Tiny Pasture is the perfect idle game for people who can’t keep their Tamagotchi alive

Just before writing this, one of my hamsters dropped a massive turd at the bottom of my screen. Looks awfully pleased with himself too, the little furball – it’s about two times his size. But it's nothing my magical flying poop-scoop broom can’t handle, because that’s what Tiny Pasture is all about: experiencing the joys of a virtual pet without the struggles.

As a pet simulation game specifically designed to be played during work or study time, Tiny Pasture is built on an unusual concept. Gaming and working doesn’t sound like the most productive or desirable match, but with nearly 20K peak daily players since it came out on Steam, I figured it must be doing something right.

Twenty-plus hours later, and I’m having a blast with one of the least demanding digipet games I’ve ever played. Take that, Tamagotchi.

Zombie zoo

Due to the ‘farming sim’ genre tag, I was expecting a toned-down version of Stardew Valley upon entering my tiny pasture for the first time. Except for the gorgeous pixel art, they have little in common. While you could grow a few plants in your pixelated pasture, all you really need to do is get a baby animal, feed it, remove its droppings from time to time, and watch it grow into a healthy adult. As long as it stays alive, the grown-up critter will generate coins over time, thus allowing you to buy more creatures: hamsters, capybaras, red pandas, and – for some reason – slimes, ghosts, and zombies. I'll admit to being nervous when I bought my first zombie, and felt quite relieved when I saw him munching on a blueberry pie rather than my hamster.

But Tiny Pasture isn’t your average pet simulation game. As a ‘desktop overlay’ game, it only occupies a small (adjustable) horizontal strip near the bottom of your screen. The gameplay is ‘idle’, which means the animals only require sporadic care while you work, study, watch YouTube videos, or even play other games. The rest of the time, just glance at the lower end of the screen to watch your critters sleep, bounce around, eat cheese (they have an odd diet), and defile your status bar.

Doesn’t that remind you of something? Tiny Pasture feels awfully similar to keeping a Tamagotchi, the famous (or infamous, if you ask '90s parents) virtual Japanese pet. It may sound like an easy comparison to make, but in this case, it’s not so much the ‘raise a virtual pet’ schtick as it is the manner of raising it. Instead of playing a simulation in active time, Tiny Pasture is meant to be a background activity, just like a Tamagotchi. You pick it up, play for a minute, then put it down again.

Admittedly, I was equally excited and terrified upon making this discovery as my Tamagotchi track record ain’t that great. About a year and a half ago, I got myself an original Angelgotchi from 1997, and long story short, it never lives long. Whether it’s my work ethic or my digital dependent, something’s always got to give… And now here I am, attempting to raise a digipet yet again. Dang.

Imagine my relief, then, when I realized that even a total of 15 pasture pets aren’t nearly as demanding as a single Tamagotchi. It took a few hours to get there, but Tiny Pasture makes it possible to create a fully self-sufficient zoo, complete with tax-collector bees, a food-dropping tree house, and a poop-scooping magic broom (as evidenced by the picture above, I really needed that last one). Just try to keep the first few animals alive until you get these pasture upgrades, and you can safely go for a number two yourself – your pets will still be alive and thriving when you return.

Less is more

You might be wondering how these digipets are fun if they don’t require care, but that’s the thing: I can care for them whenever I want. I can pet my parrots, feed mushrooms to my panda bears, and wake my zombies from their graves, but I don’t have to do it. I can also dedicate myself to animal breeding, collecting all fur colours, and improving the animals’ rarity levels, but nothing will happen if I choose to ignore it all – they’ll brighten up my screen nonetheless.

Tamagotchi’s challenging nature sounds better on paper, but in reality, it doesn’t match a typical workday at all. Besides, the process of feeding, petting, and playing is always the same, turning it into a chore rather than a game. I’m quite thrilled to have found something less bothersome to give me that sensation of playing a game and having a pet.

That’s not to say I don’t occasionally suffer from intrusive thoughts such as “imagine how cool a bunch of mini-games would be” or “a manual grooming mechanic would be so much fun” when I look at Tiny Pasture, but then I have to remind myself that I would surely get too distracted by such nonsense, resulting in the game’s permanent banishment from my PC. So, Tiny Pasture, you better stay passive and perfect. Somehow, that works – and I work too.

You can play Tiny Pasture alongside any of the best PC games we've hand-picked for the platform