Features

FarmVille iPhone diary: Day two on the farm

Market crash

FarmVille iPhone diary: Day two on the farm
|
| FarmVille by Zynga

Part two of a five-part adventure in the world of FarmVille. Click here for part one.

Having recovered from last week's strawberry/cowboy debacle, small red fruit, has quickly become my friend. Not the vitamin C rich kind that caused my death, however, but raspberries.

You see, so obsessed am I with saving up for that shiny tractor I have my eye on, I’ve worked out that the raspberry is the most profitable crop. At an initial investment of 20 coins from the market, with a return of 46, and a harvest time of only two hours, it’s a licence to print money.

Oh no, it’s happened – FarmVille has become engaging.

Which is a good job, really, as all weekend the game has suffered from crash after crash, servers de-syncing, and actions carried out being lost. As not harvesting your crops means they will rot and waste hours not only of your money, but the time you waited for them to grow, this was hugely frustrating.

Thankfully, these issues appear to have been iOS 4.0 related, and Zynga issued an update yesterday evening. The update not only purports to resolve the crashing and server synchronisation issues, but also speeds up loading times for your farm.

I’ve yet to experience an in game crash since installing the update, so with any luck it won’t happen again. The laborious loading times seem unchanged, however.

As I write, I have three hours left before I can harvest my field of wheat (the 12 hour growing time is ideal for an overnight crop), at which point I will be able to automate my ploughing.

As intuitive as the interface is, it can be frustrating to drag the screen around as you tend to every patch of soil on your land, so the tractor will be a most welcome addition to my homestead.

Tonight, I shall try and obtain a neighbour or two…

Ben Maxwell
Ben Maxwell
Ben is an eager young games journalist who, when touring with his band, happily replaces sex, drugs, and rock & roll with Advance Wars, Drop7, rock, and Rolando...