Happy Acres (farming)

Happy Acres by FunPlus is a farming game on Facebook (you should not need a link for this). Typical of farming games, the player farms crops, harvests fruit trees and/or tend animals for farm produce to process into products. Produce and products can be sold for coins, which may be spent to farm more produce and to purchase improvements to the farm.

What attracted me to this game was the fact that crops do not spoil. This fact meant that I can step away from the game and take a break whenever I want. I do not have to follow strict schedules to avoid losing my harvest. This is a relief when and if the Internet decides to take a day off.

The front of the farm, where most of the orders are.

As stated earlier, the basics of the game is to produce farm produce to process into products to sell. Products are sold by fulfilling orders, which may come from several sources. There is the notice board where NPCs (non-player characters) post their orders. NPCs also visit the farm to directly place small orders. In addition, there are two (at the time of writing) special NPCs with time-limited orders.

Orders give the player short-term goals. Otherwise, the farming process would be aimless with the player spending time deciding on what to produce.

There is also the market stall where the player can sell extra products at possibly exorbitant prices. One of the market stand products can be promoted, which will then appear in the newspaper where other players may find the product.

The newspaper allows the player to purchase products from other players. In addition, it allows the player to visit other market stands. It also allows other players to be added as in-game friends without the need to add them through Facebook. This makes it easier to find friends to play with.

Material required to upgrade a machine.

It should be noted that buildings and machines (to process produce into products) in Happy Acres can be upgraded to provide more storage space and longer queues for orders. Material required for upgrades are obtained through harvesting crops and fulfilling board orders, and through direct production in the workshop. Most of the material can be obtained with a lot of patience. However, upgrades for machines to level 5 and above require special upgrade items.

These special upgrade items can obtained through posts on Facebook. Unfortunately, friends made through the newspaper cannot access the Facebook posts of the player. This is the main downside to the game that I have found so far where it requires the help of Facebook friends who would read the player's posts and help.

Without those special upgrade items, the player will be stuck with a queue length of four orders. There are other methods to gain those items. Other players may sell them in the newspaper (at exorbitant prices). In addition, the items can be bought with a large amount of sunstones (premium currency).

Storage space is limited.

Happy Acres requires resource management and planning on behalf of the player. The player has to plan production since crops takes a certain amount of time to grow. It is the same with manufactured goods.

In addition, inventory space for produce and products are limited. The player has to plan production to meet demand while managing inventory. Preparing for large orders take a lot of inventory space and this can limit space to prepare for other orders.

An order on the board.

It should be noted that the game progress eventually gets slow. Latter machines and land area cost a lot of coins, which may take a lot of time playing to gather. In addition, it takes time to gather material for upgrades.

On the other hand, once everything is bought and upgraded, there is nothing else to strive for. Considering this possibility, perhaps it is better for it not to be so easy to progress.

A typical farming day.

On the technical side, the game has a low loading time and does not lag. This is probably due to lesser art and sound assets compared to other graphic-intensive farming games, though this unfortunately leads to lower presentation quality. It should be noted that the presentation is still adequate. Players who intend to play the game for a long time will probably not mind the presentation quality in favor of faster gameplay performance.

Happy Acres is an adequate farming game. The game provides a decent challenge in the form of planning and management of production. There are no serious requirements for friends to help progress in the game and any necessary items that can be obtained from friends can be procured in a roundabout fashion with time and patience. Patience is required, though, since progress takes a lot of real world time, especially in the latter stages.