Harvest Moon: and the credits roll....

Three years of hard toil and careful attention to detail has resulted in me being allowed to stay on Hippity Farm. I think I can stay here for the next 200 odd years if I like!

In the last few days (in Real Life that is) Karen has given birth to a beautiful baby boy. He is going to be a star, 'Boy Star' is his name. I don't think Karen liked that name, she made some comment like "how long did you take to think that one up?" when I told her what I had chosen. Karen has really shown me a different side to her personality with our marriage and her pregnancy. I was initially attracted to her for her good looks. Her fanatical love of Fried Chips and Pizza, matched my own desires for these meals! She was a Wine affecionado, but little did I know.... The night before she gave birth, heavily pregnant, she prepared a Star Night dinner for the two of us. The main ingredient of the meal, Wine! She proceeded to drink with gusto and then proclaimed a desire (in a drunken state of mind) to climb to the top of Mother Hill! What an effort that must have been! The morning after the Star night festival, she gave birth to Boy Star, a most joyous day for me. The only sad thing being that I was unable to hold my own child, that task was left entirely up to Karen. It seems it must be quite an onerous task, as every morning Boy Star greets me with a loud WaaaaH and Karen lets me know how she has been suffering from a lack of sleep having been kept awake all night from his crying. She didn't want to wake me and I presume she was ticked off that I managed to sleep through the racket! Oh how I'd love to help and hold my child! I'm sure that he is crying for a father's love! In the afternoons while Karen ponders what to cook, she leaves Boy Star crying in bed. All my attempts to console him are futile as I cannot pick him up! Karen is obviously tired of his crying and has dumped him in the bedroom. Her lack of motherly skills was demonstrated on New Years Eve as well. Confused as to whether the party in the Inn was at 6pm on the 30th or the 1st, I visited the Inn shortly after 6pm on the 30th. There I found Duke, passed out on the floor with a pink face, muttering on about nothing! I managed to somehow take him home to the winery where his wife, Manna, scolded him for his poor behaviour. This man has quite a drinking problem. I'm sure it doesn't help him owning a Winery, where there is an endless supply of Wine. Anyway I digress.... Still thinking that there could be a further party going on at the Inn, I returned there only to then find Karen and Ann screaming at each other. It seemed I had come into the middle of an argument. Karen was drunk and being boisterous and generally disorderly, so I also had to to guide her back home. Heaven knows where Boy Star was while she was getting drunk at the Inn. I presume he must have been crying in bed. I was really shocked! Karen did try to make things up to me by telling me that she far preferred walking with me than drinking alone in the Inn. I had to agree! She went back inside to Boy Star and in a disgusted mood I went up into the Hillside to go fish in the lake for the last time that winter. In the lake there is one place where it does not freeze in winter. It is where lake falls over the Goddess Falls, just in front of the bridge. I caught a medium sized fish and my spirits lifted. As midnight approached, I carried on further up the mountain to join the festivities there. Karen must have been hung over because she didn't make it. I chatted to everyone there and watched the sun rise over a new year in Harvest Moon. This also marked the end of my trial period as determined by Thomas the Mayor. He met me at the farm on the new day. He had good news for me! I had succeeded in making the farm a success, and I had succeeded in making friends with all the villagers, and I could stay. Yippee! We walked to the Square where everyone had gathered to compliment me and tell stories about me and my success. I really felt proud to have made it, and although it was a forgone conclusion that I would succeed, I still reveled in the praise! The credits then rolled, with beautiful pictures of all the characters in this magic game. However, that is not the end, I can now continue to live my life on the farm, and enjoy all the riches I have accumulated.

If you think that I am mad for becoming so involved in this game, I think you should read a blog post from Freyashawk entitled Addictions and the Four Seasons. It sums up my feeling and interactions with this game perfectly.

While away the winter in Harvest Moon

Karen is pregnant and it seems like she has been that way for some time now, The Fall has passed and winter has begun. No Crops to be harvested, except for the occasional bumper cash crop of pineapples in the Hothouse that pumps up my balance of G. However a flock of 10 chickens and a barn filled to bursting with Cows and Sheep are daily tasks that keep me busy in real time, as time stops whilst indoors in Harvest Moon. They are quite a job to take care of, yet I cannot bear to sell them. The products from my animals I now mostly ship as raw and unmade, as there is no real need for me to earn money. I think that I am already a millionaire farmer who has no worry for cash. Whereas I would never previously nave bought food at the inn, now, I'm a regular customer whenever I pass by!

Anyway back to original reason for this post about whiling away the Winter. I want Karen to give birth as quickly as possible and I have resorted to going to bed as early as 6:30 am! (This just to make time pass as quickly as possible so that I can begin playing as a girl). Karen must think I'm nuts, but then again, she's also not too sane, as she pleads with her unborn child to stop tormenting her. I think that the end of the pregnancy is near, and I shall start contemplating what name I shall give the child when its born. I am truly curious as to its gender too!

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 **

If only....

If only real life was like a Harvest Moon game.....

1. You inherit a farm
2. Time stands still when you are in the supermarket
3. You can survive eating only one meal a day
4. It hardly ever rains in summer
5. Prospective marriage partners are impressed by simple gifts
6. Small spites help you with your daily chores
7. You can build a Hothouse with wood alone
8. If you want you can fish all day long
9. Cows and sheep can conceive without bulls or rams
10. You can harvest honey without getting stung

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.

Harvest Moon: Innocent Life

Harvest Moon is a series of games that I have discovered in the last few months. I was in despair, I could find no games that I liked to play on my PSP. I must say though, that I am quite fussy when it come to games. Racing games bore me, shoot 'em ups with blood, gore and huge weapons of mass destruction are way to violent for my pacifist tendencies, sport games are not worth the effort, that leaves very little else, that isn't aimed at pre-pubescent children. When I found the game Innocent Life: a futuristic Harvest Moon, the blurb on the back of the box had me hooked...

Till the rough soil and grow crops on your land!
Raise a selection of different farm animals!
Explore the near future world of Heartflame Island!
Meet new people and make friends in the town!

I bought the game and immediately fell in love with it after the first minute of playing. Finally a game where you do not have to kill or destroy anything, on the contrary, you have to rebuild and grow. You have to be kind and considerate, amicable and thrifty, manage your time and resources to gain maximum rewards, be those jewels, happy cows or upgraded tools. The graphics are wonderful and Natsume and Rising Star Games really did well with this game. That is, in my humble opinion, many reviews on the Internet rated it poorly, but these misguided folk probably love killing, blood, war and weapons, and are too uncultured to have picked up on the finer points of this game.

The philosophy behind the game deals with man's relationship with the Earth and its inhabitants. The way we treat Mother Nature, and the way modern man, races towards mass production and automation, without considering the destructive impacts he is having. It reminds us of our place on this Earth, and our role as temporary caretakers of the planet. The dialogue in the game, can often be read on many levels as the game is designed for ages 7 and older however, some of its themes are quite mature. To complete the game totally, and extract maximum pleasure, is a task that I enjoyed doing. It whiled away many hours whilst I sat in the train on a daily commute, and, provided an escape from the hubbub of the morning and evening rush hour. In my attempt to play the game to its utmost, I did turn to help from fellow players, one in particular, Freyashawk. She writes guides for Harvest Moon games, and is herself a great fan of the genre, for there are many more Harvest Moon games apart from Innocent Life. Her extremely well written guide(s) provided more insight and value into the game. I did not follow her walk-through to the letter, but extracted many useful answers to questions I had. Her guides are indeed well worth the time to read. It is evident that she invests much time in writing them.

If you are feeling like there is nothing good left in this world, try playing Harvest Moon, It'll certainly bring peace to your heart and a smile to your face, it did to mine!