Farmville
This game is focused on a farm that the user needs to maintain. On the farm, the user acts as the farmer growing crops and tending to animals, all with the end result to harvest the goods from and make a living. When the goods are harvest, be it crop, tree or animal, the user gains money from ‘selling’ the product and also gains experience which when added up allows the user to level up, as well as possibly giving the user a piece of a collection.
Prices of products and the experience gained from them are different depending on the crop, tree or animal. This means that the user can easily level up and earn more money as fast as they like, or they can take it slow. The two paths both have appealing qualities. If the user takes the fast route and chooses the crops that will give them the most experience and money, they can level up quicker and by doing so improve their farm. What this means is that as the user levels up, more becomes available to them; crops, trees, animals, buildings, decoration and expansions all become available the more a user levels up. This gives them a more creative experience with the game, letting them Design their own unique farm that gives them a unique experience. The slow route looks more to the user slowly levelling up slowly, mastering the crops as the user goes. To master a crop, the user needs to grow the crop to a certain amount three times (the amount gets greater with each time). Once the crop is mastered the user gets extra experience and money when they plant that crop again. The user can slowly go through this process and get a sense of achievement from fulfilling these goals. With the use of vehicles, users can speed up the planting, ploughing and harvesting actions it takes to plant and harvest crops as they can do the same task over several spaces unlike having to do it all manually.
To decorate the farm users can purchase decorative items like fences hail bails and ornaments. Some of these decorative items have no real use other than to look pretty. However some do have their uses. Buildings like stables, sties and orchards allow the user to gather one type of animal or several trees (depending on the building) and store so many items of that type. This not only cleans up the farm so that animals are not cluttering the place, but also adds a more farm like feel to the game. Another pro from this is that the user can still harvest from the animals/trees stored and this can be done in one click. When harvesting the user can receive special presents, a baby animal or a ‘unknown’ mysterious tree.
Other than decorating the farm, the user can also work with their neighbours. Neighbours are friends of the user on their Facebook account who have accepted a request to become neighbour farmers. This creates a social aspect for the game and allows the user to build a community of people they know and can all share a common interest. To do this, Zynga have made it possible for users to interact on each other’s farms. A user can visit one of their friends and ‘help’ them out buy tending crops, fertilising crops and animals (buildings like the chicken coop) and sending a gift. Gifts can be sent without having to visit another users farm, there is a tab in the top menu that gives user the option to send gives and to multiple users too. This can come in handy when building a building. The user cannot simply buy a building ready for use (unless they have enough Farmville cash), so they have to collect items like nails and wood to build them. Users can ask their neighbours by sending a message on their wall asking for the supplies.
Users can also work together to fulfil co-op jobs. These jobs set a task of growing several crops to meet a deadline. Each crop in the job will need to be harvested a certain amount of times to complete it. There are several deadlines, all with their own medal of gold, sliver or bronze. The quicker the user completes the job, the higher the medal will be. By working together users can achieve the gold medal easier as long as they harvest the crop by a deadline. Working together is key for this and the user can view status bars letting them know how much of what has been planted, and the same for what has been harvested. Completing tasks will give the users a range of awards from money experience and gifts, but this again depends on the medal earned.
Frontierville
Frontierville in many respects is similar to Farmville, which isn’t so surprising as the same company produces it. However the idea of the game is rather different. Instead of creating and maintaining a farm, the user needs to develop their ranch. Similar features are the crops, animals, trees and buildings; but there are some differences within these.
The ranch is the area in which the user has to play on. On the ranch there is a wilderness that needs to be cleared. The wilderness includes grass, flowers, thorns, cacti and trees. All take some amount of energy to clear and all come with various rewards depending on what the user is trying to clear. Once a bit of land is cleared, the user can build and place things on this bit of land, allowing them to develop their homestead.
Crops and trees remain very much the same as before in Farmville, the user grows these and then harvests them for money, experience and food (this will be explained later on). The growing phases for trees are different in Fontierville as the user grows them from a sapling unlike Farmville where trees come ready grown. Once harvest the trees revert to the final growing stage before blooming with the fruit again. Crops are different. In Farmville, the user already has a set out bit of land already ploughed and ready to be seeded. In Frontierville, the user goes and buys the crop and places seeded plots on the land. These grow and bloom like in Farmville and are harvested too, however once the crops are harvested, the land become empty again.
Animals hold a different meaning in this game. The user doesn’t harvest from animals like they would in Farmville. The user buys or receives the animal when it is young and need to feed it for it to grow. Each animal has a set time for which it needs to be fed. With each feeding the young animal grows into a adult which can then be sold. When feed the animals, the user receives some rewards, and when the user sells the animal they receive some more.
Rewards come in various shape and sizes depending on where its came from. The two common across the board is money and experience and the only exception to these is buildings. Money and expedience hold the same values that they have in Farmville, allowing the user to possess more items to develop their ranch and the ability to get the rights to buy some of the greater valued items. Other things users can get are food and wood. Theses are both obtained by clearing and selling the appropriate things like trees and animals. Food is used as a currency to get energy that the user needs to carry out tasks like harvesting and feeding. The user has a set amount to begin with, which over time can be replenished. If the user is not patient then they can trade in some food for energy in the Market. Wood is used for construction when it comes to buildings, but it can also be used as a currency in the Market for some goods. Items can also be obtained for collections. These are predefined for what needs to be collected and where from. For example chickens will have their own collection. In each collection the user needs to find five different items from that one product (with chickens as the example the user needs to carry on feeding chickens to get a possible collection reward). Once the collection is complete by obtaining of five items, the user can then trade in the collection for a reward. This reward varies depending on the collection.
The user can purchase building from the Market. There are several types of buildings available ranging from homes to shops and services. The all have their own unique ability to help the user develop their ranch. This can be seen by looking into the building and seeing what can be made in there as well as but collecting bonus’ from all the building which give different things like money, experience and collection items depending on the building. Once placed the user needs to construct the building. This is done in two ways. First the user needs to physically construct a shell of the building. The user uses some of their energy to ‘whack’ the building into shape, and also some of their wood supply as wood is needed to build the buildings. Once this is complete (the amount of wood and energy needed is different for each building), the user can progress to collecting supplies for the building to complete the build. These items for collecting are again different for each building and often users need to call on their friends in order to collect all the items. These Items can be gifted or given when asked for, but this will be explained later on.
One big difference for this game is the use of missions. Missions play a big role in letting the user up-grade their ranch, sometimes by making things available or by boosting the amount of experience a user gets. These are a very social part of the game, encouraging users to work with their friends so that they can complete the mission. This can be done by asking friends for certain items or by having to visit and complete a task on the friends ranch. This is not the only social event in the game. It constantly asks for users to help friends and to ask them for help as well. By posting on users Facebook wall, the user asks for different items to help them fulfil a mission or collection. The user can also visit their friends ranches and help them out a little and send gives too, just like in Farmville. This can be a little intrusive at time as you may have your plot designed in a specific way so that you have grass/trees in a certain area but another user may come along and cut these away. So this social ability does have its drawbacks. Otherwise the socialising system is pretty much similar to that in Farmville, but more intense. The user can also send gifts to friends, helping them decorate the ranch; fulfil missions and complete collections.
