I've told you about this game before but honestly- there's SO much mileage within the confines of this digital farming experience that my head is bursting just thinking about it.
Goats = functional. They produce milk that can be made into goats cheese that can be made into feta pie that can be sold for many pretend coins. Goats have a job. Goats pull their weight. But goats are not pretty. Sorry, but they're just not.
Cats & dogs = decorative. As in real life, so in pretend farm world, these household pets offer no contribution at all to the day to day running of things. They simply wander around leaving you to do all the manual labour stuff alone, look miserable until fed, then without so much as a thank you swan off to sleep under a tree somewhere. Useless.
However some items offer a bit of both. Form and function. Hurray- we can have it all with apple or cherry trees. Invest in raspberry or blackberry bushes and gain both attractive foliage and edible fruits. Jam making. Pie baking. Cherry lolly freezing. A whole range of possibilities open up while the overall appearance of your farm is improved as well. Win win.
Then we come to fencing / walling options. This is where my brain fizzes and I start asking Noodle (our real cat) for advice because everyone else has gone to bed.
These items are purely decorative- it says so on the fake shop screen. Chicken coups and cow fields have already got secure boundaries, so we don't need additional fencing to stop our animals wandering off and getting squished by the delivery lorry.
I'm not into decorative, but I AM into organised, so I do have a bit of fencing around my edible plants and some more lining the driveway up to the farm house. Nothing fancy, just white picket fencing, like this:
Now, for slightly more fake money you can have hedging. I have some of this next to my orchard. Just because.
And for just a few fake pennies more you can invest in some stone walling. It will last longer and needs no maintenance. I have some of this on the main road leading off the screen. I bought it in a moment of weakness. I have no excuse. I'd just levelled up and it became available.
The choice of boundary options is only limited by budget and acreage. And it's the budget thing that causes me some concern. Because somehow, for some reason, the game makers saw fit to programme in a type of wall that is so outrageously extravagant and unnecessary that surely there has been some sort of mistake. My shop screen must have a glitch because at the foot of my 'pretty but useless' list of fake stuff for sale is THIS:
Yes, a GOLDEN wall. Made of yellow pixels. And retailing at the market price of 10,000 of your fake hard earned non existent coins.
Why Why WHY???
The ONLY reason anyone would buy this for their fake farm is to make it pretty. The golden wall does not sprout golden leaves or golden fruit. It's primary purpose is to stand there and sparkle and do sod all towards helping you fulfil the never-ending orders of consumable goods.
Fencing is fencing. Fake golden wall or fake white picket fencing- it will do the same job for you.
So why buy it?
To show off, maybe? So you can enjoy the cha-ching of the purchase, place each section of it in pride of place within your kingdom and then LOOK at it? Then if you are lucky, some other (poorer) farmers may stumble upon your farm and gaze in wonder at it's sparklyness and envy you for it.
I'm trying to feel the envy. Honestly I am- because I think that's what they want. Instead I'm thinking Are you MAD??!
My brain won't let this go. Why were these purchases were made? And how can farmers such as the one below have possibly have accumulated so much wealth that they have been able to purchase too many golden wall sections than there is comfortably room for?
I have analysed the possible explanations and offer the following explanations:
• The farmer is a child who has access to both an iPad and a parental apple account password (and hopefully the full knowledge and consent for both).
• The farmer is an child in an adult body who has access to both an iPad and more money than responsibility.
• The farmer is a nerd who has hacked into the mechanics behind the game and has unlocked the secret to infinite diamonds and coins. This person or persons unknown would be most suited to a career in cyber crime prevention and should probably contact the MOD. Or NASA.
• The farmer's best friend is fake friend and regular level 50 customer from the farm next door, has no other job aside from fake farming, and has nothing else to do all day except play HayDay and repeatedly buy the most expensive thing the game can offer in order to go to bed each night with a sense of achievement.
I hope it's the third one. And I hope they will be fake friends with me.
