Wild Indigo Ranch guide

Wild Indigo Ranch: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Firstly, hand on heart as they say, this is a great little game. It’s different, it’s quirky, and generally fun. There’s treasure to find and some elements of strategy. Sure, there’s a certain about of grind – but nothing overwhelming, but mostly it’s about rebuilding your ranch, restoring a few western towns, and ousting the bad guys. Standard spaghetti western faire.

Here’s the offical trailer:

However, there are problems!

Rating the game is subjective, and depends on your play style but – in my opinion – it was released too early, is buggy, and unfinished!

If you want a cheap, quick to complete game, sure, it’s a fair 7/10 (provided the save game doesn’t break and you have to start over!)

But, if you want a building game, something that lasts more than 10 to 20 hours, this is not for you. I’d give it a 3/10.

Oh yes, and there’s no cloud save – but they are save corruption issues.

There are multiple issues, which I’ll list later, but they include but are not limited to quests that cannot be handed in, saves getting corrupted, saves corrupted other saves(!), livestock that cannot be contained, scenery you can walk into – and fall through, buildings with few or no roof options, missing elements, elements that cannot be removed, missing translations all over the place, fences that are… *twitches*. Just everything about fences.

It was not and is not ready enough, complete enough nor stable enough to be called a full release!

They are many far better, far more stable games in the same price range. Stardew Valley, obviously, but I’d suggest Dinkum. Even though Dinkum is still in early access it’s already had 3 content patches, is almost entirely bug free (just the odd video glitch in on or two areas), and beats the living daylights out of Wild Indigo Ranch. It literally shames Wild Indigo by it’s completeness! Case in point, Wild Indigo reviews are “mixed” – and they don’t deserve even that, while Dinkum has 94% of feedback as very positive based on over 18,000 reviews!

In the first 3 weeks of release Wild Indigo Ranch needed to release a dozen patches, changes and hotfixes – and it’s still a broken mess. The mixed reviews reflect this!

Worse, the developers have been quiet for the past couple of weeks. Nothing is getting fixed and the only solution offered to major issues is “Well, start over”. They just are not understanding what people are telling them!

In fairness they may be mad busy fixing everything, but sometimes publishers will abandon projects if it’s not worth their effort to fix them. It has only been about 10 days since the last attempted hotfix, but already it’s giving abandoned vibes! I believe they are a German studio and you could argue ‘it’s a language barrier’, but it’s translated into a number of languages. Besides, if I can help Chinese players with stuff relating to these missing maps, literally translating from and to simplified Chinese, they can be more active!

In one instant – still unresolved – they released a hotfix to sort two bugs and broke more stuff. Their solution? Start over! You expect this in early access. A few times in Baldur’s Gate 3 they’d say, “OK, this patch means you’ll need to start over. That’s fine. But for a game barely a month into full release to shrug and say that “in order to get it to work you might have you might have to start a new adventure” – that’s is just WRONG!

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First things first!

About the first thing you’ll be expected to do it find the run down ranch and start a fire before you freeze in the night. Fun thing about fire, it burns. They can get out of control. Cage that beast first chance you get!

Safe campfire tip
After my ranch was set alight (yet again) and my rancher killed – again – by some animal stepping into the campfire, setting itself on fire and running amok, spreading flames, I decided enough is enough.

Horse meat was one temporary solution, albeit tempting, and certainly a step up from rat butt, but not a fix.

So I build a fence around the campfire!

The heat and light gets out, you can still toast rat butt and pretend they are marshmallows – and the dumb horses and longhorn don’t run into the flames and burn your ranch down. I call that a win!

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Gameplay and tactics

Sometimes it is more of a ‘learn to play’ point than a bug, though those mobs in that mine do indeed hit like a tank. Longhorns and bandits on horseback can also charge and one-shot you.

Solutions:

Firstly, if you are entering a new area, or a dangerous area, consider drop a sleeping mat and setting a new spawn point for a fast recovery.

Next and most importantly: food buffs. The more the better. You can increase your health up around 100 and greatly reduce piercing and slashing damaging etc

You can run or even ride backwards eating and firing to survive the fight (best to use keyboard numbers for this as it’s so easy – too easy – to mess up mouse clicks and get yourself killed ‘cos you accidentally dropped your gun).

Also – even in the mines – you can summon your horse and ride away, while firing backwards at the target.

Out in the sticks, you can get the jump on people and animals by hiding in grass and or ‘downwind’ of them.
(Just a shame you can’t snipe, but I guess that would make things too easy :) )

So, if they are facing away from from you, you can shoot them in the back. Might not kill them, but if you get a few hits in early, it can make a difference.

Finally, weapon (and ammo) progress makes a big difference. I’m playing on two computers (‘cos no cloud save).
In the first game I am mediocre with bows, with guns, but better will axes (melee), rushing in to attack, singing Monty Python’s Lumberjack song…
In the other game, I’m ‘The man with the golden gun’ The rifle is probably better but either by design – or not – Dawson’s gun doesn’t deteriorate with use.
(Such a shame that Betsy the Axe does deteriorate!)
Anyway, by the time you reach ‘gunslinger’ with crit hits and explosive rounds, those bandits ain’t so tough…

Mobs range in level from from I to V, so obviously their difficulty rises.

Weapons – theirs and yours – rise from I to V, as does ammo

Weapons skills have 30 levels and goes 1 to V.

Then there’s buff foods with damage mitigation / deduction that increase your health (up to 100)

Hats have their place too.

Then there’s range. Catapults are like ‘plink’, shotguns are just garbage, but the rifle, that’s sweet!

You can one-shot the level 5 gatlin’ gun wielding automatons with a rifle at high enough skills, and they can pierce, so you can kill the one(s) behind in the same shot!

Then there’s tactics like hiding in grass and attacking from behind.

I haven’t played with throwing dynamite, but that’s easy to dodge and survivable anyway, so not really devastating

*Glances at Devs*

There’s only one time and place where I’ve died – multiple times – and thought, “Oh COME ON!” and that was fighting automatons with gatlin’ guns.
Dying in a hail of bullets ‘cos they spawn – and swarm – so fast…
“OK, I got this… Just gotta kill them faster!”

Dying because one or more are hiding around the back of the machine and you can’t see them, can’t target them, and only know they even there when you get hit by a hailstorm of steel from point blank.

In fairness they sorted this latter issue by slowing their spawn rate to a more manageable level. Initally they were spitting them out! Anything less that a gatling gun and unlimited ammo and you’d be in trouble, so obviously they didn’t test that with realistic settings at first, either!

Weirdest death? On my farm. Surrounded by loving cattle, all hearts. Milked one – and they went crazy and trampled me! One-shot. Did not see that coming!

Oh and the time a longhorn pushed me into a camp fire, set me on fire. Then stood over the fire and set himself afire – then run around the camp, setting fire to my crops, my workshop, my bedrolls, the barn… I was running around like a lunatic with a watering can trying to put out all the fires – starting with myself! (Hence tip on fires at the very start).

…

For co-op players, a number of mobs – including Dawson – will respawn so you can have a golden gun each. The advantage of this gun over the copper ones is it doesn’t degrade with use, arguably making it the best all-around weapon in the game. Plus it’s level III

As an aside – *glances at Devs, yet again* – there is also level IV revolver, but just the one (that I’ve found).
However, this one does degrade with use and there’s no recipe to replace it (as far as I’ve aware)

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Survival and indeed quests require the appropriate item to gain experience with weapons, tools, and lassos…

If you look at the skills page it will say something like:

“IV guns or higher required to more experience”

So, using a straw lasso you gain no experience or progress at level II
A regular lasso gives no experience or progress at level III

You get the idea. So:

GUNS:
I: Catapults
II: Copper guns
III: Dawson’s Golden Gun (possibly into level iv experience)
IV Rifle (There’s only 1 level iv gun in the game and no recipe :/ )
V Gatlin’ gun

LASSOS:
I: Straw lasso
II: lasso
III: sturdy lasso (needs spider silk to make)
IV: ( There is no level 4 lasso, as far as I recall )
V: Bat lasso (requires bat wings to make, which have an abysmal drop drop!)

BOWS: simple, sturdy, bronze, iron, steel

AXES and PICKAXES: stone, copper, bronze, iron and steel

I think the target level may apply too. For example, I would assume the Gatlin’ gun (level V) gives little to no experience if used to kill hares (level I)

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HOWARD’S TREASURE MAPS

There are 8 treasure maps numbered 2 to 9, so the final map (which actually has no treasure) is 9 of 8. And they forgot to add a couple of them!

The last map – drawn by good ol’ Uncle Howard – points to his ghost – while the first map (#2) is found on his grave!

It’s like:

I find this a bit mean seeing as most of the game rests on finding the first clue, eh.
In my opinion, done right, this first clue should have been handed to players, or at least easy to find, so:
from solicitor, or Annabelle, or even ‘hidden’ under the straw bed in his ranch.

Anyway *draws a map pointing to Howard’s grave, on the ranch*

Equally, the other treasure location is important because it includes a key, needed to unlock two of the other chests.

Funnily enough this SHOULD have been on the ranch too as the first map (#2 of 8) points to it would point to an old mine card east of Dawson’s camp.
(Or would if they had remembered to add it!)

I think this is a great game, spoilt by early release. If it was early access I’d be far more forgiving, as it’s not… someone needs a slap! There are just too many easily resolved issues that go way beyond irregular bugs. In my opinion it is time for the devs to put on their big boy pants and fix everything if they want to save this game!

It is not fun trying to write a guide for a game when the developers messed up like this. I’ll go with my own system!

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Recipes, and buying and selling

This is a generalised list of available recipes and where to find them. For instance, ‘hardwood cabin’ would include floor, door, window etc. It is not exhaustive and does not include all the options. The gunstation, for instance, can also be recovered from the Dawson gang.

It also assumes you have helped and or rescued the NPC so they available and willing to sell to you.

Normal text suggests it’s optional (cosmetic), or that you probably have it already from someone else.
Bold is for items that person wants for their quests specifically
Green bold means you need this for one or more quests and or for general use
Blue bold is stuff you are going to need often – typically crafting stations
Purple bold is for upgrades for crafting stations and special items. You are going to want these too.

 

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BAWK’s BEAK, WILD RIVER

CHICKABIDDY FARM

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TUMBLEVILLE

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BELLEVILLE

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WESTWOOD

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Let’s talk about hats!

<p
Some hats – lile the pyromaniac – can only be bought, but most can be found, bought or crafted.

Initially, post release, they didn't give stats on hats, but they added it to a patch. The figures mostly relate to damage reduction, so, for examage piercing damage -40% means you would take 40% less damage from piercing attacks – like bullets. Others can add stamina, protect from the desert heat, or the coldest nights.

Hat notes:
I raised the following observations for the developers:

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Thoughts, recommendations and updates

Do I recommend this game? Yes, absolutely – with caveats

It’s fun, it’s quirky, different. I definitely like it.

That said, a few of the things are about as clear as mud and probably contribute to the mixed reviews. (Down to 59% within a month of release)

Takes crops, for instance:

You start fairly early on getting recipes for a garden plot and seeds and veggies. Level I and II veggies…

This, I think, is bad design, coupled with poor or really non-existent guides.

They are two arguably three levels of plants, plus trees and – as I told the devs – how it was done is, in my opinion, wrong. Or are least so unclear as to be an annoyance to all players. So wrong.

If I had to guess, they planned to make farming progressive (like other skills), but didn’t, but that’s just a gut feeling.

ANYWAY.

Tullulal in the neighbouring farmstead sells:

carrots, onions and lettuce (level 1)
These happily grow in the garden boxes.
(Though makes me miss irrigation and sprinkler found in most other games!)

She also sells level II veggies in the form of corn, pumpkins and squash, so naturally you expect to be able to grow these too.
Nope. These require soil boxes, which you have earn recipes for from Yara, an Indian you can’t reach (until more progress targets)

And she sells trees and tree recipes.
Yep, you guessed it. Yara. Trees need their own little box.
(You may have noticed that Lars the carpenters wants tree boxes)

Then there’s flowers… Some are used for paint, etc, but can be grown – if you get the recipe.

And again, things are not all equal. One in particular – needed for a ranch quest – (initially) required an upgraded fancy steel garden box (Yara again).

Here’s the thing… you are given no tooltip clue that “this is not the garden box you are looking for”. To all intents and purposes it’s just not working, seems buggy.

There’s also a cuckoo herb, only found it once, never seen it again. I get the feeling it was intended to have a use, or will in a later patch.

They are several mentions of green grass and limestone, also not used in the game – but niether were they removed form dialogues etc. Sloppy!

They did patch crops quite quickly (due to feedback) but in a lazy way, making everything grow from the basic garden soil, making the level II and III plots redundant.

Then there are actual bugs and glitches.
Mostly just mildly irksome, but leaving the game feeling more early access than release! There are times when you doubt yourself – “Am I just being thick?”

In fairness, half the time it’s a “learn to play” issue (well, if you consider getting to the end of the game to plant the veggies you got at the start… :/ )

Sometimes it is very definitely bugs, especially with building.

But even then, half the time, it’s because the building system has specific rules and, well, you are left to guess them. (No wiki out there, hence me working on a guide for this game, ‘cos it needs one!)

And sometime to walk into a hill instead of up it and fall off the map. Or drown on a hill ‘cos the river – which you can see over there – is also under your feet. Is that quicksand – or a glitch? Oops! That particular ‘feature was fixed – in one specific place, but repeats in others, so, again, slap dash testing and indifferent patching.

*Reported weeks ago. Thanked by devs for pointing it out. Still unfixed at time of writing

Quests can be a pain to complete due to issues. One early quest sounds simple – add stairs to a bedroom for a carpenters. Most players failed at this tasks until a solution was put up. (But NOT a patch). There are a few variations of this, but essentially if you attempt the task as instructed you will fail. The solution to add a bedroom to a building is this:

Others are plainly ridiculous, as with the pier below:

The notable problem with this quest, beside the moronic solution, is you first encounter the quest-giver on a broken pier, shouting across to him. Neither this location nor the cabin on the lake are used again. Worse – shamefully so – is the fact the cabin is off-center to the pier. It is possible to reach by end game and here’s how:

It is even possible to build a bridge across the lake, or from the shore to the island!
As with your own ranch, as you progress with populated zones (Belleville, Westwood, Tumbeville) they expand and then finally merge. So, instead of four small areas you have one big – or even massive area to work with.

This next one isn’t a quest, but it is a feature and possible future quest in the game: build a jail. One you can’t easily put a roof on, or even hang a sign on! If this was me I’d hang my head in shame. For these guys it’s just a Tuesday and, seemingly, not worthy of addressing!

This – above – is just ridiculous! The developers are – or arguably were – active and listening to players, at least for the first 3 weeks after release.

Several players said the character bag space was too small, so they added an upgrade option offering up to 20 more slots (farm 10 meat, which you can do in minutes, even on day one, then another easy challenge.)
+1 to the Devs

The recipe for finewood needed sap, but the drop rate for sap was very low. They hotfixed that.
Another +1 to the Devs.

Then the patches seemed to break move than they fixed, even breaking savegames. Since then, almost nothing, like they’d abandoned it. Probably not, but it feels like it. There are so many issues, so many bugs that should never have left early access. Things that, seemingly, were not ever tested, or if they were were allowed in the game in a wrecked state.

So, there is a bit of a learning curve, (mostly due to the at time irrational quest parameters), they are some bugs – which are/were being ironed out – but all in all it’s a fun game.

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Full or (too) early release?

Fences. Don’t get me started on fences!

Then there’s fences…
I’m OCD (well OCPD) so a bit pedantic about things, and the fencing…
Some fences rotate only by 90 degrees, others by increments.
Some fences snap together (a little bit), most do not.
Some fences will clip – merge into rocks – others will not.
…
Absolutely none of them snap together properly and as a result none of them join seamlessly. Add in lanterns to that and it gets ugly fast!

I don’t need to list games, you’ll all have you own examples. Fences should clip together like Lego (and the building in the game do). If you add torches, lanterns, streetlights, these too should be seamless.

I do play around with game design, had a board game company back in the 80s, helped and hosted CircleMUD based MMOs in the 90s, did programming and software engineering at college and uni between the 80s and still… Play around with Unity etc.

I’m on the Devs side here, but still… part of me is like, Ye, no. Just fix that shit! Have you no shame!?

Takes palisades, which the ‘bad guys’ have. They would be a great feature for players to mess avoid with, but you can’t have them. well you can, but only about 80 – and you’d have to drag them, one at a time, from one side of the map to the other (without being stopped). It is actually even more tedious than it sounds.

Even for the palisades they just slapped a plank gate on the ‘because they couldn’t be bothered to design a matching gate. Why bother? Just not worth the time and effort to get it right for players.
(All that matters is a quick churn and cash in the bank?)

Oh, and of course, becuase of the crap way fences work (or rather don’t) you can just walk or ride through gaps in the fences. That’s when you can even place them!

Staying with fences

Then there’s chandeliers!
You can hang them pretty much anything on your land… This is a game that does not believe in gravity!

But try putting one on a building with a roof! Not so easy, or possible, actually

If you sat through that video you’ll see how things – even roofs – can be just hung in mid air. You can remove walls, floors, support posts – and the roof stays up. Civil engineers would be apoplexic. This game really does not believe in gravity!

Then there’s bug like this, below, also unresolved. Doesn’t greatly interfere with the game, but neither does it inspire confidence! The poop shouldn’t be that size either, but there you go!

All in all – and they are many more examples I can offer – the game was not ready for release and, I suspect, they rushed out because they wanted or needed the money. I also suspect that released, they either laid off the rest of the staff or put them onto another game. That the reason they – seemingly – can’t fix anything is they let them go; e.g. there’s no-one to fix it!

Game studios are notorious for laying off staff the second a game goes gold and it’s a mess, well, they can sink. Seen this happen before, so it just wouldn’t suprise me. And the longer the developers stay quiet, the worse it looks. All about optics.

One notable example of this (for me) is Underworld Ascendant, a crowd-funded remake of Ultima Underworld that promised much and delivered a turd! Sad, and I felt for the guy, but the lead developer made a video apology, literaly crying and wringing his hands, almost begging fans to support him while they fixed it. That game wouldn’t even save, initially! Six years on its rating is 42% from 661 reviews. That should worry Fun Games!

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AWOL

As far as I can tell, the game misses:

level IV (leather?) rope
Iron and steel spade
level IV (and V) gun /revolver – presumably replaced by rifle and Gatlin’ gun
A better, higher capacity water can (or ideally irrigation!)

Walls for a barn (and church)

Corner, inner corner and center pieces for most roofs, including flat and hardwood.
Basically, you can makes a 2×2 room, but an L-shaped room starts to be a problem, and as you move up to wider rooms and buildings, like say 3×3, 3×5, you either cannot do it, or it looks so horrendous that you leave it without a roof.

For what is at heart a building game that is an utter disgrace – and further evidence that it was rushed out, unfinished, that the publishers knew or should have known this and just didn’t – and still don’t care!

Hardwood frame (i.e. ‘A hardwood wall frame with an opening’)

Fences that actually snap together, that all rotate by 15 degrees, and manage and support other elements. (Even tried to place the iron railings with the street light? Fugly!)
(IMO fences are the one thing in this game that are really shite!. Not to mention they can’t contain the animals!)

It’s not obvious from the screenshot above, so here’s a walkthrough. I got so tired of cattle ‘escaping’ the corral (multiple fences tried) that I build a high stone wall around it. They escaped anyway. In one instance, sadly not recorded, a longhorn cow walked THROUGH a wall. Also, in the top left is my ranch house. It was actually finished, but as it’s in the distance, it’s only shown partially rendered.
Notably with water, this issue can occur at any distance.

I like this game a lot, despite all the bugs and issues, but nothing is going to convince me it wasn’t released early and unfinished!
They are – were(!?) – working on it, patching stuff, adding stuff (like the extra bag slots. Thank you!), so I’m not quite having a go. But yes, it very much feels like far too many corners were cut to get it out. And, bizarrely, little if any thought or consideration given to the type of people who would be interested in this game.

As I’ve said several times, I like the game, but there are issues* and a lot of the time it feels more like early access than release. I think people would be more tolerant and understanding if it was early access. As a release candidate, it’s rushed out, unfinished

I have – had – faith the studio will sort stuff out, but at present it’s probably not helping their reviews…

Don’t get me started on fencing and slopes etc…

The ranch borders are just wrong in places.

There’s clipping in areas. Trees and grass can grow through anything – floors, walls, other trees! There are areas where you can disappear into the terrain, where if you place something down (like a smelt) it can disappear from sight. It’s there, you can interact with is, but it’s literally on another level.

There another spot where you can drown – in the sand, on a rise – because the restored rivers escapes it’s boundaries. You can’t see it but (code-wise) you are in the middle of the river! (They fixed one instance of this)

(Around the map there are several, really many spots of nothingness where there should be water or something else.
There’s an area in Westwood that shows a river but is a dry bed – with tree stump floating in the air. Another where you can walk into a hill (and see the layered construct)

Multiple issues with building or even walking on slopes around the farm (and in general).

The building rules in this game can be a little… rigid… and at times feel (or actually be) buggy.

Firstly, RTFM, as the saying goes.

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Final words

Some of this repeats comments above, as is feedback I left to another player and to the developers, something the latter and budding game developers need to take note of!