Der Milchbauer

It's really, really hard for me to give this game a review. First of all: It's a very small game, don't expect anything big. It's more of a clicker game. You cannot be very active in terms of building visible new buidlings. You can upgrade buildings, but just via text. The whole game takes place on two screens: The farm screen and the stable screen. There is no tutorial or anything like this, nothing is getting explained, yet the handling is pretty simple and I guess it's part of the game to explore the few mechanics by yourself. You start off pretty empty with 50k bucks and no cows at all. First step is obviously buying some cows and sell the milk. The nice thing is, the whole game was built around real data from German farmers. The price you get for your milk changes every day and is NEVER really high. The daily routine is also pretty simple: Feed your cows with special food, sell milk, maybe sell calves, and every few weeks seed the cows, repeat. Buy upgrades if you need them. That's it. When you get used to the few steps it really is nothing more than a clicker game. Also it is pretty easy to gain money once you learn how the mechanics work and what to do. The good thing is …

This is an interactive spreadsheet disguised as a dairy farm management simulator, basically. You click buttons and watch numbers go up or down. Lots...and lots...of buttons. Not a bad way to burn through a few hours apart from the longer you play the more bugged it gets. A relatively minor recurring bug would be the inability to feed your cows improved rations for the first month after you load a saved game. A relatively major one? The ending's broken - every month past December 2020 sees your cows cease milk and calf production rather than give you a proper campaign end screen like going bankrupt does. Statistics tracking is also fragged for some reason. Achievements too seem to be a bit...off, although most of them work. I'd love to recommend this were it patched but seeing as SteamDB lists Der Milchbauer's last depot update as over five years ago I doubt that'll ever happen. Avoid this one.

If you need to speed up your carpal tunnels inflamation, this game is your best choice. Buying 300 cows => clicking 300times (+), no +5 , +10, mark with shift etc... If you want to inseminate the 300 cows you have to click 300times, but also need to scroll in slowly reacting list. The worst GUI execution is dragging this game completely down. And with the real economic data, well I am not really sure. Its better to buy the cows and sell them when they stop milking and buy new ones, than to inseminate them. Does not sound reallistic to me.