作者：Kayar

Facebook上有很多农场游戏。以下我们将进一步了解这些农场游戏如此受欢迎的原因。

Facebook第一款农场游戏

barn-buddy(from grou.ps)

早在2009年，Facebook上便出现了《Barn Buddy》和《Happy Farm》等农场游戏。在这些游戏中，你可以种植自己的农作物，并为它们浇水，除草，喷洒农药等。当这些庄稼成熟后，你还可以亲自收割，并出售给其他玩家。你也可以为好友的农作物浇水，除草，喷洒农药。而且如果他们未能及时收割农作物，你还可以将其“偷”回自己的农场。

对于很多游戏中的“农民”来说，“偷”庄稼是个不必要的游戏机制。因为绝大多数时间你都是在种植并看护自己的庄稼或者好友的庄稼。在这种类型的游戏中，玩家对抗玩家（PvP）方式看起来并不合适，而且游戏设置中关于玩家只有偷取好友的庄稼才能获得升级的规定也并不吸引人。

《Farm Town》的崛起

随后便出现了《Farm Town》（开发商：Slashkey）。在这款游戏中玩家能够按照自己的喜好规划农场的布局。在这里你不用给庄稼浇水，除草或喷洒农药，你只需要耕地，种植，并等待一段时间便能收割庄稼了。可以说这款游戏的基本设置很简单，且清晰明了。你的种植过程是完全按照游戏中特定的“计时器”进行。例如当“计时器”走到末端时，你便可以准备收割庄稼了。而如果你并不能及时收割庄稼，它们便会在你的田里腐烂掉。例如你种植了几株葡萄，它们需要4个小时的成长时间，而如果你不能在8个小时之内将其收获，它们便会腐烂掉。这款游戏中有许许多多庄稼，而且每一种庄稼的“计时器”设置都不同，最短的可能只有2个小时，但是最长的却达到4天。

Farm Town(from flickr.com)

更重要的是，在这款游戏中好友不能“偷”你的庄稼。反而，他们可以帮你收割庄稼，而为你们双方赢得奖励。你也可以“雇佣”其他陌生人（游戏邦注：这里指并不在用户Facebook好友名单中的玩家），并因此获得游戏奖励。（比起早前的游戏设置只允许好友帮助收割庄稼，近来他们也能帮你耕地或做其它农活了。）

在这种游戏设置下，玩家会为了双方的利益而帮助对方，并因此促进相互间的协做能力。游戏中所设置的卡通角色聊天功能让玩家能够操纵自己的卡通角色，让他们聚集在一些公共场所（如市场或旅馆等），并在这个虚拟世界中与好友或者陌生人进行交流，这是Facebook游戏的一大飞跃。而这点与大型多人在线角色扮演游戏中所体现的沉浸式游戏设置类似。在《Farm Town》中，当玩家拜访了其他人的农场，或者在路上偶遇好友时，便能与对方展开交谈。除了《Kingdoms of Camelot》（拥有文本聊天功能）较为接相似外，现在还没有哪一款Facebook游戏能够提供给玩家这种程度的交流功能。

《Farmville》的起源

当看到《Farm Town》迅速蹿红并获得了好几百万的月活跃用户量时，Zynga觉得自己已经不能再沉默下去了。在业内，大家都知道Zynga擅长于“模仿”Facebook上他人的成功游戏理念，制作出自己的游戏，并进行大量的市场营销，以说服玩家相信这就是Zynga所创造的游戏理念。例如他们红极一时的《Mafia Wars》便是模仿Metamoki旗下的《Mob Wars》。有时候Zynga所推出的游戏版本比起原版优秀，但有时候则不然。

Farmville(from thefarmvillestrategy.com)

当《Farmville》刚问世时，玩家可以明显地在它身上看到《Farm Town》的影子（除了未提供给玩家操纵卡通角色交流，以及交换收成品的功能）。而它的画面和基本游戏设置也借鉴了《Yoville》（游戏邦注：Zynga旗下的另一款游戏），即玩家也需要在游戏中耕地，种植，等待，收获并最后出售庄稼。很少有《Farm Town》的玩家喜欢《Farmville》，不仅因为它的图像不够吸引人，而且也因为它缺少健全的聊天功能，使玩家不能享受到融洽的互动合作氛围。

不管怎样，因为Zynga的其它游戏拥有大量的玩家，所以他们只需要在其它游戏中适当刊登《Farmville》的广告便能够吸引到那些没玩过《Farm Town》的玩家了。现在很多《Farm Town》玩家就是来自于《Mafia Wars》。同时这款游戏也绑定了好友状态功能，即玩家在游戏中进行的任何一个行动都会发布在Facebook上的好友状态栏中，例如玩家获得游戏升级，赢得奖励，或者获得了新的家畜等。而且在这款游戏中，有很多虚拟道具需要玩家使用好友状态才能获得。这个功能让那些没玩过这款游戏的玩家也不得不对它有所了解。这就导致了很多非游戏玩家常常认为Zynga的游戏占领了整个Facebook平台。

其他运用农场“计时器”设置的游戏

与此同时，《Farm Town》的庄稼“计时器”机制也得到了普及，即随着《Farmville》取得了巨大的成功之后，Facebook上几乎所有的新农场游戏都添加了这个机制，例如《Tiki Farm》，《Farm Country》，《Lil Farm Life》，《Country Life》和《Frontierville》等。（游戏邦注：Playfish旗下的《Country Story》却是个例外。）

除了这些农场游戏，其它游戏在使用“计时器”这一功能上均有所成就。例如Zynga的《Cafe World》这款餐馆模拟游戏（它模仿了Playfish的大作《Restaurant City》）中，除了在炉子上做饭的机制未使用计时器功能，其他内容基本上将此功能发挥到极致；Playdom游戏《Social City》中的工厂加工产品机制；RockYou!旗下的《Zoo World》让玩家饲养动物的机制等。

随着越来越多新游戏涌现再Facebook平台上，我们希望未来能有更多游戏将《Farm Town》的“计时器”机制加以使用，并适当改革，完善，使其发挥出最大功效。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

A Brief History of Facebook Farm Games

by  Kayar

Facebook has lots of farm games. Learn how they became so popular.

The First Farm Games on Facebook

In the beginning (back in early 2009), Facebook had farm games like Barn Buddy and Happy Farm. In these games, you grow crops in plots of dirt that the game provides for you. You water, weed, and spray for bugs. When they’re grown, you harvest and sell them. You can also water, weed, and spray bugs on your friends’ farms – and if their crops are grown and not yet harvested, you can steal some.

To a lot of would-be farmers, the concept of crop stealing seemed unnecessarily antagonistic. Most of the time you’re trying to help things grow – your own or your friends’. Any kind of player-vs-player (PvP) approach just seemed out of place, and the games that made crop stealing a crucial part of gameplay – where you couldn’t advance unless you stole from your friends – were just not very appealing.

The Rise of Farm Town

Then came Farm Town. Made by Slashkey, it lets you create your own farm layout, any way you’d like. There is no watering, weeding, or spraying for bugs; you plow, plant, wait a while, then harvest. The basic gameplay mechanic is fairly simple and straightforward. You plant a crop with a specified timer. The crop is ready to harvest at the end of the timer. The crop spoils in the field . So for example, if your purple grapes are a 4-hour crop, they are ready to harvest four hours after you plant them, and they spoil at eight hours. Each crop has a different timer, from two hours to four days, and there are a great many crops.

More importantly, your crops cannot be stolen. Instead, friends can help harvest – and when they do, both you and they are rewarded. You can also hire total strangers not on your Facebook friends list and still get the same rewards. (Nowadays other players can help plow and do other things unrelated to the original basic game as well, but back then it was just harvesting.)

This way of farming inspired highly cooperative gameplay, where people trade working on each other’s farms for mutual benefit. Along with the fully-featured avatar chat, which allows player avatars to gather in common areas like the market or inn, suddenly interacting with friends – or strangers across the world – went to a whole new level for games on Facebook. It’s almost like the kind of immersion of an MMORPG. A lot of great conversations can happen when people drop in on each other’s farms at the same time or run into each other’s friends. No other Facebook game has matched this level of interaction yet, though Kingdoms of Camelot comes close (it has a text chat feature).

Farm Games on Facebook: The Origins of Farmville

Naturally, as Farm Town’s popularity grew into the millions of monthly active players, game-maker Zynga took notice. Zynga is well-known for stealing every successful game concept introduced on Facebook, making a game of their own from it, then relentlessly marketing it until everyone thinks it was their idea. For example, their most successful game at the time, Mafia Wars, was originally stolen from Metamoki’s Mob Wars. Sometimes their version comes out better. Other times, not.

Farmville when it first came out was almost an exact copy of Farm Town, except without the avatar chat that makes the friend harvesting exchange possible. The graphics were borrowed over from Yoville, another of their games, and basic gameplay was exactly the same: plow, plant, wait, harvest, sell. Not many Farm Town players liked it – the graphics weren’t as appealing, and it didn’t inspire the same kind of highly interactive cooperative atmosphere due to the lack of chat.

However, because Zynga had a lot of players of their other games, it wasn’t hard for them to find people to play Farmville who had never played Farm Town, simply by advertising it in all of their other games. A lot of people came over from Mafia Wars. Then there are all the wall posts. Every single action of the game triggers a popup offering to post about it on the player’s Facebook wall. Every level-up, every trophy, every first farm animal or any other first. A great many items are also only available through wall posts. The sheer number of wall posts made it impossible for other Facebook users to not know about the game. Non-gamers often end up assuming that the Zynga games are the only games on Facebook.

Other Games, Farming and Otherwise

Meanwhile, the basic crop-timer mechanic that Farm Town introduced is now everywhere. It’s gone into nearly all new farm games on Facebook since Farmville’s meteoric success, such as Tiki Farm, Farm Country, Lil Farm Life, Country Life, and Frontierville. (Playfish’s Country Story is a notable exception.)

It works so well, in fact, that it’s also gone into games having nothing to do with farming. Zynga’s Cafe World, introduced after the success of Restaurant City by Playfish, is a restaurant simulation game – it does exactly the same thing except with food cooked on stoves. Social City by Playdom is a city simulation game which does the same thing with factory products. Zoo World by RockYou! does the same thing with treats to zoo animals.

As new games continue to debut on Facebook, it will be interesting to watch where and how Farm Town’s timer mechanic is used next.（source:brighthub）