The Farm
| The Farm | |
|---|---|
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| Type | Location |
The Farm is the plot Grandpa left behind, and the whole game grows out of it. A new farmer arrives with hand-me-down tools, a few coins and a field buried under weeds, rocks and fallen trees, and everything after that is a choice about what to do with the space. A set of layouts is offered at the start, each tilted towards a different skill, and the choice is locked in for the life of the save. The farmhouse grows from a one-room shack into a home with a kitchen, a nursery and a cellar full of casks. The shipping bin beside the door is where the money comes from, and the shrine in the northwestern corner is where Grandpa turns up at the dawn of the third year to say whether the work was good enough.
Area
Every layout covers the same ground, but the amount of it that can be ploughed and built on varies a great deal. The Standard Farm is almost all open field and suits crops and animals. The Riverland Farm trades most of that field for water and lets the same fish be caught as in Pelican Town. The Forest Farm is ringed with trees and keeps renewable large stumps and seasonal forage on its western side, with mushrooms that appear nowhere else on a farm. The Hill-top Farm has a mining patch in the southwest whose nodes improve as mining skill rises. The Wilderness Farm sends monsters out at night in numbers that track combat level. The Four Corners Farm cuts the map into four small versions of the others and is built for a shared save. The Beach Farm washes supply crates ashore and grows beach forage, though sprinklers will not work on its sand. The Meadowlands Farm starts with a coop, two chickens and blue grass that animals prefer, and hands over hay instead of Parsnip Seeds on the first morning.
The farmhouse stands in the same spot on all of them and looks the same from outside, while the interior is styled to match the layout. Robin upgrades it three times. The first upgrade adds the kitchen and makes marriage possible, the second adds rooms including a nursery, and the third digs out the cellar where casks age wine and cheese. Each one takes her a couple of days.
The shipping bin sits to the right of the door. Anything with a price can go in, and it sells overnight, with the total shown at bedtime. Only the last thing dropped in can be fished back out, so a careless double drop sells the first item whether the farmer meant it or not. The mailbox stands at the bottom right corner of the house, and a floating envelope above it means something is waiting.
Three fixed features come with the land. The Greenhouse starts as a ruin and is restored by finishing the Pantry bundles or paying Joja, after which its plot grows any crop in any season and its trough refills a watering can. The Cave near the northern edge becomes either a fruit bat roost or a row of mushroom boxes once Demetrius calls round. Grandpa's Shrine sits in the northwestern corner with a note telling the farmer to wait for his return at the dawn of the third year.
Foraging
Debris is the farm's own harvest, and it never stops coming back. Weeds, twigs and rocks respawn and spread, which is annoying on a tidy farm and useful on an empty one, since clearing them is a steady supply of fibre, wood and stone in the first season. Grass regrows the same way, and once a silo is built, cutting it stores hay for the winter.
Maple, oak and pine trees drop wood, sap and their own seeds, and the seeds take root nearby on their own, so an unattended corner of the farm turns into woodland. The Lumberjack profession turns every felled tree into hardwood. Large logs and large stumps are the other hardwood sources, and the Forest, Four Corners and Beach layouts are the ones whose stumps grow back.
The Forest Farm is the only layout with real forage on it. Morels appear there in Spring, Common Mushrooms in Summer, and Chanterelles with Purple and Red Mushrooms in Fall, alongside the ordinary seasonal pickings and weeds that always drop Mixed Seeds.
Fishing
The pond on the Standard Farm is small but genuine water, and it holds the same catch as the valley's rivers. The Riverland Farm turns that into the point of the layout, with the Pelican Town fish list available without leaving home, which makes it the best choice for a save built around a rod.
The Beach Farm fishes as ocean, so the saltwater list applies and the crates that wash up on its shore add to the haul.
Notes
Crops can only be planted on the farm or in the Greenhouse, and every one of them has to be watered daily until it is grown. Most are picked once and pulled up, while berries and corn keep their plant and regrow, which is what makes them worth the space. A crop still in the ground when its season ends dies on the spot, so the last few days of a season are about harvesting rather than planting.
Fruit trees need the centre of a three by three clear square and about a month to mature, and then they fruit a piece a day in their season. None of them fruit in Winter.
Crows arrive in the morning on a farm with crops in the ground, and each one eats a plant. A scarecrow covers a circle of land around itself, and the collectible Rarecrows do the same job while looking better.
Robin sells every building from the Carpenter's Shop, and animals need their barn or coop before they can be bought. A silo first is the usual advice, because without one the grass cut in Summer simply disappears instead of becoming hay.
Grandpa's evaluation is the farm's own scoreboard. He appears at the dawn of the third year and lights candles according to what has been achieved. A farm that scored poorly can put a Diamond in the shrine's slot and ask again, and he will apologise for being harsh and judge it afresh. With all four candles lit, the shrine hands over a Statue Of Perfection, which produces Iridium Ore every day. Once Perfection has been reached, a carved Stardrop appears above the shrine.
All Locations
Every entry in this group, with its key details.
