Finally, you can grow your own Weed Empire on consoles. Weedcraft Inc. has been out for quite some time on PC, and now it is pretty dope to see it available from the comfort of your couch. Sorry, I could not see a way to ignore a bad pun. With backwards compatibility, you can play on new-gen consoles such as Xbox Series X, which is the platform I played on myself.

You are a college dropout that decides to help your brother with his weed business, starting with a basement in which you can start to grow, tend and make mixes to your heart’s content. The growing system is quite rewarding, but it can be tricky at times to get the correct levels for better quality supply. Over time, you can add new lighting, fans, and temperature controls, making it a more detailed approach to a simulation built around drug growing.

Then you have the opportunity to hire employees to help sell and grow. This seems like a dream; just sit back and let the money roll in, but no, be prepared for working conditions politics, people poaching and building enough relationships with your staff that they are happy to stay.

Competition is rife. You will need to make decisions on your selling costs and quality and make some decisions that can make a relationship very aggressive and volatile.

Eventually, you will get an opportunity to build a front business to lower police attention, which is another form of income as selling at the beginning is to the lower levels of society. Over time, your clients will become people higher in society with more money in their pockets to have a treat for the weekend. You start in Michigan but can start to spread your reach and have a place in growing in legal areas, which brings a whole new dynamic.

The controls I found were a little difficult to master, the selection system for different parts of the UI was quite fiddly and more suited to a mouse. Choosing between the city view and the grow room was one of my biggest frustrations, as they are both so close together on the UI. As Weedcraft Inc uses a menu system for its gameplay, rather than the typical point-and-click, it can become quite a task to get to the correct areas needed for your current objective while using a controller.

The hand-drawn style graphics mixed in with 3D effect landscapes make it stand out to me. I am a sucker for cartoons or hand-drawn art when it comes to showing vibrancy and sharpness with today’s technology. The soundtrack is chilled and soothing but can become quite repetitive after a time, which can be a good thing for content creators with the feared DMCA strikes, or a curse if you like to play alone.

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised with the game and its playability, but I may be guilty of seeing too many mobile games attempting to do this style of game in an idle play style. This is a lot more hands-on and more detailed than expected, and I would recommend it to any simulation fans.

Written by: Kevin Lal