Farmville

I created a Farmville account today. Figured since my friends were already playing it and since it was getting pretty popular,  I’d check it out too. What’s the harm right? Except the slight chance that I might get addicted to it. No biggie.

Avatar Creation:

After I allowed the Facebook game application to access my profile, I had to create an avatar for myself. When creating a new farmer, I was allowed to choose all the facial features, but not the clothing for my avatar. I was a bit disappointed at the outfit my little farmer had to wear, but whatever. Maybe later in the game she’ll be able to wear more stylish clothes. But maybe not.

Short In-Game Tutorial:

There was a short tutorial afterwards that taught me how to harvest my crops and buy and plant seeds, but that stuff should be relatively easy to grasp as there aren’t many options on my Farmville screen yet since I’m still a newbie. I harvested some crops and got some gold coins in exchange. Then I bought and planted some soybeans, which take a day to harvest.

Marketplace:

After I got settled on my piece of land, I visited the market, just to browse around. Many items had to be purchased with Farmville cash, but since I didn’t have much, I just window shopped. Lots of items in the market are holiday-themed, such as the lights and the snowmen.

Adding Neighbors:

I also added some neighbors to my farm (it’s just sending friend invites in the hopes that they’ll accept). Speaking of the holidays and your neighbors, you can also send gifts, some of which are limited/holiday edition, to your friends in the game, which they can put on their farms.

That’s it for tonight. Check back later if you’re interested in seeing what more I have to say about Facebook’s popular browser-based game as I continue my job as a virtual farmer!

Exploring Friends’ Farms:

As I got more familiar with how the game work, I decided to make some visits to my friends’ farms. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I could earn gold coins and experience just by visiting their farms and helping them with basic chores such as shooing away the wild animals or pulling weeds from their crops. In levels one through four, I was able to earn 20 gold coins by doing each of these tasks.

Once I reached level four, I was able to fertilize my friend’s plots of land and able to earn yet more gold coins and experience when I visited their farms — the rewards are less when you reach this level, but when you’re a poor farmer, everything counts. Most of my friend’s farms were quite plain, with many plots of land in which they had already planted crops.

As I browsed through friends’ farms, I was quite impressed, as many were packed with animals by the dozen and had very scenic and well thought out layouts. The holiday-themed farms that I saw made me especially happy and put me in a gift-giving mood. Speaking of gifts, you can even give your friends free gifts in the game. Gifts include plants, animals, and farm decorations, among other things. Below are some examples of some farms I visited. Maybe my farm will be like these someday.

Seems like that’s all to the Farmville browser-based game. Of course, as I reach higher levels, there will be more things I can add to my farm, like buildings, unique animals, and other holiday-themed items. There’s also a section of items in the game that can be purchased with Farmville cash, but since I am quite poor now, I think I’ll wait to accumulate some more before going on a shopping spree.

The thing that I like most about Farmville is the potential to create an animated mini world that you can yourself control. The colorful eye candy graphics are rather nice as well. Do you have a favorite part of the game or any tips that you’d like to share with the Farmville community? Feel free to let us know. Please also feel free to visit our periodically updated Farmville Tips and Tricks page for more info on how to get the most out of your farming experience!

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Other Links to this Post

1. Facebook’s Farmville, What’s So Special About It? | BBGSource — December 17, 2009 @ 10:25 am

2. More About Farmville, It’s Not As Bad As I Thought! | BBGSource — December 20, 2009 @ 11:34 am

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