The Slime-venture Continues

I've been fully engrossed in Slime Rancher 2 and have managed to get to the point where my ranch is pumping out plorts (but not decorated or autonomous--I've found several drone modules but haven't cobbled one together yet).  My exploration progress has been a bit stunted--I've managed to track down a few more hidden treasure pods and find the mysterious Grey Labyrinth.  However, I still haven't unlocked all the slimes or science materials.  It's my goal to do more exploring and unlock these materials because it's holding up some of my upgrades.

Some Shadow Slimes lurking about.

The progress I've made has been a bit slow and I've noticed that I've reached the slightly grindy part of the game.  Once you reach the Grey Labyrinth you find a new type of slime--the shadow slime.  It cannot be caught (or farmed) and will flee if you get too close and will eventually disappear into the slimey ether.  Eventually you'll also stumble across a new type of container that has a day/night motif.  You'll also find a few holographic communication devices that reveal the identity of the mysterious "AI" who has left the drones sprinkled around the islands.  Engaging with these communicators is worthwhile because you'll learn that those day/night themed devices are unlocked by depositing the plorts of shadow slimes.  Rather than capturing these slimes you need to shoot them to get them to drop plorts.  Here's where the grindy part comes in--shadow slimes appear at random and disappear as you chase them around (usually frantically trying to shoot them as many times as you can).  Opening the day/night devices requires 30-50 plorts each.  Basically you should always keep a supply of fruits/veggies for shooting shadow slimes (luckily there are quite a few sprinkled around...for similarly grindy reasons).

Unfortunately the grindiness doesn't stop there...as you progress through the Grey Labyrinth it is revealed that the area is prone to prisma-disruptions--a sparkly haze that can randomly appear and will cause food sources to become unstable.  This unstable food will cause the slimes in the area to produce unstable plorts.  At first their use seemed a bit boggling--they disappear from your inventory rather quickly.  Speaking to the communicator reveals that these unstable plorts can be shot (or carried....) through special "stabilization" portals and turned into an entirely new kind of plort--the prisma plort.  The major drawback is that you don't know where these prisma disruptions will occur, so it's a bit dependent on being at the right place at the right time.  Alas though--you're granted a blueprint for a special device that can be placed around the Grey Labyrinth and indicates on your map when a disruption is occurring.  Now for the extra grindy part--building one of these detectors requires 30 prisma plorts.  I guess I better get to grinding out shadow and prisma plorts.

I'll admit that with all this grindiness that I've found myself feeling some bouts of boredness.  It's not necessary to unlock all the devices that use shadow plorts, but many of them contain upgrade modules.  I'm going to try to space out my grinding with some exploring--I still haven't found all the new areas of the Grey Labyrinth and am missing some slimes and materials.  Overall, I'm mostly enjoying my time with Slime Rancher 2.

I hope everyone has a nice weekend filled with cozy gaming!