Rusty's Retirement Maps & Locations Guide: Every Area Covered

Q: Does the farm keep running while I work on something else?

Yes, that is the whole design. The window sits as a strip along the bottom of your screen, or vertically at the side, and production continues while you use other applications. Focus Mode slows the rate so there is less movement in your peripheral vision.

Q: What should I build first?

Water Bots, then Haiku's House at 50 biofuel and 1,000 spare parts, then Echo's Workshop at 300 biofuel. Haiku adds a second worker doing everything Rusty does, and Echo unlocks the capacity upgrades that carry the rest of the run.

Q: How do I unlock animals?

Build Slate's Barn, which costs 3,000 biofuel and 10,000 spare parts. After that each animal needs fossils, dug from slate patches in your field tiles, and an animal feeder built nearby. Cows, pigs and chickens are the three types.

Q: What are giant crops and how do I get them?

Certain crops including tomatoes, cabbage, cucumbers and pumpkins can grow oversized when planted in a solid block. Tomatoes, cabbage and cucumbers need a 2 by 2 plot and pumpkins need 3 by 3. A golden pumpkin is a rare result from a full 3 by 3 pumpkin field.

Q: Is there an ending?

There is no story ending. Progress runs through 71 achievements, the crop unlock chain, the seven robot neighbours and long targets such as 666 crop tiles on one farm or 10,000,000 spare parts earned. Most players treat it as a background game they return to for months.

Complete Rusty's Retirement maps and locations guide. Every area with difficulty, rewards, progression order, and what to do in each zone.

EarlyGuides Editorial Team

Researched and editorially reviewed. Updated August 12, 2026.

Rusty's Retirement is an idle farming sim from solo developer Mister Morris Games, released on 26 April 2024. Its trick is the layout: the farm docks to the bottom of your screen as a thin strip so it runs beside a browser, a code editor or a stream, and a vertical side-screen mode and a slower Focus Mode exist for people who want it even less distracting. You play a robot named Rusty who plants crops, converts them into biofuel, turns biofuel into spare parts and spends those parts on more land, more bots and more robot neighbours. There are 71 achievements and a Twitch integration that lets chat run the farm, and the game sits at 97 percent positive on Steam.

Rusty's Retirement features distinct areas with increasing difficulty. This guide covers every major location in progression order: what to do, what to get, and when to move on. For the step-by-step path, see our walkthrough.

Area Progression Order

Order	Location	Difficulty	Key Rewards	Recommended Build
1	Rusty's House	Present from the first minute	Unlimited crop storage, the base of the build grid	Echo
2	Biofuel Converter	First 20 minutes	Biofuel income, spare parts through the convert button	Echo
3	Echo's Workshop	Early to mid, after Haiku's House	Capacity and speed upgrades for every non-unique bot	Haiku
4	Slate's Barn	Late, once spare parts run past 20,000	Cows, pigs and chickens, fossil digging, the waste and fertilizer chain	Haiku
5	Bulb Hives	Mid to late	Honey production, an extra biofuel input, the beekeeping achievements	Haiku

Rusty's House: Starting Area

The starting structure and your unlimited storage, which means crops carried here never overflow. Everything else on the farm is built outward from it, so leave room around it rather than boxing it in with early plots.

Attribute	Detail
Difficulty	Present from the first minute
Key Rewards	Unlimited crop storage, the base of the build grid
Recommended Build	Echo
Key Equipment	Harvest Bot

What to Do Here

Learn the basics of Bottom bar farm that shares your desktop. This is where you practice without heavy punishment.
Collect starting resources and your first equipment upgrade.
Clear all main content before moving to Biofuel Converter.
If you're struggling, read our beginner's guide.

Biofuel Converter: Early Game

Turns crops into biofuel, but only runs when three different crop types are available to it. Building more converters multiplies output, and an achievement asks for ten on one farm.

Attribute	Detail
Difficulty	First 20 minutes
Key Rewards	Biofuel income, spare parts through the convert button
Recommended Build	Echo
Key Equipment	Harvest Bot

What to Do Here

Focus on mastering Biofuel converters and spare parts. It's critical from this point on.
Farm for Harvest Bot if you don't have it yet.
Complete all objectives for maximum rewards.
Prepare for the difficulty spike in Echo's Workshop.

Echo's Workshop: Mid Game

Costs 300 biofuel plus several thousand spare parts and unlocks bot upgrades along capacity and speed lines. It is the largest single jump in farm throughput in the game, since one upgraded bot replaces two ordinary ones.

Attribute	Detail
Difficulty	Early to mid, after Haiku's House
Key Rewards	Capacity and speed upgrades for every non-unique bot
Recommended Build	Haiku
Key Equipment	Harvest Bot

What to Do Here

This is the main skill check. Bring an optimized build.
Water Bot becomes accessible here. Prioritize getting it.
Master Seven bot types running the farm for the boss encounters.
Check our boss guide if you get stuck.

Slate's Barn: Late Game

Costs 3,000 biofuel and 10,000 spare parts and opens the animals menu along with fossil collecting. Fossils come out of slate patches in field tiles, and each animal also needs a feeder built before it will arrive.

Attribute	Detail
Difficulty	Late, once spare parts run past 20,000
Key Rewards	Cows, pigs and chickens, fossil digging, the waste and fertilizer chain
Recommended Build	Haiku
Key Equipment	Water Bot

What to Do Here

Full build optimization is expected by this point.
Water Bot should be your primary, fully upgraded.
Animals, waste and fertilizer loop mastery starts mattering here.
Farm resources for the push into Bulb Hives.

Bulb Hives: Endgame

Unlocked by Forbic's House and used for beekeeping, with each additional hive costing more than the last. An achievement asks for ten on a single farm, so the hive line is a long term spare parts sink rather than an early purchase.

Attribute	Detail
Difficulty	Mid to late
Key Rewards	Honey production, an extra biofuel input, the beekeeping achievements
Recommended Build	Haiku
Key Equipment	Water Bot

What to Do Here

This is endgame. Best-in-slot gear and a perfected build are mandatory.
See our boss guide for endgame fight strategies.
The reward loop: clear content → upgrade → push harder content.
Experiment with Forbic for variety once you've mastered the meta.

Exploration Tips

Clear areas in order: Rusty's House → Biofuel Converter → Echo's Workshop → Slate's Barn → Bulb Hives. Skipping areas means missing resources you'll need later.
Check every corner: Hidden caches and secrets are often in non-obvious locations.
Match your equipment: Some areas favor different equipment types.
Read the walkthrough: Our walkthrough provides exact progression milestones for each area.
Don't rush: Clearing an area fully gives more resources than speedrunning two areas.

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