushes, raise pigs, all while validating the spreadsheets from Paula in accounts. Paula! Where are the running totals!? I can’t find the running t- oh, they’re under the turnips. Sorry, Paula. My bad.

Wednesday

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Mister Morris Games

Chatting with work mates while playing farming sim Rusty’s Retirement.

Like I say, these games are often called “idlers”. The name is half accurate. They’re designed to keep you clicking but also to partially automate said clicking so your imaginary income increases even as you step away. But you will always step back. They are the dream of “passive income” made fleetingly real. The raw psychology of game design stripped of illusion and reduced, like so much balsamic, to a simple-minded accumulation of numbers. Mere trickery, beneath those of us with refined tastes.

I plant some wheat and am immediately addicted.

I do lots more work today. I swear. I just don’t remember what it was.

Thursday

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Mister Morris Games

The main menu of Hades 2 is running while Rusty’s Retirement lies on top of the same screen.

This will be a challenge. Neuroscientific research shows that effective multitasking is basically a myth, and that the human organism canbarely count to twenty while doing other tasks. I can corroborate this fact. Six paragraphs deep into my article on the god-bashing sequel and I finally notice that Rusty is sitting on his bench doing sweet nothing.

I plant many new crops: corn, onions, lettuce. I buy more plots of land to exploit. I install biofuel generators and build a stall for a mouse-like being who sells cosmetics. I purchase a sunflower in a panicked state of anxiety, knowing that I need to make the screenshots of this game look presentable.

As the work day marches on I constantly flip-flop between Rusty, a Hades 2 document, the roguelike itself, and the notes for the feature you are reading right now. I also do a news post aboutstudios being closed downand discover you can move Rusty’s buildings around with a special tool. 20 minutes of the work day vanishes in nit-picky rearranging of robot stations. I must work! Did you know you can play Rusty’s Retirement literally on top of playing other games?

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Mister Morris Games

Hades 2 is running while Rusty’s Retirement plays over the top on the same screen.

My head hurts.

Friday

My top tip for progressing in Rusty’s Retirement is to turn the music off at once.

During the morning meeting, in which the RPS staff discuss daily plans while looking at one another’s real, flesh-and-blood faces, I distractedly remark on the tasks I have to do today. Planting tomatoes and investing in a fertilizing robot is not something I bring to the table, but it is on my mind. Deputy editor Alice B reminds me that I have aFinal Fantasytop ten article to update, which I have entirely forgotten about amid the rows of onion and celery. I promise to get it done.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Mister Morris Games

A journalist checks their article before publishing, while playing Rusty’s Retirement.

I play Rusty’s Retirement while refusing to think too deeply aboutFinal Fantasy VII Rebirth, a game which I bought, played, and sold quicker than a wheat stalk ripens in Rusty’s Retirement. I draft a news story aboutMarvel vs. Capcom Infinite, with one bazillion tabs open. Rusty and his helpers harvest the green peas and pinto beans I have unlocked as I struggle to write full sentences about shaders. I plant blueberry bushes and desperately flail between SEO documents and watering bots. My heart is pounding. This is hell.

I continue my quest to update the top ten Final Fantasy list and thanks to Splunk I feel far less need to check the farm. But this may have more to do with finally turning off the “Always on top” option and hiding Rusty’s Retirement beneath my work. In this heightened state of consciousness, I get entire paragraphs done, entire HTML tags prepped, and I only once, twice, perhaps seven times, check in on the aubergines and pumpkins.

Verdict: can you really work while playing Rusty’s Retirement?

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Mister Morris Games

I am a video game journalist. Which means I can easily work while playing Rusty’s Retirement, because it is my job to play and write about Rusty’s Retirement. I can play Rusty’s Retirement while working on an article about whether you can work on articles while playing Rusty’s Retirement. It is that simple. Does the idle farming game (Rusty’s Retirement) cause stressful overthinking and a magpie-like habit of flopping from one task to another, never truly finishing a thought or formulating a—

One moment, just have to delete a few tabs.

—formulating a coherent working routine? I leave that question to the neuroscientists. Personally, I feel my productivity may have improved. After all, I got this piece written while simultaneously writing other (more important) pieces. It is not one of ourbest farming games. But it does scratch a certain itch. And I only got scolded for being late to meetings once (I’ve got a lot on,Graham) Anyway, at the end of this experiment I can draw two conclusions.

  1. You can press the down arrow key to make the farm’s window thinner in Rusty’s Retirement, which leaves more room for real work while also revealing extra land to grow more crops. I discovered this on my last day of farming.

And…

  1. If you want to feel truly productive about your work, get some freak called “Splunk” to do it for you.