Harvest Moon Forever: Night and Day in Farming on Facebook

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Night and Day in Farming on Facebook

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My natural impulse in farming or in anything else, whether in real life or in a game is to choose the most beautiful item or option rather than the most profitable or practical. This can be a real problem in Farming Simulation Games on Facebook where real time controls your results. The most beautiful Crops may not be the ones that are most practical in terms of a player's real-life schedule. It took me awhile to realise this. Wishful thinking often overcame good sense where farming was concerned, whether in Fantasy Kingdoms, Lovely Farm or Farmville.

In Farmville, I tended to grow Morning Glories, irrespective of the time of day or night when I planted them. In Lovely Farm, I wanted to grow the most beautiful Crops and in Fantasy Kingdoms, I wanted to do the same. Time and again, I would return to a game to find my Crops withered.

In Fantasy Kingdoms, I solved the problem temporarily by restricting my choices to Crops that take at least one full day to mature. In Lovely Farm, where I am very conscious of a desire to increase my Levels, I tried to choose Crops that were fairly fast-growing while planting them according to a schedule that would allow me to harvest them. Even so, I made some errors due to wishful thinking. I planted Crops with a shorter growth period than 12 hours at night, hoping that I would be able to harvest them before they withered. I do pass many sleepless hours at night because of pain levels but the problem is that I am not on any specific schedule for that. Pain controls my ability to sleep and my time of waking. Sad to say, I wasted my energy, coins and time more than once by planting short-term Crops after sunset.

Now I have embarked on a rather schizophrenic 'planogramme' where, during the day, I satisfy my desire to create a 'Lovely Farm' in the patterns and varieties of my Crops and then, when I have harvested most of those in the evening, I replace them with the Crops that require at least 12 hours to mature, whether or not I find them aesthetically thrilling. So far, this strategy has worked well for me.

It occurred to me, however, that when Neighbours visit my Farm, their concept of me will vary according to their own schedule. If they are nocturnal gamers, they probably never will see the lovely patterns I enjoy most. If they are diurnal, on the other hand, they will experience the Farm as I like to see it myself.

The Daisies are the first true flower that one is able to unlock in Lovely Farm. They actually are Marguerites, the miniature blossoms in the Daisy family. In real life, there are many flowers I prefer to Daisies but I was thrilled when I saw my first Daisy harvest in Lovely Farm. They really are lovely.

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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'.