Game - Farm Blitz

http://financialentertainment.org/play/farmblitz.html

This game was shortlisted at the Games for Change festival in 2011 in the Direct Impact category. Apparently this is for "Games targeted at specific audiences with proven outcomes." The game is apparently targeted at low-income adults, and takes inspiration from Bejewelled and Farmville to try and instill good saving habits in the players.

I really want to see the evidence for the proven outcomes. For me it was intensely patronising, and not particularly difficult or fun. The instruction screens seemed to last forever, and every other screen was reminding you to 'get rid of your bunnies of debt' and 'buy trees as savings'.

I suspect I'm not their target audience (although as a PhD student I am certainly a low-income adult!), as these are not new or novel ideas for me. Maybe if it hasn't occurred to you that clearing your debt before you save is a good plan it might be handy to play around seeing what happens if you don't. Maybe.

I felt this was a game that had little to do with the mechanics of earning money - but was all about what you do with it once you have it. The game mechanic of matching crops to earn money just felt a bit wedged in for me. Perhaps I'm wrong. And I'm not sure what I'd do instead. The overly-long instruction process that didn't let me do anything was just so frustrating that by the time the game started I was already pre-disposed to rubbish it! I'd love to see what Jim makes of this one...

Glitch

Glitch (http://glitch.com/) is a new MMOG that is still in the alpha stage, but looks like it could be right up my street. It's a new project by the team who started Flickr. The basic premise is that 11 giants are imagining this world, and the players are just tiny figments of their imagination. There is a fascinating interview with the guy who's creating it (Stewart Butterfield) on Gamasutra.  There's also a player-created wiki.

I think the interview is interesting because he has the same problems with Second Life and There.com as I do - what do you do when you're in there? At the same time, he doesn't like the way that in games like World of Warcraft you don't leave a lasting impression on the world - i.e. you kill something but you can go on the same raid to kill the same boss tomorrow. Glitch is an effort to create a world that is changed and responds to the players, and I think it's quite exciting.

I managed to get an alpha account, and had my first go playing last Thursday (the game is only periodically open at the moment). The focus is on building things and learning skills, but unlike other sandbox style games (e.g. Wurm) there are also quests, so there's an entry point. The quests are silly too. I had one where I had to use my emotional bear (after equipping it with lips) to kiss 5 other players, after eating garlic. So the quests show you how the equipment can be used, and encourage interaction - I had to chat to the people I was kissing, I really couldn't bring myself to just run up, kiss them and run away!

There are going to be multiple ways to group players from that interview, so not simply guilds/clans/villages. Some are going to be 'religious' cults, dedicated to one of the giants. He also mentions corporations. It will be really interesting to see what forms, and if there are any differences in character between the two types of groups.

I'm looking forward to seeing this one grow, and really pleased to be on board at the alpha stage.

Citizen Science

http://www.filamentgames.com/project_files/CitizenScience/Releases/Year2%20v1.0/popup.html

A game that was mentioned in the program for Games for Change 2010, you play the part of a persuasive young person (you get to choose boy or girl) who has to collect evidence for why the lake keeps getting polluted and stop it.

Neat little flash game, very linear storyline. Really clear who you need to talk to, and there's a little tag that tells you what to do next. Ideally I think the information the characters give you ought to be so clear that you don't need that, but it does help. Also occasionally the direction you're supposed to go in isn't really made clear.

It is very prescriptive, and after a while I kind of stopped reading the full arguments. You could tell which chunks are supposed to go with which arguments by reading the short bit at the top, rather than the full description. That might negate the learning somewhat. I guess the plus side for children would be something like fairy stories: the kid saved the world from the big bad guys. Be interesting to see if that really worked that way for children.

MMOG Farm Games - the follow up

I've been playing My Free Farm and the Free Farm Game for a couple of weeks now, so I thought I'd post a bit of a follow up on the two of them.

I've got far more into My Free Farm than the Free Farm Game. I think this is a real reflection of the different mechanisms at play in the games. With My Free Farm there are more things I can do in a day. I don't play constantly, but whenever I log in there is something I can do - either a crop ready for harvest and replanting or some eggs ready for collection. The Free Farm Game I still log into first thing (got to feed those chickens and check the crops), but it takes about 5 minutes to exhaust my 'energy' for the entire 24 hour period. I then sell whatever I've gathered or fished for plus my eggs in the market, and log back out. I'm not really sure I have any more insight than previously!

With My Free Farm, I've managed to level up to level 8. This gets me a range of different seeds to plant, which all take different amounts of time and different arrangements of fields to grow. I've increased my chickens from 3 to 5, which is allowing me to make more money off the NPC characters than before (eggs earn more). I've also unlocked a second village site, where I can purchase 'recipes' that will let me do other things more quickly. I've had 'quests' to complete which have pushed me to grow more of certain crops than I would otherwise. I've sold a little bit in the market, and I bought a cat (which turned out to be a stupid thing to do, because all it seems to do is take up valuable growing space!).

I am enjoying working out how to maximise what I get out of my patch, and how I can juggle serving enough of the NPCs to keep my queue down to a dull roar. I'm close to unlocking an extra field too. But all of the quests and all of the NPCs can be managed by basically growing things. There isn't really a talent, or something to practice, it's just a case of seeing what needs growing and putting the right seeds in the boxes and waiting. All of the things I'm unlocking are just different ways of using the outcomes of that mechanism, and I'm finding that a bit dull.

I've also had no inclination to find the other players, or any real need to do so. I know that what I've bought and sold through the market was to other players (unlike in the Free Farm Game, where it is just to a generic 'market') but the contact is very remote. I'm not sure why I would bother. Likewise the big push seems to be to decorate my farmhouse and fields. But I don't know why, it's decoration for the sake of it and then you can 'share' that with your friends.

I think this reinforces that for me, actions in game should have consequences in game, not externally. Also if we want to encourage player interaction we need to create situations where it is necessary for successful playing of the game.

Initial thoughts on My Free Farm
Initial reading of the Free Farm Game

My Free Farm

http://myfreefarm.co.uk/ Browser game allows you to farm (initially planting crops) and sell your produce to either other players (via a marketplace) or to NPCs, or to complete the NPC quests for extra cash/experience points.

The interface is really nice actually. You get 6 plots of land (although I think one of them is only available if you upgrade to premium). Initially only one is available to you, which is your field system. When you click on that field, you get a more in-depth view of what's going on.

You can only plant on clear squares, and a large chunk of the field is covered in weeds, stones and tree trunks which cost potato dollars (pDs) to clear. Some crops take more than one square to plant. The crops should be watered to decrease the time they take to mature, but it isn't necessary. There's no limit to how much watering you can do. The crops grow in 'real time' - so watered wheat takes around 20 minutes to mature, watered carrots about 15. There doesn't seem to be any sort of seasonality either - the plants you can grow reflect your experience level, not the weather conditions.

The other big area is the marketplace.

(This is currently covered in snow because it's December in real life, and has no effect on the game.) Different areas of this town give you access to different shops - a seed shop, a livestock shop etc. Also there's the marketplace, which is where you sell to other players and buy their wares. In order to sell you have to pay a percentage of your profit upfront, so cashflow can be an issue.

NPCs come to your farm at a rate of 6 in a 24 hour period, starting after you log in for that day. They will buy your stuff directly from you, which helps a little with some of the cashflow issues. You can advertise to increase the number of NPCs. Also NPCs in the market will sometimes have exclamation points over them, indicating that they have 'quests' to do for more points, coins and pDs.

Your second field becomes a chicken coop after the first tutorial level. The chickens in the coop eat the wheat you've grown which helps them to produce eggs faster. Which is a good thing, because an egg takes 4 hours. The maximum wheat you can feed them reduces that to 2 hours. I'm still waiting for my first egg as I'm writing this. The anticipation might kill me. There's a nice feature on the interface for showing how long you have to wait - next to the field is an egg box which is slowly filling up. If you mouse-over the egg box it tells you how many hours and minutes you have until the eggs are available.

There doesn't appear to be any direct player-to-player chat. You can send players messages in the post (and system messages are delivered that way) or you can use the town crier to post wanted ads (I think). These can lead to contracts being negotiated between players and by-passing the overhead of the market.

I'm finding the length of time to achieve anything a bit tedious - particularly the eggs. I can't complete my quest until the eggs are ready, and I don't have enough cash to sell anything worthwhile in the market so all I can do at the moment is keep planting crops and waiting for them to be ready. One online review suggested a chatroom might alleviate the boredom while you're waiting. It is a very different mechanism to the limited endurance one used in Free Farm Game though. Might not work with seasons etc.

Youda Farmer

http://www.miniclip.com/games/farmer/en/

This is a little flash game, that totally ignores the tending and choosing which crops to grow, and totally focusses on picking the products up before they go off and delivering them to town before people get frustrated with your tardiness.

Customisation is minimal - gender, truck colour and name. Mostly it's the truck you see, and the town people call you by name.

After that you get a tuition level, then it gets frenzied really quickly! Not sure it's got huge amounts to teach us, although it's a nice clear screen to work with it's not really presenting huge amounts of information.

Free Farm Game

http://www.freefarmgame.co.uk/index.php Online farm management game, encouraging multi-player co-operatives.

This looks like it's going to be an interesting (if slow) game. You start out with a beginner-level farm that consists of 6 squares of land that you own. One has your home on it, one a silo for collecting your produce, and one a chicken coop with 2 chickens in it. You start with $2000. There is woodland all around your farm that you can gather other produce from, but to cultivate it you need to buy it.

It is turn-based, with a farmer having a limited amount of 'endurance' per day. Each task on the farm uses endurance, and once you have too little endurance to perform any tasks that's you done for the day. And it really means day. A new turn starts at 3AM GMT every day. You can increase your endurance by eating, which can be done up to 3 times per day (they've clearly never heard of snacking...). In order to do that, you have to initially buy food from the market. I found it didn't really take very long to get through all my endurance and be done until tomorrow, and as a beginner I'm not in a cooperative or employing anyone else, so I have to wait now until tomorrow to do anything else. Frankly I found that a little frustrating.

The information display is interesting. Each square on the farm can be clicked on. When you do that you can see information about that square displayed at the bottom of the page, and you get a drop down with available actions for that square. Hovering over the action for a while brings up the information about what that icon means. Hopefully eventually that wouldn't be necessary, but it's a helpful touch for beginners.

I found it a little difficult to pick up what the various bits and pieces meant, and actually a little tough to read at times. But I think it gets the information across. The section at the top stays visible at all times, providing information on the current endurance level (although I have no idea what the little stars are above that), the current date and weather conditions, and things like your storage capacity and stocks of various bits and bobs.

The server keeps the game time, so presumably the date and weather is the same for everyone? It means that what you have to do initially and what is available to you is somewhat dependent on when you sign up (e.g. I've signed up on a hot day in August so I can move my chickens out of the coop and plant some warm weather crops).

Apparently skills have to be earned, so although you can gather from the woods from day one, apparently you get better at it the more you do it. This is reflected in getting more and better things in return. Equally your livestock is initially of a poor standard, but this can be improved by (I believe) breeding and improving your equipment. Eventually with enough money you can buy workshops to increase your skill levels further.

There is a market to buy and sell things, and that's also where you join cooperatives. These are player-managed, but I haven't really explored what difference they make to the game. There are also 'missions' that I have yet to explore. There also appear to be on-going competitions - again I haven't explored those yet.

In addition to the limited information provided by the mouseover/info stuff, there's a manual available from a link below the flash game. Click on that and a second flash item appears over the top, which provides more information and some starter advice.

It felt a little clunky, but I wouldn't have wanted all that information in the game interface so probably a good solution.

The homepage is interesting because it gives both starting information and in-game info, like the date, weather and pests to watch out for. It is very much in the same style as the game. I'm not sure if I'm just getting old, but I found both to be rather cluttered and the text rather small! The icons on the screen aren't very clear either.

I guess I'll have to log in and feed and water my chickens daily (yeah, honestly, or they die) for a bit and see if my opinion changes or I find more interesting facets to this.

EnergyVille - comments

It's true that most of the factual information is not relevant for the playing game but what I found more annoying is that clicking "Learn More" takes you out of the game to a completely different screen that's high on verbiage. So reading the educational information makes for a very disjointed and unsatisfying gaming experience. However two elements which I liked were (i) the UI feature that showed the economic, environmental & security impact of each energy source when you mouseover its icon (as this directly related to the goal of the game) and (ii) the summary screen at the end of the game which enabled you to drill down and see the combined impact of your choices and the external events.