My Agronomist Game: pixel art and the daily grind of farm work

A truck stuck in sand, caterpillars that shrug off pesticide and the farmer who says “I've always done it this way” became a pixel art game. Here's how it started, and you can play it.

2026-10-29 · #jogo #pixel-art #agro #agronomia #gamedev #bastidores

A truck stuck in deep sand. An armadillo hole in the middle of the field. Rain right after the burndown spray. And a farmer with his arms crossed saying: "I've always done it this way."

If you work in agriculture, you've lived at least three of those before lunch. I put all of them into a game. This post is about how it came to be.

It all started with a scroll through my feed

I saw a company's post made to look like a retro game, 16-bit pixel art. There was a character in the middle of a field jumping over obstacles (an armadillo, of all things), crops in the background, a planning map and a bunch of farm details in the scenery.

What caught me was this: an agriculture topic, which usually comes across as serious and full of charts, had turned into something fun, modern and easy to remember. And then came a thought that never left me:

What if I made a game like that, but about the life of an agronomist?

Not "just another farming game"

There's no shortage of generic farming games. I wanted one that feels like it was made by someone who lives the field, full of the struggles and inside jokes that agronomists, farmers, technicians and students recognize instantly.

The rule was simple: take a real situation from farm life and turn it into a game mechanic. Here are a few that are already in:

Real-life struggle	How it becomes gameplay
Brutal heat in the field	Stamina drains on its own. Hit zero and you pass out. Tereré (iced yerba mate) brings it back
Rain that shows no mercy	An 80 mm rain cloud moves across the top of the screen. If it reaches the farmhouse before you, it washes your work away
Armadillo holes in the field	An obstacle to jump over (the armadillo is called Tião)
Caterpillars resistant to pesticide	There are armored caterpillars, and the tip is "jump on top of them"
A pickup stuck in sand	Soft sand, and Tonhinho's pickup stuck in the middle of the road
Spraying in the wind	Drift at two heights, a runaway drone and a mask
Phone signal only on top of the termite mound	It becomes a tip on the title screen
"I've always done it this way"	The whole story (I'll get to it)

Character running through a soybean field, with a speech bubble and the warning INTOXICADO! (poisoned) on screen — The spraying-in-the-wind field: Seu Dirceu spraying anyway and the drift coming your way

More than a little game

There was a second reason, and it wasn't just fun. I wanted to show the mix that I am: agronomy, technology, creativity and programming.

Instead of another technical post or another version of my résumé, I figured something people could play would say it better than any text on LinkedIn. No speeches: whoever plays it can tell I understand both the field and the code.

The plan was a weekend MVP

I knew the trap: dreaming up a giant game and never finishing it. So I made a deal with myself:

one short level, runner or platformer style;
running in the phone's browser, with touch controls;
a link in the bio and done, nothing to download.

That's why I started with the web: it's the fastest way to publish, share and find out whether the idea sticks. I used AI, mainly Claude, to speed up the code. What stayed with me was what only I could do: the concept, the farm humor and deciding what was funny and what wasn't.

Spoiler: it didn't fit in a weekend

The MVP grew. Today the game has six fields, each with its own time of day, scenery and hazard, from sunrise to sunset. There's a prologue told in photos with a recorded voice and lip sync, a choice between a male and a female agronomist (the texts change accordingly), a map, a wardrobe, collectibles and high scores.

This is what it looks like today:

Title screen of the game, with the title O Jogo do Agrônomo in pixel art, the character in a cap in the field and the JOGAR (play) button — Title screen: “deliver the report before the rain” and the tip that phone signal lives on top of the termite mound

How to play (in ten seconds)

You run through the fields, jump, slide and use an action button (tereré, pocketknife, clipboard, mask, closing the gate). The catch is that three pressures hit at the same time:

Heat. Stamina drops on its own.
The report. You have three pages, and every hit tears one.
The 80 mm rain. Run well, or it washes your work away.

Character running next to a pond, with the heat bar, the report pages and the distance to the farmhouse at the top of the screen — Running through the field: heat on the gauge, the three report pages, how many km to the farmhouse and an armored caterpillar to jump on

On a phone, tap to jump and swipe down to slide. On a keyboard, space or the up arrow.

And when the rain catches up, it shows no mercy:

Rain scene in the late afternoon, with the character slower and the warning CHUVA: VIROU LAMA! (rain: it turned to mud) — The forecast said 80 mm and it was right: the rain caught up, everything turned to mud, the character slows down and the sample is worth half

"I've always done it this way" has a backstory

This is my favorite part. In the game, you're a newly graduated agronomist on your first day at work, sent by a farm supply dealer to a fictional farm called Sempre Fiz Assim ("I've Always Done It This Way"). The owner is Seu Tonho, 62 years old.

Map of the Sempre Fiz Assim farm, with six numbered fields and field 5, Spraying in the wind, selected — The map of the Sempre Fiz Assim farm: each field has a time of day, stars, new features and a hidden collectible

But his "I've always done it this way" isn't stubbornness for its own sake, it's a scar. In 2011, a so-called "doctor" without a professional license (in Brazil, agronomists must be registered with CREA) sold him a bottle that "fixed everything". Rust disease came, the product did nothing and the family nearly lost the farm. Since then, he won't get up from his chair for any "doctor".

That's why the game's tone has one rule: laugh with them. The stubborn farmer is lovable, and what wins in the end is good practice: a proper prescription, protective equipment, field scouting and the right spraying window. Your only trump card is a catchphrase: "easy, I'll send you the recommendation in writing."

And you learn without a lecture

At the end of each field, a report page shows the finding of the day. You can walk away knowing, for example, that:

caterpillars are only controlled in the sandy field, with an in-date product, a calibrated nozzle, and away from the heat, the wind and the water's edge;
you don't spray on the field border;
off-season corn has no cure, it has a calendar.

For developers

If you came for the technical side, here's the summary:

Phaser 4, TypeScript and Vite;
the same code becomes a website, an installable PWA that opens offline and an Android app (Capacitor 8);
the pixel art is drawn in code, at 384×216 with integer zoom, so the pixels never blur;
content is data: a new field is a file, not a rewritten scene.

What's missing (no fluff)

On paper, the full game follows an entire season, from the thesis defense to the end-of-harvest barbecue. What's live is the core of it: the playable chapter goes up to arriving at the farmhouse. The battle of arguments with Seu Tonho and the rest of the season are still in the script.

Play it and tell me

You can play it right now, on your phone or computer: agronomo.paulojunqueira.com. The game itself is in Portuguese for now.

If you find a bug, or a classic agronomist struggle that everyone knows and I forgot, let me know. That was always the idea: a game made with people in agriculture, not just about them. The project summary is also in the projects section.