The player controls a character named Beatrix LeBeau, a rancher who moves to a planet far from Earth called the Far Far Range to live the life of a "slime rancher", which consists of constructing her ranch and exploring the world of the Far Far Range in order to collect, raise, feed, and breed slimes. Slimes are gelatinous living organisms of various sizes and characteristics. To progress she has notes left by the former owner of the ranch that help her on her journey through the Far Far Range.
The game's main economic aspect revolves around feeding slimes the appropriate food items so that they produce "plorts", which can then be sold in exchange for Newbucks, which can be used to purchase upgrades to the rancher's equipment or farm buildings. Except for the basic pink slime, slimes will only eat one of the three types of food; fruit, veggie, and meat. Slimes have a favorite food, if they eat this food they will produce double the normal number of plorts. The player moves the character around a variety of environments and can collect slimes, food items, and plorts by sucking them up with their vacuum tool (called a "Vacpack", a portmanteau of vacuum and backpack). They can only store a limited number of items and item types at a time and must go back to their ranch to unload their collected items before being able to collect more. The player must buy and upgrade various enclosures to house their collected slimes and farms for storing their food. Upgrades can also be aesthetic upgrades to the character's home, Vacpack, and the ranch itself.
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