Tales from HipPiTy Farm

Progress is going slowly on HipPiTy Farm, currently I am playing in Winter of my 2nd year, I am trying to make sure that I can achieve all targets. Winter is a tiresome season, only the crops from the hothouse and the products from my animals to generate income. Via the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to Harvest Moon I have found a recipe book and a walkthrough. The walk through does not interest me as much as the recipe book. Having built up quite a supply of edible products in my fridge, I have slowly been learning more recipes. Some of them seem a little un-intuitive, for example, one would have assumed that you would use the pot to make popcorn, but instead one uses the frying pan! I can imagine my character picking up popped corn from all over the kitchen... but anyway...

Skyrender's walkthrough for me is a little dry, I glanced over it and found some information, that I otherwise would not have found out, namely that there is also a fishing pole to be obtained. Apparently Greg the fisherman will come and admire your pond once it has more than 50 fish in it, and as a reward for such an abundant supply of fish will give you a fishing pole, which improves your fishing ability. I did not know this earlier, so I have been selling off all my fish from the pond as they get big. Now that I have found that out and now that winter has come around I have been been frantically fishing and stockpiling fish in the fridge to put into the pond in spring, hopefully I can get the fishing pole soon. On the topic of fishing, Skyrender, also mentions in his walkthrough, about different fish that can be caught in different locations. I do not know if this is true for the PSP version Boy and Girl, as his guide is written for the original version of Back to Nature, but if it is true, I have a lot more fishing to do to catch the various King Fishes.

Happy harvesting!

HipPiTy Farm

I love the fact that you can customise your farm in Harvest Moon to give names to all of your animals at birth. With names, your animals, especially the cows and sheep, become like friends that you greet each day by name. I have not sold any animals yet in Boy and Girl, but in Innocent life, when you sold an animal, you were asked "If you sell Daisy the cow, you will never see her again, are you sure you want to continue?" This almost had me in tears the first time I read it, and I didn't go through with the sale! However in Innocent Life, you did not have the option to give your animals personal names, instead you had to choose one from a list. Being a vegetarian, and an animal lover, I love this aspect of Harvest Moon.
In Boy & Girl I have personalized my animals in the following way:

Farm: HipPiTy farm
Farmer: Shaggy
Dog: NiKs
Horse: PIkwIk *
Sheep: ShaWn, WooLard*, YarNaRd*, LaMbERt*, BaaBAra*, FleeCi**
Cows: TriXsY, DikXi *, LiKxI **, PiKxi **, FiKxi **, WiKxi **, RiKxi **, BiKxi **
Chickens: ChuCki, CLuk*, CHooKi, CheePa, KliKi *, ChUkXI *, ChIkXi *, ChUnKi *, RooSta *, HeNRi **

Harvest Moon: Boy and Girl

Well, I was so enthralled by playing Innocent Life, intrigued by all the Harvest Moon's fan sites, and curious that I purchased Harvest Moon: Boy & Girl also for the PSP. This was the only other Harvest Moon title for the PSP, and was rather difficult to find. I eventually tracked it down in a specialist gameshop in The Hague. I had not yet finished playing Innocent Life so the game remained on my bookshelf.....

Then came the bombshell, my PSP fell to the floor one day whilst charging the battery! The UMD no longer worked, and thus I could no longer play games at all. I was heartbroken. Fortunately I had just completed Innocent Life before the accident, and was busy redoing certain scenes trying to improve my livestock's heart levels, so I did not really have unfinished work.

As it so turned out, the old version of the PSP that I had (thick and heavy) was no longer available in the stores due to the impending release of the new Slim and Light version. I duely placed an pre-order for the new version and got myself a good book to read in the train while I counted the days to the release.

Eventually, The All New Slimmer, Lighter, more plasticy PSP came out and I was able to play Harvest Moon: Boy & Girl. I certainly was not disappointed. I found out why some of the older Harvest Moon fans didn't like Innocent Life. Innocent Life, whilst it has superb graphics and was amazing for me, lacks the complexity of the previous titles in the genre. Its storyline is quite fixed, and it is difficult to stray too far from the plot. Being a human robot, you did not get to marry or have romantic interactions with the villagers, something that was new and interesting to me in Boy & Girl.

I have now been playing Boy and Girl for about a month-and-a-half now and am fully engrosed in it. I am loving the romantic aspects of the game. Karen is my favourite girl and she has a purple heart for me, Ann is in love with me and has a blue heart. I will have to see which one I eventually marry!

Later on I indend to post on further developments in this game, interesting tales from HiPiTy farm, and other Harvest Moon titbits.