The Farmer Was Replaced
by Timon Herzog · 2025
8.6
house score
The verdict
The rare incremental that makes you smarter. You don't grind numbers — you write real code to automate a farm and then spend hours shaving milliseconds off your own algorithms. It's a programming teacher wearing an idle-game costume, and it earns its 9/10-ish Steam standing.
Hot take
Calling this an 'idle game' is almost a bait-and-switch — it's the most active game on the site. If you don't want to think in loops and conditionals, you will bounce off it in ten minutes. Everyone else should own it.
Screenshots
The facts
| Developer | Timon Herzog |
| Released | 2025 |
| Status | active |
| Platforms | steam, windows, macos, linux |
| Primary mechanic | write Python-like code to program a drone that tills, plants, and harvests a farm for you, then optimize the script until the whole operation runs unattended |
| Prestige system | no numbers-go-up reset layer — progression is gated by unlocking harder programming problems and better tech, not by prestiging |
| Active vs idle | active-heavy |
| Offline progress | No |
| Monetization | paid |
| Pay to win | No |
| Complexity | brutal |
| Est. length | dozens of hours; open-ended optimization once you finish the tech tree |
incrementalprogrammingautomationsteamcodingoptimizationpaid
Appears on
Last verified by the Almanac: 2026-10-19