Harvest Moon Forever: Rules relatiing to Gifts in Facebook Games

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Rules relatiing to Gifts in Facebook Games

There is some confusion among players as to the rules respecting Gifts in Free Facebook Games. The Games themselves sometimes contribute to the confusion actually and although many games share the same rules, some are different. Of the Games that I have explored, the Rules where Gifts are concerned appear to be as follows:

Farmville:

1 Free Gift can be sent to a Friend/Neighbour every 3 Hours. Other players have confirmed the time limit. If any one has been unable to send another Gift after three hours, please let me know.

Players can find items in the Market that have a 'Send' as well as a 'Buy' Option, allowing them to send items to Friends. This is different from the Free Gifts Menu, where ALL Gifts are Free. I expect there are no time restrictions on the Items that can be sent from the Market.

CAUTION: Reciprocating with a 'thank you Gift'. In Farmville, when you send a thank you gift, it will be the SAME item that was sent to you. When this item is one that you specifically requested and which may not be useful to the person who sent it to you, do NOT activate this option. Many of the Free Gifts, such as Materials for Building or for the Tuscan Wedding have NO resale value! If your Friend or Neighbour cannot use the item, it is worthless and prevents you from sending a Gift he/she might appreciate far more.

Free Gifts are unlocked according to the Level of Experience of the Sender.

There are some special situations in Farmville when specific Items that do not appear currently in the Gifts Menu can be requested by a Message on the Player's Wall or by a Request to any Friends who have not played Farmville yet. At least, this was my own experience when I needed Bamboo. Bamboo is one of the Limited Edition Items that is included in the Gift Menu on a cyclical basis. When it did not appear currently in the Gift Menu, I was able to make a Request to a list of Friends who did NOT play Farmville or at any rate never had sent me a Gift before.

The Gift Menu in Farmville includes both Items that are permanent and Items that are cyclical and belong to a special Category. Collectibles, Building Materials and Special Event Items are cyclical. In other words, a Harness and Nails may appear for two days, and then be replaced by Horseshoes and Boards.

Fantasy Kingdoms:

There is no time limit nor are there any restrictions on the number of Free Gifts that you can send to a Friend or Neighbour. As with other games, however, when you send a Thank you Gift, it will be the same item that you received. What is interesting here is that Limited Edition Items that have expired can be exchanged indefinitely if you continue to use the Thank you Gift option! For example, the Sunset Tree no longer appears in the Free Gifts Menu as it was a Solstice Item but if you receive one as a Free Gift, you can send one back as a Thank You Gift!

All Free Gifts are available to a player at any level.

Farm Town:

One Free Gift can be sent to any/every Neighbour or Friend every 24 hours. Gifts are unlocked by the Level of the Sender. There is a very interesting and useful option in Farm Town that does not exist in other Games, however, which is that you can EXCHANGE any Gift upon receipt of it for any other Gift that YOUR Level has unlocked. I love this option. I only wish this game had better graphics. It is the ugliest game I currently play!

Lovely Farm:

One Free Gift can be sent to 15 Neighbours or Friends every 24 hours. You cannot send more than 15 Free Gifts to ANY ONE in any 24 hour period. In Lovely Farm, the Gift Menu includes both Free Gifts and Paid Gifts. Some of the Paid Gifts are Items that do not appear in the Shop Menu and can be obtained only if some one sends them to you. It appears that there is no time restriction or limit to the Paid Gifts you can send to any individual but I must confirm this.

Castle Age

One Free Gift can be sent to any Neighbour or Friend every 24 hours. A special Gift that does not appear in the Gift Menu will be sent to any one who responds to an Invitation to join a player's Army. I do not think an Invitation bars a Player from sending an Item from the Gift Menu during the same 24 hour period, but I must confirm this.

Gifts are not level-specific but often are part of a set that must be completed before they will be of any use to the recipient.

Tiki Farm:

Free Gifts include Seeds as well as rather unique and rare Animals, including Penguins, Koala Bears and Kimodo Dragons.

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For all Harvest Moon fans and players

As Freyashawk, I have written about 150 guides for games, most of which have been guides for Harvest Moon games. These are published on IGN. IGN has given me the title of 'Mistress of Harvest Moon' and I strive daily to earn the right to maintain that title. Although there is a link page on IGN that lists all the guides published there, they are not organised by game, but rather given in alphabetical order. I therefore created this page in order to provide links to the guides I have created for each Harvest Moon game. If you access the General Guide for any game, links should be included to all other guides for that game in a section at the end. I will try to add links to ALL guides as time permits, but until I do, you always can refer to my user page at IGN for the complete list.

I wrote the Official Strategy Guide for Tree of Tranquility for BradyGames as well.
Harvest Moon Forever!

How to Use my Guides

I write three different basic types of game guides. I usually write a General Guide for every game, which is fairly comprehensive and deals with all aspects of the game. It may or may not be in the form of a Walkthrough, dealing with game aspects as they occur. My Innocent Life General Guide is an example of a General Guide that is organised as a Walkthrough.

After writing a General Comprehensive Guide, I often write a Calendar Guide giving birthday and festival dates, with additional information that may be helpful, such as favourite gifts for each individual. For all Harvest Moon games, I usually write a number of 'mini-guides', such as Events Guides for each year of gameplay, or Recipe Guides that give all recipes one can make. Fishing, Mining, Shipping or Item Value Guides are other mini-guides that can be very useful when playing Harvest Moon. Character Guides give detailed information about every character in any specific game. My Courtship and Marriage Guide is devoted to all aspects of Courtship and Marriage, including schedules of Heart Events, Rival Heart Events and the likes and dislikes of every Eligible Girl and/or Bachelor.

Although this site is devoted to Harvest Moon, I have included links to game guides for other games. I created a separate link section for Animal Crossing Wild World as well, because I wrote more than one guide for that game.

N.B. All my game guides are published by IGN. This webpage has been created simply to allow players to find links to all my guides more easily.

Copyright Infringement Warning

It is really sad to discover that there are individuals who are willing to steal my guides and to attempt to publish them under their names. Fortunately, there are many players who recognise my guides when they see them anywhere on the internet and who are willing to alert me when some one tries to steal my material. I want to thank all those players for their help in these cases.

Some one stole one of my guides and tried to publish it on Gamefaqs under his/her name. The guide has been removed and the poster has been banned. I now have a contact in the Legal Department at CNet. I spend many months sometimes writing a guide. They are available for the private use of any individual without cost, but they are not available for theft!
If you want permission to include a link to one of my guides on your site, please contact me directly.

Friends of Mineral Town and More Friends of Mineral Town

You will notice that I wrote far more guides for More Friends of Mineral Town than I did for the original 'Friends of Mineral Town'. At some point, I would like to publish more specific Events Guides for Friends of Mineral Town, but players should be aware of the fact that ALL Calendar Events Guides for MFoMT can be used when playing the original FoMT. The Events are the same in most cases in both games. If, therefore, you are playing FoMT and you wish to know the events that can be experienced in the third year of gameplay, refer to the 'Third Year Calendar Events Guide' for 'More Friends of Mineral Town'.