Today’s game is a 19.6Mb download that installs to 24.8Mb. Installation involves a separate activation module (that seems to be becoming rarer these days), and a set up module, which by default will install to your boot drives program files, i.e.
C:\Program Files\Magic Farm
Introduction & Game details
Before starting the game you have to setup your profile, once this is done you can gain access to the main menu, which has four buttons Campaign, Options, a blank one, and Exit. A this point I’m assuming that the blank button may give rise to an arcade option once you’ve played a specific part of the campaign mode, though searching the net for information at this point was fruitless as apart from one reference that points to today’s giveaway there’s no other reference to this game yet, which would indicate that it’s a new release? There seems to be no ability to set up multiple profiles of this game, so only one person can play the game at a time unless you are willing to install the game to different locations on your computer, or better still on more than one computer. The options menu allows you to control the music and sound effects (see the notes section below) and gives you toggles for Full Screen/Windowed mode, a 3D Accelerator (see notes for a link to an explanation) and a Special Cursor, all of which are on by default.
The Game
Despite there being no help menu or how to play instuctions, you do get ‘on screen’ prompts and information windows. When in town if a a character appears in the foreground, and your cursor changes to a mouthjust click on the character for dialogue. The initial story you get from the first person you meet tells you to earn some cash so that you can hire a detective to find your parents (the main character is a young woman). Once the dialogue ends you have to click on the button above that says “To the Farm”. Clicking on the character in the foreground again, once this has passed does initiate another response that basically says “have you brought the cash” and “try to earn it faster, as time is of the essence” Whenever you are in this particular dialogue screen you can return to the levels map, or as it’s called in this game, ‘The Global Map. Anyway, here’s where the actual game play starts. It’s on the same lines as Funky Farm (though much more entertaining)whereby you have to earn cash by creating produce; in this case it’s flowers rather than cattle. It’s as simple as that. The game play is relatively easy (or so I thought). You work day by day. The time of day can be seen with a quaint looking clock to the top left of the screen. To pause the game click on the space bar and to exit or return to the options menu click on Esc. Your game is automatically saved when you exit. On returning you are given the option of returning to where you left off, or starting a new game. If you choose the latter you have to go through the whole dialogue process again as the Go to Farm button remains inactive till you’ve scrolled through all the dialogue.
You have to buy plants, water them and watch them grow as well as keep of the pests that increase in numbers and species as time progresses. When the flowers appear you can harvest them by clicking on them, then at the end of the day you are able to sell tham off to buy more produce, equipment or water. You get more money for bunches of flowers than single flowers. Once you’ve sold your produce you are able to buy more stock as it becomes available. Remember though that you need to buy water. If you don’t have this your plants will die. Harvesting your crop, planting new crop and watering your plants are all accomplished using either the left or right mouse buttons. Despite the lack of a help menu, the in game prompts and information is good enough to get by on. Occasionally you’ll see a pest arrive on the scene. These can be eradicated by left clicking on them repeatedly. It’s important that you destroy them otherwise they will eat your valuable crop. Though as your farm fills up with stock, you may occasionally have to make the decision to let a pest eat a few simply because the time taken to eradicate the pest is better spent harvesting and more importantly watering your crop. Also as you progress your production is improved, so that your plants grow quicker. This can be seen as a progress bar that appears occasionally to the top left of the screen whenever you have earned it though this is not the same as the bar that indicates your next level up which is also found permanently at the top left hand corner of the screen.
Once you’ve earned 50 coins you can return to the town and continue your dialogue with the townsperson and then progress to the next level, though I never got to this stage as I was engrossed in trying to improve my skills, flower production and other things (I actually forgot to go back to town – which says a lot for this game). Also, whenever you eradicate a pest you accumulate a score, which is indicated by a bar at the top left of the screen just below your characters portrait. When this is full you are able to update one of six attributes although in the early stages of the game you are only able to update your farming, pest control and trading skills. Choosing to upgrade your trading skills for example enables you to earn more money for your harvests, whereas upgrading your pest control or farming likewise improves on either eradicating pests quicker or farming your flowers more efficiently (they grow faster and demand less water). As you earn more money you can buy more water barrels (gang caskets), containers to place your harvest in, larger flower beds to plant more flowers in as well as buy more plants to further increase your harvest.
Early in the game, the most important thing seemed to be keeping an adequate water supply as trying to grow too many plants ended up in them dying through lack of water as profits in the early days were minimal. Following this the number of pest increases. Initially you only get snails, but then you get wasps and then slugs. It was only once you started earning upgrades through destroying pests or harvesting your flowers quickly, or watering early, all of which gave you points that were added to your next upgrade, that your profit margins improved enough to start to be able to buy more stock as well as care for it. When you get messages such as low free space at the ware house it means you need to buy more harvest boxes, which are quite expensive at $100 each. I’d played several stages of the first level, got an upgrade and was still only around $50 in hand, so the game is quite a challenge from the start and requires you to think through your strategies. I personally think my daughter (7 years old) will require some guidance initially with this game so would say that this is an ideal family type game to have. It’s challenging enough to make it interesting as well as not being beyond the young ones capabilities. There are also lots of incentives to carry on as there appears to be lots of different upgrades not only for the base skills such as farming and pest control, but also to the plants themselves and the planting beds. All of which are introduced when the time comes with an information panel. I’ve taken quite a lot of screen captures of this game, which will give anyone wondering whether to bother with this one a really good idea as to what the game entails. I would suggest you take several moments to watch the slide show as then you get a better look at each image.
Any flowers unpicked at the end of the day do not count towards your harvest, so it’s worth using those last few seconds to pluck these before the day finishes in preference to watering your plants or eradicating the pests. The faster you pick your harvest the more points you get towards your next upgrade. The longer you leave your plants to be watered, which is indicated by the number of droplets left out of 5 the more likely you are to lose points (i'm sure i saw minus signs on the points). If you find you are unable to harvest your flowers it means you need to buy more containers, which as I said above cost $100 each.
I was hoping I’d progress to the next level so that I could confirm whether there was an arcade mode, but after over four hours of playing and writing this review (which included the screen captures, uploading to my photo bucket account etc) I had to stop as I’d set a deadline of 12 noon which is four hours into the giveaway, but ended up going over this time by over an hour by the time I'd proof read and edited out some of the bad grammar and english. I want to catch the America’s morning risers otherwise it seems pointless spending so much time on a review once the majority of the community have already been and gone. I hope the above is sufficient to whet your appetite enough to download the game and give it a trial. I think it's well worth it.
Screen Captures: (There's over 50 of these, though I did them in two stages so the first 14 images should have been placed at the end of the album and not at the beginning; though watching the slideshow this may not be as obvious. and not at the beginning. I could mess around and move them, but haven't the time at the moment)
All on one page:
http://s109.photobucket.com/albums/n61/Whiterabbit_01/gaotd/Magic%20Farm/?start=all
As a Slideshow:
http://s109.photobucket.com/albums/n61/Whiterabbit_01/gaotd/Magic%20Farm/?albumview=slideshow
System Requirements:
Operating System……………………….Windows 98SE/ME/2000/XP/Vista
CPU……………………………………..600MHz or faster Processor
RAM…………………………………….128Mb RAM
Conclusion:
Despite this being one of many of this style of game (e.g. Funky Farm Alice Greenfingers etc), it’s a reasonable game in my opinion. There are no difficulty settings available, but the game itself has a built in difficulty inherent in your progress, as the further you progress the larger the crop becomes and the number of pest increases so the faster you need to work and think. This will definitely appeal to my daughter, though our following of the Buddhist philosophy of not killing even the tiniest of insects or gastropods, or indeed anything other than plant life in our home as well as elsewhere; she may actually find killing the pests distasteful (I kid you not). I think this has quite an appeal to it, and although I haven’t explored it thoroughly, I think it’s got a lot of potential game play and would therefore say it’s certainly a worthwhile download. The graphics are excellent, and with a simple storyline to carry you through the campaign, I’d give this a reasonable 7 out of 10. I do hope someone has the time to report back on whether there is an arcade mode once a few levels are opened up, and whether there is ample stock to make the game a little more interesting. I would expect the different levels to have a different environment/atmosphere; otherwise the game could become a little boring after some time. Hopefully Lockett will add to this report with his own review later this evening. :lol:
Thank you Meridian 93 and the game giveaway team for giving away a new game. It’s always a delight to see something not given away before. :lol:
Notes:
Saving the music:
If you would like to save the music so that you can play it via your media player it can be found by following the path:
C: \Program Files\MagicFarm\data\music
However you will need to convert the ogg files to a more suitable format such as MP3 or WAV by using a proprietary audio converter. You can find one (or two) in the freeware library:
http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/freeware/dir/50186/Download-Free-MP3-WMA-WAV-Converter.htm
or
http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/freeware/dir/51535/Download-Free-Mp3-Wma-Converter.htm
3D Rendering
I checked several sites to find a suitably novice explanation of 3D rendering, all of which were given MacAfee’s green for go sign of approval, though I did find a pop up when I closed my browser down, I’m not sure which site gave it to me, so follow the link below at your own risk. That said there was nothing untoward about the popup. On going to the site the link points to a couple of times I didn’t get any more pop ups so can assume it was one of the other sites I visited, though i ythought i'd better mention it just in case: