Trivial Farm and Ranch Tips for Animal Parade

There are a number of small details in Animal Parade that, while not earthshattering in their implications, deserve mention as players have asked about them.

First, where sowing seeds is concerned, you cannot 'waste' seeds UNLESS you attempt to sow them in the 3 x 3 square area allotted to any Tree. If the squares surrounding any Tree are tilled, the Seeds will go onto the square where you sow it, but will neither sprout nor grow. Thus, the Seeds sown on any square designated for a Tree's sphere of influence will be wasted.

In other situations, where you sow a seed and it fails to fall on a tilled square, although you hear the sound of the seed hitting the soil, it will remain in the seed bag in your Rucksack. You cannot waste a seed by 'missing' the square. Nor can Fertiliser be wasted by being thrown onto an untilled square. It will remain in your Rucksack until used on a tilled square.

Note in this respect that you should till the squares that surround any Tree and fertilise them for a better chance of obtaining high quality Fruits/Products from them.

The effect of Fertiliser is only temporary in Animal Parade and must be renewed each season or even more often in the case of lower grades. If your Trees produce low grade Fruits consistently, it is because you need to fertilise your field again. My own suspicion with respect to the effect of Fertiliser on Crops is that it is related to the ENTIRE FIELD, rather than any specific square. As with Animal Products, the actual Crop you obtain is random but your CHANCE of obtaining high grade Crops improves with the number of superior soil squares on your Field. In the case of any Animal who produces Product, heart level determines the chance of obtaining high level product. In other words, at a low heart level, you have no chance of obtaining Shining Product but your chances of obtaining anything above Decent improve with each Heart Level. I believe that 5 Hearts is the minimum required for a chance of obtaining Perfect Milk.

A point must be made with respect to Farming and your Animals when they are grazing outside. You will have noticed that both Poultry and Livestock roam freely throughout the land that surrounds your house, even straying frequently onto tilled squares where Crops are growing. The (accidental) use of any Farm Tool on an Animal WILL lower Heart Level. In particular, it is best to send all the Aninmals back to the Barn before you water your Crops.

If you wish to avoid 'missing' any square with your Watering Can or when planting Seeds, by the way, simply use the Z button on your Nunchuk to 'square up' your Character and perfect his/her aim.

With respect to Ranch Animals, although they will lose Friendship Points if you neglect to feed them on any given day, the mood in which any Animal awakens is random and does not represent any loss of Friendship necessarily. Animals can awaken in a 'cranky' mood, designated by the icon of a tornado over their heads. You can do everything correctly, feed, pet and brush an Animal, take it outside on a sunny day or keep it safely inside on a rainy day and it STILL may awaken the next morning in a bad mood. You will notice, however, that when this does occur, simply petting the animal will transform its Mood instantly from bad to good and the tornado icon will be replaced by a musical note. It is possible that this random bad mood option was added to remind players that even Animals at maximum heart level need attention in the form of petting. I could be mistaken, but the same random mood swings existed in ToT. I would have thought that bad weather alone could cause this except that it can occur even on the sunniest morning after another sunny day.

One more point about Ranch Animals: Shearing definitely DOES lower Friendship Levels. You will notice that your Sheep displays the blue broken heart icon each time she is sheared. If you ask Finn about this, he will confirm that shearing lowers Friendship. Milking, on the other hand, raises Friendship. This is logical in a way. An Animal who needs to be milked will be uncomfortable until you relieve her of her Milk. Shearing, on the other hand, can be uncomfortable... although if they wished to be completely logical, the Friendship effect of shearing on a Sheep should have varied according to the Season. In Summer, a Sheep would be happy to lose some of that excess weight and warmth. In Winter, animals need their heavy coats...

Winning the Crop Festival in Island of Happiness

Until I began to play Island of Happiness, I considered myself a fairly good Farmer in the world of Harvest Moon. Island of Happiness reminded me of the danger of hubris, humbling me. It has taken me five years of farming on the Island to be able to state that I finally begin to comprehend farming.

Although I won my first two Crop Festivals in my first game, I actually lost a couple of seasonal Crop Festivals in later years in the same game. Whether you win or lose any given Crop Festival depends solely on the Rank and Quality of your entry. You must have an 'A' Rank Crop or higher to win.

The first challenge is to have access to the seeds needed to produce the Crop that is announced as the theme of the next Season's festival. In your first two years, the Theme in each season will be a crop that is available from the start of the game.
By the third year, however, you will be required to produce a Crop from seeds that must be unlocked. If you have not been able to unlock the Seeds for the Crop announced as the theme for the next Seasonal Crop Festival, you can obtain the Seeds in a slightly underhanded way. If you raised Wada's Friendship level to 7 Hearts by the start of the third year, he will allow you to gain access to his back garden where the 'Tower' stands. Here you will find Manfred and he will give you an item each day when you speak to him. The item is chosen randomly but by reloading your game, you can obtain the required Crop and feed it into your Seed Maker to produce the seeds you need.

The second challenge, once you have the seeds, is to grow the Crop successfully. In Island of Happiness, every Crop requires different care. Make certain that you pay attention to the description of the Seeds before you plant any crop. If you fail to remember the description, go to my Farming Guide for detailed information.

Every Crop has specific requirements in terms of Sunlight, Water and Time. Given more Sunlight, Crops tend to grow faster but some will die if they are exposed to too much Sunlight. No longer can you diligently water all your Crops daily and expect a successful harvest by virtue of doing so. There are Crops that require 'more' water than that and others that require 'less'. If a Crop requires 'more' water, you really need to water it twice daily in order to be able to obtain a good quality of harvest. If a Crop needs 'less' water, you need to abstain from watering it every other day.

As far as Sunlight and Water are concerned, you can control both variables by growing your Crops in the Greenhouse under an artificial Sun. If the Crop requires 'more' Sunlight, however, it may grow more slowly in the Greenhouse than it otherwise would grow in your Field, especially in the Summer season when fierce Sunlight is a common weather condition. Sunlight in the Greenhouse is provided at the rate of a single point per day. Fierce Sunlight, on the other hand, is worth 3 Points. Crops that require 'less' Sunlight may wither under a fierce sun but Tomatoes, requiring 'more' Sunlight, would thrive in your Field under such conditions.

Farming, therefore is a complex equation. A player posted a comment to the effect that tomatoes planted in the Greenhouse in preparation for the Summer Crop Contest
failed to mature in time for the Contest and only produced a Crop after the beginning of the Autumn season. The reason for this is the lesser number of Sunlight points given to any Crop grown in the Greenhouse. To be able to count on a harvest of Tomatoes for the Summer Crop Festival, therefore, the Summer Sun would need to be placed in the Greenhouse during the Spring Season and the Tomato Seeds planted then before Summer ever began.

Although I planned ahead in this fashion in my own game, growing Pineapples in my Greenhouse for the Summer Crop Festival, I foolishly forgot NOT to harvest them prematurely. When the day of the Summer Crop Festival arrived, there were no ripe Pineapples on my Greenhouse plants. The 'A' Rank Pineapples I had harvested a couple of days previously had deteriorated quickly to 'B' Rank in my ordinary Refrigerator and I was unable to win the Contest!

When Strawberries were the Theme of the Spring Crop Festival, I made the mistake of growing them only in my Field. An extremely wet Spring caused the death of every plant I had. I replanted immediately but alas, too late. The plants produced fruit before the end of Spring but one day AFTER the Spring Crop Festival. Once again, the Strawberries stored in my ordinary Refrigerator had lost their 'A' Rank...

These are arguments in favour of obtaining a Mythic Refrigerator, of course. With a Mythic Refrigerator, your Crops never lose their Rank, Quality or Freshness. The actual monetary cost of the Mythic Refrigerator is the same as that of the Quality Improver. Each costs 5,000,000G. The primary difference between the two is the shipping value of the materials used to create each. Mythic Stones ship for a minimum of 10,000G each. Adamantite, on the other hand, is not particularly valuable. Ship the first large quantity of Mythic Stone you obtain and you will have enough money for the Quality Improver. Once you have the Quality Improver, you items stored within will not lose their Rank or Quality and even will increase in quality gradually.

Remember that Orange Wonderfuls set in your Hammer increase your yield each time you smash a rock in the Mine. A total of 9 Orange Wonderfuls can be set in a Hammer, allowing you to obtain 10 Mythic Stones each time you smash a rock that contains one.
You should be able to obtain at least 5 Mythic Stones if no Orange Wonderfuls are set in your Hammer each time you visit Floor 100 of the Mine. With 9 Orange Wonderfuls in your Hammer, you can obtain at least 50 Mythic Stones on Floor 100 alone. If you descend to Floor 255, you should be able to collect 50 more between Floor 250 and Floor 255.

Until you have 9 Orange Wonderfuls in your Hammer, your yield will be less, but even a few Mythic Stones from the mine will increase your income significantly early in the game.

The Greatest Challenge in Island of Happiness

Courtship and Marriage are very easy in Island of Happiness. The greatest challenge perhaps is Farming itself. I thought that farming might be difficult mainly in terms of your character's energy at the start as it is in all Harvest Moon games. It was only when I lost half a field of Wheat and my first two precious Buckwheat crops quite a bit later in the game that I realised I had not reached any degree of real success yet.

I made one serious error actually with respect to the Buckwheat. I kept waiting for it to ripen, forgetting that it required the use of a Sickle to harvest it. It was not until the entire crop disappeared that I realised it probably had been ripe for days... but by trying to harvest it like any other crop, I mistakenly had thought it not ready for harvest. How could I be so stupid! I knew that grains required the Sickle, but somehow that slipped my mind where Buckwheat was concerned.

The Buckwheat had been planted very carefully in my Greenhouse, so the weather could not have been a factor. Who knows how long it had been ripe though?

The disappearance of half a field of Wheat remains a mystery to some extent... Was it too much water? I tried to be careful in that respect, but who knows?

I originally thought that the greatest danger to any crop would come from a Typhoon. Now I realise that my own lack of expertise in these complex 'Light' and 'Water' equations could be as deadly!

The screenshot shows grains being grown in my Greenhouse.

Farming in Island of Happiness

Unlike many other Harvest Moon games, Farming is rather complex in Island of Happiness. It therefore merits a mini-guide of its own. I hope to send one to IGN later this afternoon. All basic information included in the Farming Guide is included now in latest version of the General Guide, which should be uploaded later today I hope. Even so, a quick reference guide devoted specifically to farming may be useful to players.

The rate at which Crops grow, the value of the Crop harvested and the conditions under which they will wither in the field vary from Crop to Crop. Crops in IoH each require a specified amount of Sunlight and Water in order to thrive. Crops requiring LESS water or sunlight may wither and die if you overwater them or if there are too many fiercely sunny days in a season. Yes, there are two types of Sunny Day in IoH. The icon of a small sun indicates a 'clear sky' and 'mildly sunny' weather. The icon of a large red sun indicates fierce sunlight, a danger to crops that need 'more' water to survive.

Both Fruit Trees and Grass in Island of Happiness require specified amounts of Sunlight and Water to grow and to continue to grow. As Grass therefore is a labour intensive Crop in IoH, I suggest growing it only for emergency use on the day prior to any Typhoon. Like any Crop, you must continue to water it occasionally (but not too much!) if you wish to keep it ripe in the field.

Fruit Trees will continue to grow through the years and produce Fruit only if Sunlight and Water conditions are met. You need not water them daily but make certain they receive water once in a while. You cannot plant any crops in Winter, by the way, but Wheat should continue to grow during the Winter season.

Most Crops in Island of Happiness need to be unlocked before you will be able to buy the Seeds at Chen's Market. There are only two varieties of seasonal Crops at the Market at the start of the game in each of the growing seasons. All others must be unlocked through your Farming accomplishments. Shipping is the key in most cases.
You therefore need to maintain a fine balance between use of Crops in Recipes, storing Crops for the future and shipping them for Income and in order to unlock new Crops.

The Seed Maker and the Greenhouse are critical items in Island of Happiness. Ultimately, I suggest that players grow almost all Crops in the Greenhouse, reserving the Field for an Orchard and Animal Pens and one plot, perhaps, of ripe Grass.

With a Seed Maker, you can create seeds for crops that you have not unlocked at Chen's Market. Mushrooms in particular can be grown from the first Autumn when you find them in the Wilds provided you have a Seed Maker. With a Seed Maker, you can convert Crops and Grains given randomly by Manfred into seeds if they have not been unlocked yet.

In any event, I hope my Farming Guide will be helpful to players. It is a work in progress, like all of my guides.