Hoes
| Hoes | |
|---|---|
| Type | Tool |
The Hoe breaks open soil so seeds can go in, which makes it the tool the whole farming side of the game rests on. It also digs the wriggling worms that mark Artifact Spots, and those spots hand over artifacts, Clay, ore and Lost Books. Tilling sand and bare earth away from the farm pays as well, in Cave Carrots underground, Snow Yams and Winter Roots in the cold months, and Mixed Seeds above ground. Every upgrade widens the patch a single charged swing can turn over, from a short line to a block eighteen tiles across. By the iridium tier a field is laid out in a handful of swings rather than a long morning of clicking.
Use
Pointing the Hoe at untilled ground and clicking once turns one tile into a seed bed. Holding the button on an upgraded Hoe charges it, and letting go tills the highlighted patch in one go. The character can walk about while the charge builds without turning, so the lit area can be nudged into place before release.
Soil is only half the job. Little patches of dirt with worms squirming out of them appear along the roads, on the Beach and in the Mines, and the Hoe is what opens them. What comes out ranges from Clay and ore to artifacts for the Museum and the odd missing book. Keeping the Hoe in the bag on a walk into town is a habit that pays for itself.
Sand counts as diggable ground. Tilling in the Mines can turn up Cave Carrots and artifacts, and the Beach and the Calico Desert hide their own finds. Winter opens far more of the map to the Hoe, and the cold season is when Snow Yams and Winter Roots come out of the ground.
Farming level is what makes the Hoe cheap to swing. Each level trims the energy a till costs, and a charged swing across eighteen tiles draws no more than a single tile does.
Upgrades
Clint takes the Hoe in exchange for gold and five bars, and the metals follow the usual order of copper, iron, gold and then iridium. Skipping a rung is not allowed, so the cheap early steps are compulsory even for a farm that waited until it was rich.
The reward at each rung is reach. Copper stretches a charged swing to a line of three tiles, steel to a line of five, gold to a three by three block and iridium to a block six wide and three deep. Lines suit the narrow beds beside a path, while the blocks suit a field laid out for Sprinklers.
Two mornings pass before the Hoe comes back, which is a real cost in spring when a new crop is going in. Planting season is the wrong time to lose it. The quiet end of a season, or Winter when almost nothing needs sowing, is the comfortable window.
The Forge hands out one random enchantment for a Prismatic Shard and twenty Cinder Shards, and three of the results suit the Hoe especially well. Archaeologist doubles the chance that an Artifact Spot gives up an artifact, which turns a walk through town into a Museum run. Generous gives a one in two chance of a second item from every dig. Reaching pushes the charged area out to five tiles by five, beyond what the iridium tier alone reaches. Efficient removes the energy drain, and Swift makes the Hoe charge a third faster.
Notes
Tilling earns Farming experience, so a wide charged swing across a new field nudges the skill bar along as well as preparing the ground. Higher Farming also means each till costs less stamina, which compounds nicely on a farm that plants in bulk.
The Hoe comes back by itself if it is somehow lost in the Mines. A plain replacement appears the next morning beside the bed, in the refrigerator or in the Lost and Found box.
Undoing a till is the Pickaxe's job rather than the Hoe's, so a bed in the wrong place needs the other tool to put the ground back as it was.
A Garden Pot holds a crop without any tilling at all, which is worth remembering while the Hoe is away at the Blacksmith. Pots indoors keep growing through the two days the farm cannot be worked.
All Tools
Every entry in this group, with its key details.
| Name | Image | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Advanced Iridium Rod | 
|
25000g |
| Auto-Grabber | 
|
25000g |
| Auto-Petter | 
|
50000g |
| Axes | - | - |
| Bamboo Pole | 
|
500g |
| Fiberglass Rod | 
|
1800g |
| Golden Scythe | 
|
- |
| Hay Hopper | 
|
- |
| Heater | 
|
2000g |
| Hoes | - | - |
| Incubator | 
|
- |
| Iridium Rod | 
|
7500g |
| Iridium Scythe | 
|
- |
| Milk Pail | 
|
1000g |
| Pans | - | - |
| Pickaxes | - | - |
| Scythe | 
|
- |
| Shears | 
|
1000g |
| Training Rod | 
|
25g |
| Trash Cans | - | - |
| Watering Cans | - | - |