Pixel Homestead

Farming RPG

Pixel Homestead is a full country-life farming RPG, and the deepest game in the RobuxClicker Arcade. You inherit a run-down farm and slowly turn it into a thriving homestead: grow crops through four seasons, raise animals, mine, fish, cook, craft, befriend a whole town of thirty-four neighbours, and — if you like — get married and settle down.

About the game

If you have ever lost a weekend to a cozy farming game, Pixel Homestead will feel instantly familiar. It is built in the spirit of Stardew Valley: a calm, open-ended country-life simulator with no timer counting you down and no way to lose. You arrive at a neglected family farm with a few tools and a handful of seeds, and from there the game simply hands you the days and lets you decide what to do with them.

A day runs from 6:00 in the morning until 2:00 the next morning, when your character has to sleep. Each day belongs to one of four seasons — Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter — that last twenty-eight days each, so a full year is a hundred and twelve days. Seasons change what grows, which fish are biting, what the weather does, and which festival is coming up. The gentle pressure of the calendar is the only pressure there is: a crop planted too late in a season simply will not finish before the frost, but nothing punishes you for a slow day.

Underneath the calm surface is a genuinely large game. Eight connected maps — your Farm, the Town, the Beach, the Forest, the Mountain, the Mine, the Desert and a far Island — are yours to wander. Every sprite, from a stalk of corn to a townsperson's face, is drawn from data in code rather than loaded as an image file, so the whole game starts quickly and runs at a smooth sixty frames per second on a 960 by 540 canvas. It plays the same on a laptop or a phone, and your progress is saved right in your browser, with three separate save slots to share.

Ready to start your farm? Launch Pixel Homestead and come back here whenever you want a refresher on the controls or the strategy below.

How to play

Pixel Homestead opens on a title screen where you create a character and name your farm, then drops you into your first morning. The controls below are the full set. Most of the game is one button: walk up to something, face it, and interact.

On a computer

• Move: the arrow keys or W, A, S, D. Hold Shift to sprint at double speed.
• Interact / use a tool: E. The same key talks to a neighbour, harvests a ripe crop, opens a chest or a shop, pets an animal, and uses whatever tool you are holding on the tile you face.
• Select a hotbar slot: the number keys 1 through 0, plus - and = for slots 11 and 12.
• Open screens: I for the inventory, M for the map, C for crafting, K for cooking (once your kitchen is built), and Tab for the friendship screen.
• Fish: F casts the rod when you are holding it near water.
• Advance dialogue / confirm: Space.
• Menu / close a screen: Escape.

On a phone or tablet

• Move: use the on-screen virtual directional pad in the lower-left corner.
• Interact / use a tool: tap the on-screen action button, which does the same job as the E key — talking, harvesting, and using tools.
• Menus: the touch action buttons also open the inventory and other screens, so a phone has the full game without a keyboard.

Tips and strategy

Pixel Homestead never explains everything at once. These tips will save your first few in-game weeks from the most common rookie mistakes.

1. Watch your energy bar. Every swing of the hoe, watering can, axe or pickaxe spends energy from a pool of 270. When it hits zero you can still work, but each tool use costs 2 health and you move at half speed. Stop before you bottom out, eat some food, or simply head to bed.
2. Sleep before midnight. Going to bed before 12:00 AM restores your energy fully the next morning. Sleep later and you wake up with less; stay up past 2:00 AM and you pass out, lose some gold, and wake with only half a tank.
3. Water every crop, every day. A crop only advances a growth stage on nights it was watered. Skipping a day will not kill the plant, but it stalls — so a crop you forget to water just sits there wasting calendar days.
4. Plant for the season's length. Check a seed's total growth days before you buy it. A crop that needs thirteen days is a waste if you plant it on day 20, because every crop dies the instant its season ends.
5. Buy a Scarecrow early. Without one, crows have a small chance each clear night to eat a random crop. A single Scarecrow protects everything within an eight-tile radius, and it only costs wood, fiber and coal to craft.
6. Save up for Sprinklers. Watering by hand is fine for a few plants, but it does not scale. A basic Sprinkler waters four tiles automatically at 6:00 AM; the Quality and Iridium versions water eight and twenty-four, freeing your mornings for mining, fishing and friendships.
7. Use the elevator in the Mine. The Mine is 120 floors deep, and an elevator stop is unlocked every five floors you reach. You never have to climb down from the top again — ride the elevator to your deepest stop and carry on, and treasure floors appear every tenth level.
8. Learn what each neighbour loves. Giving a townsperson a gift they love adds far more friendship than a gift they merely like, and a loved gift on their birthday is worth eight times as much. Talk to people daily — the first chat each day always counts.

Game details

Pixel Homestead is a long game with no ending you are pushed toward. Here is the shape of what is waiting for you.

Eight maps

Your Farm, the Town, the Beach, the Forest, the Mountain, the Mine, the Desert and a remote Island, all connected and explorable at your own pace.

Four seasons

Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter run twenty-eight days each. Every season has its own crops, fish, foraged plants, weather and festival, and the whole world changes colour with it.

Farming

More than two dozen crop varieties across the seasons, each with its own growth time, seed cost and sale value — plus fertilizer, regrowing crops, giant crops, and sprinklers to automate the watering.

Thirty-four neighbours

A full town of named characters with birthdays, daily schedules and gift tastes. Ten of them can be dated and married once you reach ten hearts of friendship.

Mining and combat

A 120-floor mine with procedurally generated layouts, copper, iron, gold and iridium ore, gems and geodes, eleven kinds of monster, and a row of swords to fight them with.

Fishing

A timing mini-game with a moving catch bar and more than twenty-five species of fish, each appearing in particular seasons, places, times of day and weather.

Cooking and crafting

Dozens of cooking recipes that restore energy and grant temporary skill buffs, and a deep crafting list of sprinklers, machines, fences, paths, bombs and totems.

Animals

Chickens, ducks, rabbits, cows, goats, sheep and pigs, kept in a coop or barn, raised on daily feeding and petting, and producing eggs, milk, wool and truffles.

Skills and progression

Five skills — Farming, Mining, Fishing, Foraging and Combat — each levelling from 0 to 10, with a choice of profession specialisations at level 5 and level 10.

Festivals, marriage and the Community Center

Eight seasonal festivals, a full marriage path with a wedding and a farmhouse you can upgrade, and a town Community Center restored by donating themed bundles of items.

Frequently asked questions