Farmville vs A Country Story
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Facebook
I finally succumbed to a few games over on Facebook*. It was bound to happen – I’m a gamer, I am easily addicted to things, the games themselves are fun, and a lot of my family and friends play them.
Both Farmville and A Country Story are Facebook farming applications, but they’re different enough to merit a comparison post.
What is Farmville?
Farmville’s the older of the two games. It’s been around for a very, very long time and if you’re on facebook and have much of a friends/family listing, you’ve probably got more than a few people already playing it.
In Farmville, you create a marginally-customizable avatar (I can get ORANGE lips, but not basic ones? Seriously?) that runs around your farm and does your bidding like a well-oiled farmer robot.
Farming
Use your hoe tool to till the ground, buy some seeds, and wait. As time passes, the seeds will sprout, then get bigger, then finally blossom into whatever fruit, flower, or vegetable you planted. Harvest your plants to sell them, then turn around and invest your profit in more plants and “stuff”. Wait too long and your vegetables wilt and you lose any chance at harvesting them. Fruit trees are conveniently ever-bearing and never die.
Ranching
For the ranching aspect, you can raise animals (I use the word “raise” VERY sparingly. You can pet the animal, which has no discernible purpose except to make a little heart animation happen and cause the animal to make a sound) and after a period of time, a pink diamond will indicate they’re ready to be “harvested” (don’t worry – even the pig is harvested harmlessly. You collect truffles, not bacon.)
The core gameplay is very much a rinse and repeat. You can augment the basic game play by decorating – buying or acquiring fences, buildings, and other “stuff” to beautify your land.
Interaction
The hook for Farmville isn’t the gameplay – it’s the interactive aspect. By becoming “Neighbors” with your facebook-using friends, you gain bonuses. They can send you gifts (animals or trees or decorations) and you can do the same. You can visit their farms and perform tasks such as scaring away foxes for cash, and you can fertilize their plants for them. They can return the favor.
It’s fun to visit a friend’s farm and see how they’ve decorated, what they’ve planted, and “help” them.
It’s also fun to “adopt” various pathetic animals from their wall – periodically, a Farmville farmer will find a lost animal and can offer it up on their Facebook wall to the first person with grabby hands. It’s cute at first, but then you end up with like eleven million cows, chickens, reindeer, and horses. All standing around on the farm. Not moving much. Twitching, like. And periodically making animal noises. It’s…creepy.
Overall
Overall, the interaction between friends is pretty limited and the gameplay is basic and gets boring quickly. You can set self-imposed goals to try and spice the game up a bit – make the prettiest farm you can, try and get three star rating in growing various vegetables in bulk, try and time your vegetable reaping so you don’t have to plow and re-seed the WHOLE gorram farm every time you visit – but in general, it doesn’t change much.
You can also buy Farmville Dollars (using your REAL dollars, what a coincidence?!) and get special Farmville content. You know. In case you really needed to have the limited edition gingerbread farmhouse.
What is A Country Story?
A Country Story is another farming Facebook game. It’s still in Beta, so not as many folks are playing it.
Much like Farmville, you create a barely-customizable avatar (at least these avatars are cute) who runs around the farm (slightly less robotically) and does your rural bidding. You can also change the color of your house and choose the backdrop for your farm, which is a nice but useless touch.
Farming
Farming in A Country Story is different in a few very important ways.
1) The number of garden plots you are allowed is limited, based on your level.
2) Crops need to be watered.
3) Your character has an “energy” bar that gets depleted when you plow, seed, harvest, or water. You can buy food to replenish your energy, or just wait.
Other than that, it’s pretty straightforward. Plow, seed, water, wait, harvest, profit!
Trees are very expensive, take time to grow, and give tree spirits when they die. You can combine tree spirits to create fantastic new trees that cannot be purchased. (Note I haven’t played long enough to do this myself, though I’ve seen a few of the trees on my friend Katy’s land.)
And yes, I love the SSSHHHLOOOCKPOP! sound the A Country Story makes when I harvest carrots. <3
Ranching
Ranching in A Country Story requires a lot of money or country story cash (called Playfish Cash) which you can conveniently buy using your REAL dollars. Alternately, you can get animals as gifts from friends or as rewards for quests (more on quests in a moment).
Not only do animals have output (eggs from chickens, etc) but you also have to FEED your animals (shock, horror) and you can brush them to make them happy. I feel much more involved with my little Country Story chicken than I do with my Farmville herds of cattle, chickens, ducks, etc, etc.
Oddly enough, purchasing animals requires both money and “stuff” – rocks and bits of wood you pick up from the ground of your farm. I guess to build a home for them? Doesn’t matter. I like walking around and cleaning up the debris, anyway, but it’s worth noting that you shouldn’t sell the rocks and sticks. You’ll need them if you want to buy a chicken later.
Interaction
Again, as a Facebook game, you can play with friends. The interaction here is different. Any gifts sent by friends were purchased (no free gifts…so remember to say thank you!) and friends can come over and water your crops for you or brush/pet your animals.
They can ALSO steal your food and pick up your rocks and sticks, so you have to be a little pickier when it comes to who you’re allowing access to your farm!
Quests
This game also has quests, which is a great addition. Each level, you have access to new quests to grant extra xp. Grow so many green peppers, collect so many rocks, water your friends plants so many times, etc, etc. It gives a GOAL and a reason to log in and keep playing (Warcraft uses this small accomplishment system to great effect – it doesn’t surprise me to see other games offering “quests” as well)
Decorating
It also encourages you to be more of a decorator with your farm. You’re given a lot of land, and only so much of it can be used for farming … you may as well decorate the rest! Multiple types of fencing exist, and the garden gnome collection truly boggles the mind.
Overall
It’s pretty obvious A Country Story is at least a small nod to Farmville’s skyrocketing success. It’s much prettier and a lot more fun to play than Farmville, but the basic premise of the games are much the same.
The replayability of the game rests on the shoulders of the quests and friends to keep you going.
Summary
Of the two games, A Country Story is prettier and slightly more fun, but Farmville is easier to get into and already has more people playing it. Now that I’ve played both of them to the point where my writing time started to suffer (is it time to harvest the corn?!), I’ve actually stopped playing both of them. A girl’s got to have her priorities.
Anyone else play either or both of these games? Do you agree or disagree? Did I neglect to add a key element of the game?
* Sure, you can friend me on Facebook if you like, but I really just dump the rss feed from this blog into it. No behind-the-scenes special-edition Tami Moore information there. Twitter’s a better bet if you’re seeking complimentary content. @whiskerwing
re: sticks and stones in Country Story — I think the way those work is you can harvest your own 5, but anyone hitting your farm in that 24 hour period ALSO gets 5.
I’ve never noticed my rocks and sticks not being there when I go to gather, even if it’s mid-day 12 hours after they pop.
.-= Jov´s last blog ..Jov sez: Apologies =-.
@Jov
So if I pick up sticks on your farm, I’m not stealing the sticks YOU should be getting? That’s cool!
I have not played either, but have received manymany requests from friends to join Farmville with promises of crops and animals.
I do tend to find seemingly mundane, repetitive tasks fun when made into a game. However, I’ve played the farming and ranching game several times over in the various Harvest Moon games.
Actually, A Country Story sounds /a lot/ like Harvest Moon… brush and wash animals, let ‘em out to graze during the day, they get sick if left outside in bad weather, you get tired from activities and the weight of your equipment (need to earn money for the lightest hoes, scythes, and watering cans!)
… now I want to go play it. >.>
.-= Syrana´s last blog ..One Year Blogiversary Contest: Blog Scavenger Hunt! =-.
@Syrana
Love Harvest Moon.
A Country Story is a lot simpler, though. No need to herd or move animals, no bad weather, no sickness. You do “skill up” in use of the watering can and soforth, which is the same thing as buying a new one in Harvest Moon.
I think it was @krizzlybear who said he was waiting for the Harvest Moon MMO. I am SO there.
Random observation: in keeping with your blog title alliteration theme (“aspiring author,” “amateur artist”), I think your slacker bit should be “professional procrastinator.” Same idea, just in line with the alliteration theme you’ve got going on. :)
This is what happens when I lay awake at night – I think about your blog. *deep sigh*
@Wilder
Thank you for the suggestion, I’ll think about changing it. Though it is my gain, you should probably lay awake at night thinking about YOUR blog! *laughs*