Livin' Off The Land
| Livin' Off The Land | |
|---|---|
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| Type | Mechanic |
Livin' Off The Land is the farming advice programme on the valley's television, and it airs every Monday and Thursday. A cheerful host in a Cowboy Hat delivers one tip per episode, and the tips are arranged so that each one lands in the week it is actually useful. The show is the game's gentle tutorial, teaching scarecrows, fences, tappers, kegs and crab pots in the order a new farm needs them. It also lets slip a few things the game never explains anywhere else, including the oblique hint about giant crops and the true growing time of the Rare Seed. New episodes run for two years before the host retires, and the station then loops the whole run again.
Overview
Watching costs nothing but a few minutes of the morning, and the tip is delivered in one short speech with no choices to make. The schedule is the useful part: the episode that explains Salmonberry Season airs on the day it starts, the one about lightning rods arrives before Summer's storms, and the one about stocking hay comes in time to build another silo before the grass stops growing. Following the show through a first year amounts to a decent plan for that year.
The early run is pure groundwork. The opening episode suggests chopping wood and gathering forage while the first crops are still in the ground. Fences come next, with the point that stone, iron and hardwood all outlast plain wood and that fences keep livestock in as well as weeds out. Scarecrows follow, together with a reminder that the general store sells a larger backpack. Rain gets its own episode, with the obvious but easily forgotten advice that a wet day is a day off from the watering can.
From there the tips sort themselves into recurring strands. A Fish Focus names a single species and says where and when it bites, working through Salmon in the Fall rivers, Walleye on rainy evenings, Eel in the sea on wet Spring nights, Albacore at either end of the day, Super Cucumber in the evening ocean, Catfish in the rain and the trio of Woodskip, Sandfish and Scorpion Carp hiding in the woods and the desert oases. An Item Spotlight explains one piece of equipment in full, covering the Crab Pot, the Keg, the Recycling Machine, the Crystalarium and the Worm Bin. An Animal Spotlight is rarer, and the pig episode is the one that tells a farmer that Truffles have to be sniffed out by a pig let loose outdoors, and that pressing them into Oil is worth more than selling them raw.
A few episodes hand over information worth real money. The one about Corn is the clearest statement anywhere that a crop can survive the turn into Fall. The honey episode explains that a Bee House next to a blooming flower gives flavoured honey rather than plain wild honey. The Grange Display episode spells out what the judges want: nine items, high quality, high value and a spread across fish, minerals, artisan goods, fruit and vegetables. The combat episode explains the special attack on each weapon class, with swords blocking, clubs sweeping enemies away and daggers landing a rapid flurry. The geode episode explains that each kind of geode holds its own set of minerals and that the Omni Geode can hold any of them.
The best episodes are the coy ones. One mentions that strange things have been reported when large fields of Cauliflower, Melon or Pumpkin mature, and declines to confirm it, which is the game's only in-world nod at giant crops. Another says that the Rare Seed is rumoured to take a whole season but in fact needs twenty-four days, which is exactly the planning detail a farmer needs. A third mentions that any town with a haunted maze has a Golden Pumpkin hidden somewhere in it. A fourth describes three little brown stems poking out of the ground and promises that digging there always finds something.
Later in the run the advice turns towards the long game: the Mermaid's Pendant and what it means, a nursery being needed before a child arrives, barn animals giving birth when there is space, the Adventurer's Guild rewarding monster kills with powerful gear, and the gold pan picking ore out of sparkling water. The final new episode is the host announcing his retirement and warning that reruns start the following year.
Notes
After the two years of new material, the station replays the same cycle in the same order, so the programme becomes a calendar rather than something new to learn from. Two of the tips are repeated inside the original run as well, since Salmonberry Season and Blackberry Season are both announced in each of the two years.
Nothing in the show is required. Every tip describes a mechanic that works whether or not the episode has been watched, so the programme is a convenience rather than an unlock. It stays worth a glance on a Monday morning, because a tip that lands on the right day is easier to act on than the same fact read out of order.
All Mechanics
Every entry in this group, with its key details.
