Fetch my Nike Tech: I have weed to sell. Dressed to the nines in chav gear and stinking like cat piss is the best way to sell ganj in Weedcraft Inc. on the PlayStation 5, courtesy of Klabater. Most tokers will have sold their PS5 for the latest Cali strain. This review isn’t for them. They don’t read anyway.
Look at me, down with the kids and waving the bird to the feds. That’s street, innit? Yeah, my finger’s on the pulse. Wagwan? Nuttin nah gwaan. Lost yet? Good.
The last time I sold pot was about an hour ago when my wife came home and wanted to watch Jujustu Kaisen. Today was my day off, and with the best intentions, I spunked it on playing Weedcraft Inc. All day. I may as well have smoked something. It’s been an utter chillfest, and I have no idea where the time went.
With three scenarios to drop into, picking the story where ‘Your dad just died, and you and your younger brother have inherited his house. You have an MBA, your brother’s from the streets. Hey, you know what? Let’s sell some weed!’. You know – that scenario.
Converting the family home into the house that Mary Jane built means kitting it out with adjustable lighting, temperature and humidity, and, most importantly, plants. For fellow drug dealing novices, it’s eye-watering at the sheer volume of vegetation that can be grown, studied and sold to Johnny Public.
Plants need water, light, and an understanding of their optimal growth conditions. At the start of Weedcraft Inc. you can keep it simple and grow said plants to be distributed on the streets. Like the mini-game in Plants Vs Zombies, an icon will indicate when they need to be watered, snipped back, and then bagged for consumption.
You’ll begin with the menial tasks, eventually hiring staff to prune and water the produce and sell on your behalf. Staff have upgradeable stats, and, like real people, they want more money as they level up. Doing it myself was faster and more efficient, though as the ‘campaign’ moves across different states, keeping on top of everything is tough.
If Weedcraft Inc. were just about making money, that’d be easy. Usually, the punters are looking for strains at a competitive price and a decent rarity level. Competitors muscle into your areas, or vice versa, and as is the way with business, you undercut them and attempt to get the best product or befriend, bribe, or steal from them.
Research points in Weedcraft Inc. determine the optimal parameters for each plant, improving its quality/quantity or splicing other plants together for new effects. You need labs for these, which, depending on whether you’re playing by the book or operating in the shadows, will determine how interested 5-0 will be in your… endeavours.
Bribes, being nice, and investing in legit fronts to protect your wrongdoings will lower your level, as will paying for a licence to trade. It keeps the fuzz off your back but restricts who you can sell to. Get enough heat on a property and expect raids where they’ll confiscate your gear and throw employees in the slammer.
One of the many features of Weedcraft Inc. includes having a jolly chinwag with your employees, rival dealers and the old bill. A dialogue tree allows you to quiz them or ask them for a favour – playing on your relationship (get something for free), or paying them loadsa money for their services.
There were benefits to this as you can resolve competition with diplomacy or pull up enough dirt to blackmail them into doing something they don’t want to do, like Morris dancing. I wouldn’t say I initially liked this aspect of the game as it was filler. Get a bit further in, and when overpowered by a problematic rival, you can create an alliance to get you out of the mud.
There’s so much more to Weedcraft Inc. that I’ll never be able to cover everything without you zoning out. To conclude, it’s highly addictive. Gameplay never feels the grind it could be, as it’s a cautionary tale of your budgeting skills. The number of times I packed up in an area and returned to my hometown was far more than I care to admit.
Still, I like that, and Weedcraft Inc. has been one of my favourite games to play this year, though I have to be careful about playing it too much. As I indicated at the beginning of this review, where has the time gone, and what are those blue lights outside?
