Only last week, I was writing about idle games with Kernelbay and that difficulty in writing anything new when a game is left to its own devices. Here: review this stick insect jaw. Tame-a-goat-chi is the latest in that line-up of DriveWave and Whimside, where you can write away on your website about a game that you can spectate while multitasking. It’s so versatile, you could even play this game whilst using YouTube, ChatGPT, or catching up on Netflix shows.
However, if you just want to play the voyeur, then you’d be best off sticking with Netflix or heading to the local zoo. With Rio Master’s Early Access title, you do need to be proactive with your herd of goats. Actually, you can automate it, but it’s not worth it. The point of this being a game, even in an idler, is to interact.
Tame-a-goat-chi begins with a goat and a turf of land that sits above your taskbar. Said goat will plod back and forth with some thought bubble notifications indicating that it’s hungry, thirsty, needs a dump, bored, or needs a scrub and some pruning. Almost always, it will need some love from its master. You. The ways we interact with our digi goats is simple enough: click on the food, then drop it to watch them eat. Water is more a case of them leading themselves there, as well as toys that you can plonk in front of them.
Like all these sorts of games, you can give them a little love and move the cursor over them and interact with some toys, and then that would be your basic setup. Where Tame-a-goat-chi is different to others is the features. First, you can click on a barn to hire workers. With each worker, you can assign them different tasks so you can work on your review. This includes feeding or even entertaining them. With each new worker comes a hike in price, and to earn money is to keep your goats happy.
Note the plural: new goats can be purchased to play with one another, and you can game them anything you like that isn’t simply #2. A minibus on the side of the screen presents your options, including a shop that allows you to buy new members for your farm, structures to brighten the place up, as well as toys and crops to grow that can assist with the feeding and variety. Perhaps the most interesting feature is the minigame.
Though Tame-a-goat-chi is an idler, there’s enough to interact with, and these minigames include Angry Bird-like catapults to ping goats at one another, and variations of football and billiards. As you progress down the list, they cost to play, but will be rewarded with more coins to be able to buy new stuff, as well as increase the stats of your goats to improve their skills in these games. Additionally, each goat has their own personality, too, so some are a bit easier to get on with, while others are high maintenance and should be put down. That’s not an option.
And that’s about it. Tame-a-Goat-Chi is a simple idler desktop companion that is pleasant on the eye and not too taxing on your computer. I’ve been watching them pace the floor the whole time I’ve been writing this and found myself quite entertained.
