Cactus Day is the Desert region's hidden objective in Far Far West, and finishing it is the only way to earn the Cactus Day Joker. Twelve glowing cacti are scattered across the sand, split into six parents and six children, and your job is to walk each child back to its matching parent before extraction.
Quick answer: On the Desert map, find all six child cacti, pick each one up, and carry it on foot to the parent that matches its hint. Reuniting all six pairs in the same run unlocks the Cactus Day Joker automatically.
Cactus Day mission requirements
The mission lives entirely on the Desert map and never appears in the quest log. You start it by interacting with any glowing purple cactus, parent or child. Both types give cryptic hints about where their match is located, so you can solve it from either direction.
Two constraints shape the whole run. You cannot ride your horse while carrying a child cactus, and you cannot cast spells with a cactus in your hands. Progress also does not persist between runs, so every pair must be reunited before you trigger extraction.
| Detail | Value |
|---|---|
| Map | Desert |
| Cacti total | 12 (6 parents, 6 children) |
| Reward | Cactus Day Joker |
| Joker effect | Chance on enemy death to spawn a cactus minion / explosive cactus mine |
| Mount allowed while carrying | No |
| Spells while carrying | No |
| Carry-over between runs | None |
How to find the cacti on the Desert map
Every parent and child glows neon purple, which makes them readable through the Desert's dust haze even at distance. Parents are stationary, larger cacti standing in fixed spots. Children are smaller and often tucked into themed locations tied to their parent's personality, like an oasis, a marauder camp, a pyramid, a bone pile, or a pipe rig.
The fastest scouting pattern is to sweep the map's perimeter clockwise, marking each glowing cactus on your minimap as you pass. With a four-player team, splitting the map into quadrants and assigning two players to ferry while two clear marauder camps cuts the run time roughly in half.
Cactus parent and child pairings
Pairings are fixed by family theme rather than by proximity, so the closest parent is rarely the correct one. Each child's dialogue tells you exactly which environment to look for, and each parent describes the child's behaviour. The six families share recognisable cues that make matching reliable without trial and error.
| Family | Parent location cue | Child location cue |
|---|---|---|
| Fishing family (Johnny) | Cactus colony on one side of the map, complains the child wants fish | Small oasis pond near a marauder camp, child is "fishing" |
| Tough-guy family | Big cactus on the northern shore, talks about asserting dominance | Inside the largest marauder camp, far from the parent |
| Pipe family | Pipe-themed cactus near the rocks/pipework | Nestled on the pipe rig between rocks, talking about aliens |
| Bone family | "Mama" cactus near a cave/grotto with bone decor | At the large bone pile, fixated on skulls and bones |
| Pirate-poet family | Parent stationed in front of a small pyramid on the opposite side of the map | Northern side, speaks in poems and pirate phrases |
| Rock-tasting family | Parent that hoards "premium" rocks | Child that ditched the parent to taste rocks elsewhere |
Recommended route to clear all six pairs
Because you have to walk every child home, the most efficient path is the one with the shortest total foot distance, not the shortest overall map travel. Use your horse to reach each parent's region quickly, then dismount, grab the matching child, and walk back.
Step 1: Ride to the fishing-family parent first and read its hint. The oasis child is one of the closer carries and gives you an easy first delivery to confirm the mechanic.
Step 2: Move to the bone family next. The grotto-and-bones pairing usually sits in the same general region, which keeps the walking leg short.
Step 3: Handle the pipe family while you are still on that side of the map. Bring boings or other movement consumables, since you cannot cast spells while carrying the child.
Step 4: Cross to the pyramid side for the pirate-poet family. The parent's pyramid is a strong landmark, so navigation back from the northern child is straightforward.
Step 5: Take the rock-tasting family next, since this pair tends to cluster near the centre and breaks up the longer walks on either end.
Step 6: Save the tough-guy family for last. The child sits inside the largest marauder camp, so clearing the camp first is safer than fighting through it on the return walk.
How to confirm the mission is complete
Each successful drop-off triggers a short dialogue between parent and child and removes both cacti from the map. Once the sixth pair is reunited, the Cactus Day Joker is added to your inventory automatically without returning to a quest giver. If you do not see the Joker, at least one pair is still mismatched or one child has not been delivered.
The Joker itself has a small chance, around 3 percent per copy, to spawn a friendly cactus minion when an enemy dies. Stacking multiple copies is what makes the reward worth the trek, since it scales the spawn rate against grouped mobs and works well as crowd control during boss waves.
Common reasons Cactus Day fails to unlock
- Extracting from the Desert before all six pairs are reunited. Progress resets on the next run.
- Dropping a child cactus and forgetting it. Unattended children remain where you left them, but still need to reach the correct parent.
- Delivering a child to the wrong parent. The drop-off interaction will not register, and you can pick the child up again to try a different parent.
- Mounting your horse while carrying a child. The cactus is dropped at your feet, and the carry has to restart from that spot.
Cactus Day is one of the more time-consuming Desert objectives in Far Far West, but it is also one of the most predictable once the family themes are clear. Reading the hints carefully, planning your route around the longest carries, and finishing the mission before the boss fight keeps the Cactus Day Joker on track for a single clean run.