Facebook has opened up a new frontier for game developers; their games are now playable on the massive social network. They can now have users share their experiences, scores, and other in game accomplishments with their friends through social networking. Farmville is by far the most popular game on Facebook, but for those of you who have not had a chance to play Farmville, or even create a Facebook account, the hype around the game can be quite confusing. What is Farmville?
Farmville
Farmville is a real time farm simulation game, in which users customize their farm, plant crops, raise animals and invite friends to be their neighbors. Players earn coins and experience by harvesting their crops, animals, and trees, and unlock new items as they level up. All of the crops take time to become ready for harvest, and users must make sure to harvest them on time or else they will wilt. Animals and trees do not wilt, though they do give less money and experience to the player.
Helping Your Friends
Adding your friends as your neighbors allows you to show off your farm, and also earn benefits by helping out on their farm. When a neighbour helps out on a player’s farm, they can perform five actions per day, per farm, which award experience points. Neighbors can also send each other gifts, which can be rare crops, trees, or animals that are not otherwise available, as well as mystery boxes, which contain a random expensive item. These gifts do not cost the sender anything, and encourage users to invite their friends to play the game as well.
Successfulness
Farmville is the number one application on Facebook, and has versions available on MSN games and the Apple Store as an app for the iPhone, iPod, and iPad. Over sixty million users play Farmville monthly on Facebook alone, which is roughly ten percent of all of the users on Facebook. Farmville won the best New Social/Online game at the tenth Game Choice Awards, which sparked a lot of controversy as many people said that Farmville was a clone of an earlier game, Farm Town, who in comparison only has around one and a half million monthly users. Farmville has faced criticism for being extremely addicting, and causing people to take advantage of their Facebook friends in order to earn in game awards.
So, what are you waiting for? Try out Farmville and see what it’s really all about.
Dylan Lamberti - I have been writing on-line for a period of just under two years, and have written for such sites as Demand Media Studios and Brighthub.
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