When it comes to farming games on Facebook there is plenty to choose from. Two of the most popular games are Farm Town and Farmville. Both have millions of players who log in each day to tend to their virtual farms and socialize with friends. Although, similar they vary in game action, difficulty, and design. Farm Town is by Slashkey and still in the beta phase. The 2D virtual farming community relies heavily on social interaction with other players as well as your friends to level-up. Farmville by Zynga games focuses more on mastering the elements of farming while adding a few social features.
Every gamer has their preference when it comes to gameplay. In Farm Town players design their own farm, decorate it, plow, and plant various crops. When you add friends as neighbors they appear at the bottom of your screen. Users can chat and visit their friend’s farms. Sometimes a neighbor’s farm my need tending to. Players earn extra coins and experience points for helping out. In Farm Town you can play with more people than just your facebook friends.
There is a virtual town with an open Marketplace, Inn, Realtor Office, Fuel Station, and Bank. All players that are online who enter the open Marketplace will have an avatar appear. Players can work for other farmers and earn additional cash harvesting their crops. Plowing another farmer’s land earns experience points as well. When a player has 13 neighbors or more they can enter the Marketplace and hire workers to plow for them. There are also tools that users can buy like a Solar-Powered Tractor or Big Seeder to increase the amount of crops harvested at a time.
Farmville is all about farming. Each crop has three levels of mastery. To reach one level of mastery players must plant and harvest a specific amount of that crop. Some crops require 2000 harvests to acquire one level of mastery. Unlike Farm Town which only uses flowers for decoration purposes Farmville considers it as a crop. Roses and other flowers are harvested for coins. Players only can interact and chat with their facebook friends who are neighbors. There is no open Marketplace or side farming jobs that you can accept from strangers. Animals also have a purpose in Farmville. Players can collect wool from a sheep, truffles from pigs, milk from the cow, and eggs from chickens to exchange for coins.