Atomicrops mashes up mechanics to make a game that is as fiendishly difficult as it is hard to put down, drawing on elements of the bullet-hell, tower defense, farming sim, and roguelike genres. With so much going on under the hood, and a tutorial that gave you the bare minimum, you end up learning a lot on the fly.
While learning new things is part of the experience, some things either slip through the cracks that you might never learn or things that blindside you and lead to some unfair game-overs. Here are some facts about the game that will keep you armed and farming, all the way to the Nuclear Winter and beyond.
8 Merge! That! Produce!
The tutorial tells you that you can use fertilizer to increase the value of your crops, but it leaves out that if you plant four of the same crop in a square formation and fertilize them, they fuse into a mega crop that is worth much more than any single crop. This also applies to special crops like Heart Beets and Roses, which will give you a bonus rose or beet.
While you may end up figuring all this out on your own, what’s even less obvious is that you can also do this with TREES, forming mega trees with more plentiful and more valuable fruit.
7 Sunflowers, How Do They Work?
Sunflowers are one of the most profitable crops in the game and are rarer than most other seeds, but you wouldn’t know that if you just planted them and waited to water them like other crops, only for them to die on the spot.
That’s because Sunflowers don’t work like other crops. Once you plant them you have a short time to fertilize them as much as possible before they die. Like every other crop, the mega version of the Sunflower yields a much better profit for your investment.
6 Early Game Is Super Important
While it’s good to play as skillfully and efficiently throughout an entire run, what you do early on in a run in Atomicrops can be vital, akin to the foundation that you need to build to success. As such, you may want to consider making decisions for short-term gains in Spring even if they’re not efficient, like planting a single sunflower and fertilizing it instead of waiting for enough for a mega sunflower.
Early income means better weapons early on, which means easier fights and more time on the farm, and more resources saved, which can snowball you into a win by the time Nuclear Winter comes.
5 Don’t Rush Into Marriage
Courtship and marriage are a pretty sweet deal, especially in Atomicrops. Every time you flirt with a marriage candidate between days on the farm, you get an upgrade and if you do it enough (at an increasing cost of roses), they’ll marry you, netting a unit that can fight alongside your or help out at your farm.
However, like in real life, you don’t need to rush it and if you do, you might regret it. If they have the upgrades you want, then court away, but keep in mind that the upgrades they offer change every day so if they don’t have anything you want, you can hold off until they offer something you do. Just don’t wait too long, because also like in real life, you’ll want an extra gunhand with you during the Nuclear Winter.
4 Robusta = Hard Mode
All the characters provide an interesting twist to gameplay because of their different load-outs and unique powers but provide a similar gameplay difficulty across the board. Except for Robusta, who basically turns the game difficulty into hard mode.
Robusta starts with the Coffee Addict upgrade and which speeds up the whole game — you, enemies, bullets, etc. In a game where the screen can quickly fill up with harmful objects, having everything go faster can be quite taxing if your reflexes can’t keep up. At least he gets a drone, too.
3 Oregacrow is Something Else
While not necessarily more difficult, Oregacrow operates differently from all the other characters, almost to the degree that he’s playing a different game, at least with farming and resource management.
The only non-special seeds he acquires are corn (or rice, with an upgrade), and he gets better seeds by merging and harvesting crops. In ascending order of quality they are corn, then rice, then tomato, then oregano. Oregano is unique to Oregacrow and vital in his progression and health. Also, he doesn’t use heart beets and the method he has to heal isn’t as powerful or reliable, but if you’re doing well, you have the option to gain items and buffs instead.
2 Fighting Stat Is King
There are only two stats to keep track of in a run: fighting and farming. While other stats exist, these are the only ones with a tracking meter, which you can see by the info screen. The fighting stat increases the damage your weapons do and how fast you move.
While both stats are important, your fighting score has a much bigger influence on how your game is going to go. More damage means quicker camp clears and boss fights, which allow you to get more resources, avoid damage and scale better into later seasons. Not having a high enough damage can cause your run to fall apart, easily. However, if you find the amount of damage you do is high enough, you should still invest in farming because…
1 …You Can Only Beat The Final Boss With Crops
That’s right, if you get to the final boss and your farm game isn’t on point, you’re going to have a bad time and even the best weapons won't help much. The farming stat affects your tilling, weeding, and watering speed as well as the size of your watering pail, plus how many scrolls you can hold.
All these skills are helpful in your economy since the faster you can prep your farm, plant your crops, and water and harvest them, the more money you’ll make. These skills are applicable in the final battle since the boss only takes damage when you harvest crops and the higher quality crops you harvest, the more damage the boss will take.