Farm Town – Part YoVille, Part myFarm

farm-town1A while back we took a look at a Facebook sim game called myFarm by PlaySocial. As rudimentary as the graphics were, the game was still pretty fun for the genre.

Now, a similar game has become very popular on Facebook: Farm Town, from SlashKey.com. At first glance, it is a direct clone of myFarm. However, when given a closer look, it is not only prettier to look at but contains a great deal more depth too. In fact, it feels like myFarm has been married with Zynga’s YoVille.

Farm Town game has players building up and designing their own farm. You plow away ground, plant crops, care for animals, and place objects in order to make your farm better than all the rest. Each action you take gives you experience, which in turn unlocks new items for purchase, and you earn money by selling your crops or visiting and helping out neighboring farms (people added as friends). This is the myFarm side of the design.

As for the YoVille half, players create their own custom avatar (though it isn’t possible to change your clothes currently) and walk around a world. When players choose to leave the farm, they can visit the local inn, bank, marketplace, or realtor’s office. Upon arrival, you are immediately surrounded with other players also currently online and can talk and socialize with any of them.

farmtown2Of course, this socialization does all come with a purpose (beyond the aspect of being…well… social). One of the more interesting features of this game is the ability to hire people to work for you (or visa versa). By doing so, actions around the farm can earn you a percentage (25% to be exact) more income.

Overall, Farm Town feels good, but not great. There is a lot more going on in Farm Town than myFarm, which means you end up checking on a lot of different things when you play. Who’s at the inn? Selling things at the market. Checking the store. Etc. However, the number of things you can do are outpaced by the speed of the game – meaning you can log on, check everything and still get nothing from it.

The biggest complaint about the game has been the balancing of crop harvesting, crop value, and item cost. It would seem that crops can go bad very quickly, so you have to be fairly astute with your log in habits. However, even if you do harvest your crops, a number of users feel items are too expensive (compared to earnings) to do anything significant with their virtual land. 90% of the fun in a game like this is designing your personal space, and it takes days before you can have more than a few plods of dirt on your acre (a single, tiny section of basic fence is $250, equating to half of what you start with in funding). Players, especially social/casual players, want some form of gratification right away, and it just doesn’t feel like you can do much of anything early on in this game.

Regardless of complaints, Farm Town has captivated a rather hefty number of users with a current total of over 7 million monthly active users, according to AppData. If you like YoVille and you like myFarm, then you will most likely enjoy Farm Town. It’s just a game that requires some steady play and patience to get somewhere. In time, and with a few updates, it is possible that this title will go from “good to great.”

AppData - Facebook application stats and data from Inside Network

20 Responses to Farm Town – Part YoVille, Part myFarm

  1. castrence says:

    hi some one give me a farm own

  2. Jessica Ng says:

    why suddenly i fail to log in this farm town game?

  3. naomi says:

    hey play yoville crazy funs stuff spiffin and more the dork are stupid

  4. shorty says:

    i want to play

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  7. Becky says:

    I keep getting kicked off of Farm Town for hours. Don’t know what the problem is.

  8. Sandy says:

    I Love Farm Town. You get to work at farming, harvesting, making money and buying things for your farm. I am at level 32. close to level 33 and the highest you can go at this point in time is level 34. The largest land you can purchase is a 24×24 farm, so I do hope they will add larger plots of land to buy and improve the site, where as you don’t get booted off of the site so much, because that is annoying when you are in the middle of harvesting for someone and you get booted. If they aren’t a friend or Neighbor you lose out because you can’t get back to their farm, so please work on making the site stronger that people can enjoy it with out being booted sooo much. Love It hope we never lose this game, a lot of people would be very upset for sure.

  9. Elaine says:

    Farm Town is not working and slashkey.com does not either.

  10. Joseph says:

    Farm Town is certainly much better than yoville in my opinion. Never played myfarm but if it inspired farm town, it had to have been fun.

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  12. lauren matthews says:

    hi ths game was the first game i playd on facebook and is stil the best can someone please join http://www.caveages.com and join the trine u go onto explore wnu u have madeit goonto the top icon in the top right it says trines look at the top when u have clicked tribes look 4 ??littlemiss?? then click on the name next to it on the left of it then somewhere it says apply then just press it then just say the first word that pops into ur head

  13. lauren matthews says:

    i mean ??littlemissrayner??

  14. kentdark says:

    this game is my first game on facebook…for me farm town is still the number one…

  15. Kimberry says:

    Is it good how do you get the
    farm town?
    help me please!!

  16. donna marie jugan says:

    this is grate game ever i’ll never torn away from this

  17. itzel says:

    i say the plage of balgen on girsscout

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  19. pat says:

    why can i not log into my farm town, please help

  20. bob says:

    oct 2011 played FT since it started…at highest level and have endured lost neighbors numerous times an now the developers will not give me the 2million experience points back…well thats it for me. a senior vet who liked the outlet and game but not the uncooperative designers and overseers who ignore my comminiques.

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