Fieldtrip! Farmville 2, Skyrim, and... beyond...

So, as you may have surmised having perused the contents of this blog, all of the posts have been assignments in a English class. However, it has been a quite enjoyable class, one where I feel like I have gained some interesting perspective. When I started the class, I must admit I somewhat mocked the premise. I mean really.... how much farming literature can there even be out there? I remember when I told a co-worker about it, her first response was "So... something like 'Old McDonald had a farm' would be what you are studying?" However, as I have delved more into this course, I have learned a lot, and feel like I have a much deeper appreciation for farming, and that appreciation was entirely attained due to studying literature about farmers, by farmers, and related to agriculture in general. I had no idea that farming could be so interesting.

On the other hand, it would seem that the idea that farming is somehow boring is a idea that has never really made a lasting impact on the world. Take a extremely popular game on Facebook right now... Farmville 2. Based on the original Farmville, and part of a series of "ville" games, this game helps any user gain an appreciation for farming, and enjoy themselves quite thoroughly. As far as for me, my wife is actually the one that initially got into the game, I am really not sure how. I think she was playing a different game once or twice, and there was some promo about getting something in the game if she made a farm. So, she started playing it, and got hooked quickly. Down the line, she started needing to request things from friends (as anyone who has a Facebook account knows... Farmville requires a lot of requests, but more on that later), and it was a convenient idea to create a farm under my profile so she could send requests to me, and not pester the rest of her friends with frequent requests. I was fine with it, so long as it didn't show up on my Facebook news feed for others to see (Farmville has a weird rapport attached to it...) One day, I was on Facebook, and my wife needed something from my "farm" so she asked if I could get on and send it to her. I obliged, then as I started looking around, I noticed that the game looked interesting. I had (lovingly) mocked her a few times for playing the game... but then I realized in a most certainly NOT farm related, "hardcore gamer" game, I was.... farming. In playing the game "Skyrim", I had built a home, and along with that, had some land to "till". I was growing various items that I could use in the game for my benefit. 

My little Skyrim garden.

Wheat growing in Skyrim

Lavender in my farm in Skyrim

Throughout the game, you are wandering through various areas, and you can pick plants. These plants can be used for all kinds of things, whether medicinal or for poisons, or other more mystical things. Now, as I am looking at this game with the theme of farming... I am amazed at how realistic the farming theme is. You find seeds, you plant and cultivate them, and the end result is similar, but not identical to that which you find in the wild. In Skyrim, the automatic result is a superior plant, but in reality the results are not always so predictable. Anyway, as I realized I was already "farming" for fun, I thought I'd give Farmville 2 a shot.

My farm. Surprisingly, it has taken a lot of hours to get it to this point. 

As I have played, I have been surprised by the complexity of the game, as it relates to farming. Mind you, my perspective on farming is entirely limited to literature, movies, and a little bit of yard work and gardening I have done, but from what I do know of farming, the developers have done a good job of balancing fun and virtual reality.

I want to go through some of the aspects of farming that I have noticed seem to be held true in this game, and then mention a few things where reality was lacking.

One positive aspect is the community aspect. Virtually every time you turn around, you have people in the game offering you things and asking you for things. These are both real people, as well as computer generated individuals who are there to make the game more dynamic. You can request people to come help on your farm, and you can even go help a neighbor out by volunteering on their farm. As the game continues to develop (one major advantage that "casual" games have over "hardcore" games.) the developers are continuing to add more aspects to the community. There is even a weekly county fair where you can win prizes for having bigger and better produce than your friends.

Another thing that I find interesting is the built-in resource caps. When you start out, you have very few options, and very little in-game money to spend on crops and tools. You have to earn your way up, and be able to purchase better and better seeds that produce more lucrative crops. You also earn more opportunities to make more types of produce from your crops. The game also has a designed system of trade. Now, some of this is obviously an opportunity for the game designers to generate some inflow of cash, however, it is true that in farming in order to make a bigger farm, you often have to spend money. In this game, if you want to accelerate your progress, you would have to do just that: fork out some (real!) money.

The growing system is interesting as well, as different crops take different amounts of time to grow, and the developers even have seasonal crops which you can't plant most of the year, unless they are running their promotion on them. Yes, there is little reality in the fact that it takes one minute to grow tomatoes, but it is still fun to be able to do some things quickly.

The animals are another really interesting addition to this game. As you gain animals, you notice that they are not only useful for their primary characteristics (cows and milk, chickens and eggs.) but they also can produce secondary resources as well (such as fertilizer). This adds a interesting aspect where you can see why farmers have such a connection to their animals, the animals do so much more than produce a single item, they sustain and help grow the farm!

Now, there are other areas where reality does abound, and is expounded upon, however, I want to focus on a few things this game lacks. There is no disease at all. The only way your crops can die is if you don't tend to them in time, and only in a game such as this can you not feed a cow for a few months, and have it still be happy and healthy when you return to it. The weather patterns have no effect on your farming either (other than to make it look pretty), but I can see why the developers have chosen that route.. who would play a farming game where you have a six month period in which you can't actually farm?

I have talked to my wife a few times about what draws her into the game, and I have gotten some interesting feedback from her; "Even though I know I am wasting time, it doesn't feel like it. Because I am meeting goals and producing things, I feel like I am actually getting something done, but with no effort." *(I feel like I need to put a caveat in here. My wife is a high school teacher at a year round school, and can spend about 50-60 hours a week on work all year... no summer break.... wasting a little time is O.K. for her to do). Speaking to her a little more, she also indicated some of the same things I had previously mentioned, that the wait time for plants, the community aspect, and other aspects of the game give it a more "real" feel. Asking her what drew her to the game elicited this response: "I think the fact that I get to achieve goals makes me want to come back. If it was just planting and growing things, I don't think I would have kept playing. However, because I actually have things I can accomplish in the game, I want to go back and play more."

All in all, it is interesting how much agriculture can exist in a game, and in the case of Skyrim, it is interesting to note that it has even worked it's way into some more graphic-intensive, "Game of the Year" games made by major developers.

sources:
Farmville 2. 2012. Zynga Games. San Francisco, California. Online game. 4/28/2014
Skyrim. 2011. Bethesda. Rockville, Maryland. PC. 4/28/2014
Kimberly Hawks

Rhetorical Kinkade

I have always enjoyed the art of Thomas Kinkade. My mom has a penchant for lighthouses, and she has always loved his renditions of those. I grew up with his art around the house, so I grew quite accustomed to his soft pastel style. While crashing shorelines with warning towers were my mom's favorite pieces, I had noticed over time that Mr. Kinkade has a lot more variety to offer. When an opportunity came to analyze some art for my farming literature class, he seemed like an excellent choice. I chose a piece named Sunset at Riverbend Farm

Sunset at Riverbend Farm 

This painting shows a very peaceful setting for a farm. It looks to be more the type of farm one would want to retire to, or live off of, rather than the industrialized farms that feed hundreds and thousands. The painting was done by Thomas Kinkade in 1996. He resided in the United States, and this particular painting (as most of his are) is oil on canvas. The original size was 18x27

It seems that Mr. Kinkade had a more etic view of farming, as his focus is far more on the visual aspects than the meaning behind the farming. This painting is beautiful, but the relative lack of movement indicates a sleepy farm where nothing really gets done, quite different from the perspective I have gotten from a lot of the literature we have studied thus far this semester. This actually connects to one of the criticisms I read about Thomas Kinkade. It seems that other professional artists have a bit of disrespect for his art, seeing it more as kitsch that one would find in a old ladies home than a "real" piece of art. I have always been more of the school of thought that the value of the art has more to do with the perspective of the beholder. 

However, from the perspective of a farmer, this painting would probably not be very representative of what they consider to be farming. They might see the lack of specific crops, and question why there was not more land being utilized for planting crops. It is also obvious from the painting that this farm is not one designed for productivity, and has a lot more of a Thoreauian feel to it, where one would toil away in the small field for the greater part of the day, never sowing much, and not having enough farm to really "work". I don't know that a farmer would find this to be beautiful, or a laughable construct that attempts to recreate a very idyllic version of a farm. Either way, I think it is pretty, and that to me can be the main point of art. 

Kinkade, Thomas, Sunset at Riverbend Farm, 1994, Oil on canvas.