Amid rave reviews and 200,000 sales, Idle Stardew Valley-style farming sim dev can hardly believe their success: "I'm only now realizing how life-changing this is"

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Rusty's Retirement is a certified hit

Rusty's Retirement
(Image credit: Mister Morris Games)

The developer of adorable Stardew Valley-style farming sim says that they're "just coming to terms" with their smash success.

Last month, Jordan Morris released Rusty's Retirement, an idle farming game. Sitting at the bottom (or side) of your screen, the game largely plays itself, but in your role as farm supervisor, you can instruct Rusty to plant crops or build new structures. Five days after release, Morris announced that the game had surpassed 100,000 sales - seemingly spawning a new idle genre in the process.

Earlier this week, Morris offered a sales update, announcing that the game has doubled that total, with 200,000 copies sold in less than three weeks. But the period after launch has been so busy for the game's solo developer that he's only just starting to realize the impact it's likely to have.

"It's been a little over two weeks since the release of Rusty's Retirement," Morris said in a tweet. "Since release, I've had my fixing hat on, and I'm only now realizing how life-changing this is." It's hard to get a real sense of how much Morris has made through Rusty's Retirement, but as a solo, self-published developer, there are fewer costs involved than most studios would have to contend with.

Financial success, of course, is far from the be-all-and-end-all of game development, and Morris also says that he feels "incredibly proud to have made something that genuinely brings people joy."

Fancy a return to the simple life? Check out our list of games like Stardew Valley to keep you farming for hours.

Ali Jones
Ali Jones
Managing Editor, News

I'm GamesRadar's Managing Editor for news, shaping the news strategy across the team. I started my journalistic career while getting my degree in English Literature at the University of Warwick, where I also worked as Games Editor on the student newspaper, The Boar. Since then, I've run the news sections at PCGamesN and Kotaku UK, and also regularly contributed to PC Gamer. As you might be able to tell, PC is my platform of choice, so you can regularly find me playing League of Legends or Steam's latest indie hit.