Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Why I Play A Stupid Virtual Farming Game With My Kids And Why It's Really NOT About Farming.


So. If you are pathetic enough to be following my life? You know I play Farmville 2. I do the grunt work, and I call the kids in for "teachable moments". Like - which thing should we craft for maximum coins and XP? Is it ok to have virtual pigs on our farm when we have Farmville friends (we've never met them, they are assigned by the game) who are muslim?

Is it ok if they have pigs too?

Is it mathematically worthwhile to even have pigs, or any other animals other than goats and chickens?

We dragged out the calculator (no, the pigs don't pay off) and chatted with friends in real life and online about the pig/halal issue. They all have pigs too. And in the original Farmville? Breweries.

Wow. So what I suspected all along was proved true. Yeah, the graphics are cool, but really, it's a math game. K was not surprised. C and I were mildly surprised. I went digging for cheat sheets and before we knew it - based on the advice therein? We are now level 34. There are 72 levels right now. We "level up" about every 2-3 days. They scream with excitement, I sigh and realize that now I have to harvest everything and wait for more water....

Yeah, it's not just cute animals and apricot trifle.

We've learned some stuff. Like, the timed quests are based on sugar (you have to buy it, or have a LOT of Farmville 2 friends who play all the time) or salt (ditto). So we go to a secret page (that only about a million people know about) that tells you the steps of the quest. We do the math and decide what to do and what to skip. The same "secret page" also allows you to snag vital stuff you need to play the game (needless to say, this is mommy's job - the kidlets get to decide which animals to buy based on poop output.) No, seriously.

When the animals no longer poop? They are called "prized". This is a nice name for "it time to ship you off to the Alpo Factory". You can keep a certain amount of prized animals in special kennel/barn/re-education camps. You only have to feed them half the feed (anyone horrified yet?) and they no longer wander all over, getting in your plots of crops. Hmmmmm......

Once the camps, er, special housing units are full? You can yank out lower producing animals, sell them (Farmville 2 does not have an abbatoir......yet) and replace them with higher level producing animals. You get serious coins to do so, in fact, so I'm guessing Sam the Butcher will arrive at some point soon.

The kids like raising the animals and the cute factor. However, it does not bug them at all to heartlessly sell them off when they are no longer productive. Am I a bad mom or are they just pragmatic? Who knows.

We will find out eventually I'm sure.

For those who STILL don't believe it's a game for total math geeks?  Well, submitted for the court...

http://www.farmvilleaddicts.com/tag/farmville-2-level-up

I think the fact that algorithims were used to determine the value of persimmon trees and something called "scary cake" is pretty much proof enough.

But I could be wrong. I've been wrong before. Maybe it's just a little bunny.