Sunday, April 1, 2012

Help & Hints on the Easter Tree Missions

Hello folks! As you no doubt have seen, we have opened the second batch of Easter Missions! We tried to add a new dimension to this mission, to please those of you who want something more than the usual harvesting, building and producing. Here are some tips and some explanation about the Easter Tree Missions.
A timer indicates how much time is left.
First of all: you can play these missions without spending a single RC - now waddaya say to that? ;-P

1. Find 10 Blue Easter Eggs
For this mission, you have to find 10 Easter Eggs. They're hidden in the Easter Lilies you have to plant for this mission. Every time you harvest an Easter Lily, there is a chance to find one Blue Easter Egg. So sometimes you may find one, but certainly not always. When you have collected 10 Blue Easter Eggs this way, the mission is accomplished.

Each time you find an egg, an small panel comes up from the bottom of the screen. This panel tells you how many eggs you have already found.

Easter Lilies cost 60 coins, sell for 73, and need 10 hours to grow (unless you use a fertilizer). You can't use them in a machine.

2. Find 1 Brown Easter Egg
In this mission, you will see 3 baskets. Only 1 of them has the Brown Easter Egg. You get 1 key. Guess which basket has the egg, and open it. After you open the basket, the key is gone. If you chose the wrong basket, you have to wait a number of hours before you get a new key. The new key is free if you wait for it, but if you hate waiting too much, you can also buy a new key for 6 RC. The choice is yours.
The three Easter Baskets - only 1 of them holds the Brown Easter Egg.

3. Ask 10 Purple Easter Eggs from neighbors
This is old style: just hit the Ask button, and have your neighbors send you a Purple Easter Egg as a free gift.

4. Find 12 Golden Easter Eggs
For this, you need to visit your neighbors. It is on their farms that the Easter Bunny hid 12 Golden Easter Eggs. Go to their farms and fertilize. Just like in the Blue Egg mission, there is a chance you'll find an egg each fertilize; you will not find one every single time you fertilize. When you've collected 12 Golden Easter Eggs this way, the mission is accomplished.

Each time you find an egg, an small panel comes up from the bottom of the screen. This panel tells you how many eggs you have already found.

200 OP are part of the reward.

5. Find 3 Orange Easter Eggs
In this mission, you will see 12 Treasure Chests. 3 of them contain an Orange Easter Egg. This works the same as the Blue Easter Egg mission. You get 1 key, that you can use 1 time, to open 1 Treasure Chest. Take a lucky guess! After you use this key, you have to wait 12 hours before you get a new one for free. If you want to go faster, you can buy a key for RC.

Keep in mind that to find the 3 eggs, and don't want to spend RC, you need at least 36 hours to accomplish this mission. If you play once a day, and have bad luck guessing the right basket, this mission will take you 12 days to complete.

In the reward is a unique decoration.

6. Find 20 Green Easter Eggs
This time, the eggs are hidden among the rabbits. Any rabbits. You have a chance to find a Green Easter Egg when you harvest the rabbits Angora Hair. You need to find 20 Green Easter Eggs by collecting Angora Hair from rabbits on your farm.

Hint: Put some extra rabbits on your farm (they eat carrots)! That way you can collect Anghorahair faster. If you don't, this mission may take quite a while to finish.

The 2 Easter Rabbits (but you can also use normal rabbits).

The final reward for the Easter Tree Missions, is an Easter Scene for your farm. You can collect it in the Store, in the Decorations tag.

Have fun!!


Friday, March 30, 2012

Ol' MacDonald Had a Farm

Hi Family Farmers! We just closed the name giving contest for Family Farm's old man. Here at the developer's desks, we always called him "the Old Man", but that changes today.

We are amazed by the number of participants in this contest! In just 20 hours time, almost 750 Family Farmers took the trouble of entering a name. If you missed it: check the names here for yourself - we wish you a good few hours of reading all of them! :-)

In all these hundreds and hundreds of names, there was one that just was impossible  to ignore. If you have an old man on your farm - especially when he is the one introducing you to the game in the tutorial - there is only one name possible. Dear Family Farmers, meet Ol' MacDonald! Yeehaw Yeehaw Hoe!

Ol' MacDonald of Family Farm.
Ten of you have entered this name in the contest, so they all get the 10 RC reward. The winning farmers are: Doris Hutto, Lesley Jayne Robinson, Anni Sorensen, Steven Carroll, A Karine Marin Dumouchel, Sherry June, Kris Kelsey, Journey Basic, Steph Follmuth, and Wes Reed. Congratulations to all of you! Check your farm and discover that you just got richer! :-)

Dear farmers, the response to this contest was so massive that we will definitely do stuff like this more often! Keep an eye on our Fan Page, this Blog, and the official Family Farm Forum!

Thursday, March 29, 2012

The Cropinator Makes Your Farm Life Easier

Dear farmers, life on the farm can be hard work. That is why we introduce... The Cropinator! This mean machine can harvest or plant all your plots in just one mouse click.

How does this work?
First, buy the machine for 800 coins in the Store. You can find it in Farm Aides, at the Automation section. However, the Cropinator needs Gasoline before it can work. Gasoline is for sale in the Store too, also at the Automation section. Gasoline is available in 3 quantities: 12 gallons for 10 RC, 50 gallons for 35 RC, and 100 gallons for 50 RC.

To get the Cropinator to plant, be sure you have empty plots in your ranch. Best is to have a lot of empty plots, as each round of Cropinating will cost you 10 gallons of Gasoline, no matter how many (or how few) crops you plant.

To get the Cropinator to harvest, you have to have at least 1 mature crop in the farm - but again, best is to have a great lot of them!


Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Known Issue: Can't Send Gifts

Update March 30: The problem is fixed. Thanks to everyone who provided us with useful information about this issue!

Hi farmers, a number of you are experiencing problems in the gift system. The problem is: can't send any gifts, either through normal gifting or by sending back, and also can't send requests (wishes) for gifts to any neighbors. However, it is still possible to accept gifts.

We are currently investigating this problem. Our engineers are working hard to fix this issue.

Many of you took the trouble to mail us about this problem. We are grateful for that. Unfortunately, it is not possible to get back to everyone individually. So we will keep you posted in this blog posting.

Update: The problem seems to appear especially when you are using Internet Explorer. Switching to another browser may help get rid of this problem!
(Thanks to Kim Ferrare-Earwood for the tip.)

We apologize for the inconvenience.

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Know Issue: Captcha Security Code

Hi farmers. Upon sharing an achievement or accomplishment in Family Farm with your friends on Facebook, a number of you is now prompted to enter a security code. This is a Captcha code, consisting of some numbers or letters, that you have to enter to confirm that you are a real person, and not a spambot of some kind.

According to reports from our players, this problem has come up in Family Farm since yesterday. We are aware of the problem and are investigating it.

So far, the conclusion is that this seems to occur with people who have many Facebook friends. The Captcha is prompted not by the game itself, but by Facebook. Therefore, it is impossible for us to fix this ourselves.

We advice farmers who experience this problem, to contact Facebook about this. We will try to do that too. In the meantime, the only advice that we can give is, not to publish anything for the time being (or keep entering the Captcha security codes).

We apologize for the inconvenience and will keep working diligently to find a solution.

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Announcing the Winner of the Prettiest Farm Contest Player's Award

Hi farmers! This is a great moment in the history of the Family Farm Community: the announcement of the winner of the First Family Farmer's Players Award! This award comes with a prize of 25 RC for the winner!

In the past week, many of you have visited the Prettiest Farm Contest Player's Award photo album on our Facebook Fan Page. You have liked your favorite farm(s) for this award, and here are the results.

In third place, with 63 likes: Bernadette Goodwin from Hopewell Junction, New York.
In second place, with 98 likes: Tina Bertrand Jones from Ontario.

And, the first place and thus winner of Family Farm's very first Prettiest Farm Contest Player's Award, the one that gets the 25 free RC, with 116 likes, is.... *drum fill*

Peapod Pixie from Southwater in the U.K.!

This is Peapod Pixie's winning farm:
Many thanks to all farmer who took the trouble of sending us their farms! And, of course, many warm congratulations to the winners of the Jury Prizes and the winner of the Player's Prize! 

Be sure to participate in the next contest!

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Apart From the Easter Eggs, This Is What We Updated Too

Hi everyone! We hope you are enjoying the happy Easter Eggs that we introduced. If you haven't seen them, go to the store and find the Hypno Egg, the Electric Egg, the Spotnik Egg, the Retro Egg, and the Hippie Egg! Be sure to get them in time, for they're limited editions!
Hypno, Electric, Spotnik, Retro & Hippie Eggs, available in Mini and Maxi size.
Also, at the limited items in the Store, we got rid of the letters saying "Limited". Instead, there now is an icon of a clock that indicates that this is a limited item.


Apart from the Easter Eggs, we uploaded some other things too. We introduced two new screens: maybe you have noticed that both the Level Up Panel and the Mission Award Panel have undergone a make-over. We hope you like it.
The new Level Up Panel.
And last but not least, our engineers also contributed to the update. We uploaded a technical change that should take care of a significant bug in our gift system. We won't bug you (wink wink) with the technical details, but if you still experience gift problems, please let us know. Describe your problem as accurate as you can! (Does it concern 1, multiple, or all gifts, does it concern sending and/or receiving, does it concern 1, some or alle neighbors, and so on.)


You can contact us from your game screen. Scroll all the way to the bottom and click the link to contact the developers. Include your e-mail, and tick the box to let us know who you are, this is vital!