Chickens and Pigs and Lambs, Oh My!
by SealWyf, HSM Editor
Several years ago, I found my self moderately addicted to a little Nintendo DS game named “Animal Crossing”.
No, let me be honest: I found myself immoderately addicted to it. Most gamers will recognize the genre, even if they never played this particular title. You’re in a village populated by a wide array of non-player characters. Every day — and I do mean every day — you visit your village and perform a wide variety of tasks. You visit your neighbors and run errands for them, plant and weed the flowerbeds, collect specimens for the local museum, plant and chop down trees, collect furniture for your house and expand the house to accommodate it, attend concerts, shoot down flying saucers… you get the idea. There is always something to do, and if you don’t keep doing it, your neighbors will get grumpy, weeds will choke your flower gardens, and your house will be infested by dust bunnies and virtual roaches.
While I was immersed in “Animal Crossing”, my best friend (another educated adult, who really should have known better) was deep in the world of “Harvest Moon”, a classic “farm game”. Every day we would trade notes about activities in our respective virtual worlds. I did give “Harvest Moon” a try, but I really, really didn’t want another addiction. One was enough, thank you very much.
Lately, both of us have found ourselves surrounded by Facebook friends who are deeply involved in “Farmville”, “Sim City Social” and a dozen other similar games. For lack of a better term, I think of them as “accumulation games”, but it’s just as accurate to call them “farm games”, even if no virtual farms are involved. The pattern is familiar — simple daily tasks, accumulating things, unlocking new items and activities, creating collections, and customizing your personal farm, city, village or what-have-you. All with the long-term goal of unlocking every item, completing all the collections, maxing your stats and generally making the best possible “farm” — and then showing it off to your friends.
It’s been apparent for some time now that games of this sort ought to do very well in PlayStation Home. After all, Home is a social network, as much as Facebook is — even more so. Many Home users already visit every day to work on gaming goals. And we have plenty of opportunities to unlock items, complete collections, climb leaderboards and show off our success to our admiring (or jealous) friends. We don’t need a separate Trophy Room — all of Home is our trophy room, and our inventories are our status markers.
And, sure enough, accumulation games have started to arrive in Home. We now have a build-your-own-city game in Home Tycoon, and a Facebook-style daily-activity game, in FUBAR. The software technology underlying Home has grown steadily more powerful. It was just a matter of time before we got a Home-based classic “farm game”, with all the features made popular by games such as “Harvest Moon” and “Farmville”.
That time has now arrived. February 27, Juggernaut will unleash the Bramblenook Farm personal space on Home. But it’s not really a personal space — it’s a farm game. We won’t know how well it plays until we experience it, but the description in the PR release sounds very promising.
I find it encouraging that it’s not a one-crop farm — there are multiple activities to choose from. You can plant and raise various vegetable crops, which require regular watering. You can purchase and raise various farm animals, which require regular feeding. You can chop wood, and use the resulting lumber to craft furniture. You can decorate your house (always a plus in Home), in part with the furniture you have crafted — it doesn’t even take up any furniture slots! You can invite friends over to admire your farm and participate in activities, such as having a picnic or helping you with wood-chopping chores. You can also gift your friends the furniture you have crafted. How cool is that?
In true farm-game tradition, activities unlock further activities — new crops and animals to raise, new furniture to craft. And you can sell your crops, beasts and crafts for in-game currency, “gold”, which you then use to purchase additional items. I’m guessing you can buy in-game gold for real-world cash as well. That’s a time-honored method of monetizing farm games.
Because of course monetization rears its ugly head — Home is not a charity, and Juggernaut has expenses, same as anyone else. But, judging from the description, it seems to be well-handled. As well as (probably) in-game gold, you can use your cash to buy Artisinal items (a Watering Can, a Feed Trough, an Axe) to speed up your farming and wood-chopping. You can also purchase items that will unlock more furniture layouts in your farm, where you can arrange your lovely hand-crafted creations.
And there are other, pre-made furnishings to purchase — active-item beds and rocking chairs, a beehive with animated bees, and even a picnic table where you and your friends can enjoy a virtual farm-fresh feast. So far, this does not sound like pay-to-play. It’s classic freemium pricing — a balanced mix of in-game earning and external purchasing. That’s my guess, based on the description. We’ll know the details soon.
The one question that remains is how addictive this thing is going to be. Judging by my own history with farm games, I expect I’ll be intensely involved with Bramblenook until I feel I have done everything there is to do. At which point I’ll drift off to some other Home activity. What would keep me there is updates. If Juggernaut keeps giving us new things to do and experience — new crops and creatures, seasonal changes, new rewards and competitions, new ways to customize our property — I might stay, and spend, for a very long time.
It’s not an unlikely scenario. Juggernaut has done a good job keeping the Cutteridge Estate refreshed. I’m hoping they continue that tradition with Home’s first genuine farm game.
February 27th, 2013 by SealWyf_ | 8 comments
SealWyf is a museum database programmer, who has been active in online communities since before the Internet, and in console gaming since the PS1. In games, she prefers the beautiful and quirky, and anything with a strong storyline. She is obsessed with creating new aesthetic experiences in PlayStation Home.
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I find it fascinating, when viewing the promo video for the new farm game that is coming to the PS3 (Bramblenook) that Juggernaut seems to have read this article last August:
http://www.hsmagazine.net/2012/08/home-farmmoon/
I definitely noticed the similarity of the press release to your description, Keara!
FINALLY!!! Someone gets it. I’m quite surprised it’s taken anyone this long to make a farm sim for Home, this is gonna be a money earner for Juggernaut, big time.
I’m still staying out of Home just now though, till the dust settles at least. In the meantime I’m perfectly happy building my new house from the ground upwards in Skyrim. Been building it fir the last two days now and might even finish it today. I spotted a little homeless girl begging fir gold in Whiterun while I was picking up supplies, she looks like she could do with a nice home. Just hope my wife agrees about adoption! Though, she was fine when I insisted on having Lydia as a houseCarl, whom I’ve also appointed as my new Steward for the mansion I’m building…
Wow! Skyrim tangent!!! Sorry! Good read Seal, love your stuff!
Good article Seal,
I can’t wait to get my hands dirty! I love this genre of gaming. Go Juggernaut!
Can’t wait til I get this today. Loved the idea when it was proposed and to see it out is fantastic. Kudos to Juggernaut for once again keeping their fingers on the pulse of Home.
One Christmas when I was a kid all I wanted was a farm set.You know the one,open the barn door and a cow moo’s?There was a loft to store hay or chickens and a fence that snapped together.I got it and it was the Best.Years later one Christmas my son wanted Harvest Moon and nothing else.I found the last copy at E.B.Games,I believe,and paid 60bucks for it.I began to look forward to bedtimes not so I could relax,make lunches,be an adult,but so I could play Harvest Moon.These kind of games have appealed to me for a long time and i can’t wait to try Bramblenook Farm!
I gotta say, when I had Harvest Moon for my PSP I wasn’t all that impressed. I found it so damn slow I just lost interest waiting on stuff happening. BUT! I’m saying that as a person who’d just spent the last YEAR on Animal Crossing, which I couldn’t tear myself away from. Hell, I even bought a DS and an extra copy so I could drag my gf into its world! I brought her exotic fruits and fancy clothes, and even carved our initials in the stars of the night sky…
Damn, that was a good game.