Giveaway of the Day - My Exotic Farm

This game received a positive 86% of 272 votes when it was given away in July 2007. You can read the 52 comments by following the link below:

http://game.giveawayoftheday.com/my-exotic-farm/#comments

My Exotic Farm allows you to breed exotic animals in real time – ostriches, kangaroos, crocodiles, hippopotami and buffalo. At first you only possess a single ostrich, a field, and a few goobas (the local currency), but this ostrich lays eggs that you can sell to the village to earn more goobas and eventually expand your menagerie. But be careful: take care of your animals and clean your farm regularly, otherwise your creatures will leave to get fed elsewhere! To expand and develop your farm, you have to build new elements: shelter, pond, fence, etc. And little by little, you’ll get bonuses: a giraffe, a windmill, a cheetah, an elephant… Take on the challenge and build the richest and most beautiful farm in the country.

Reference: http://www.gamersgate.com/index.php?page=product&what=view&sku=DD-MEF&cat=kids accessed 31st Nov 08

This is a large download of over 73Mb, however 69Mb of it can be attributed to the sound effects, music and graphics. There are nearly 50 separate wav files that contain Jungle animal loops and ambience loops, which really add a great back ground sound to the game, especially if you have a decent sound system attached to your computer (though there’s no EAX, lol). The introductory music is a 45 second loop of appropriate music, which if you want to can be exchanged for something you may like better; however you will need to convert whatever you wish to replace the music with to ogg format (as usual), then rename the file to that of the intro music. (It’s the only ogg file in the games folder (found specifically in the data folder).

The options menu contains the usual sliders and toggles for music and sound effects as well as toggles for tool tips, a screensaver and a sleep toggle (space bar), which can be used to turn on the game when it’s in screensaver mode. The novel way that the screensaver follows the progress you make in the game is an added bonus – I’m sure the kids will love it as a screensaver.

The in game menu looks a little daunting at first glance, but once you’ve read the players manual, which includes details of the installations, how to play, keyboard shortcuts, Game techniques and details of the screensaver that comes packaged with the game. Everything will become clear once you’ve read it. The image below shows you the first page only with the contents page:

http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n61/Whiterabbit_01/gaotd/Exotic%20Farm/ExoticFarmPlayersguide.gif

Unfortunately there is no access to the games manual from the main menu; though you can see it when you initially install the game and by going into the games folder and clicking on the html document.

I’m not going to go into details of how to play the game nor will I describe in detail the game controls as you can read all about that via the HTML document, suffice it to say that this is a 3D Farm management game; basically the same as the My Farm that was given away last year (July 07), except that it has an African Jungle theme to it. If you liked my farm, you will certainly like this one. The game play is the same apart from having different ‘exotic’ animals and different foods and farm buildings to manage.

If you have the tool tips toggled on, you will occasionally be prompted to carry out a particular task such as feeding or cleaning, or even to be told that you are doing something wrong. The in game screen has all the information you need with respect to the time of day, which is shown by a day and night clock at the top of the screen as well as your cash balance, stock levels, animal satisfaction and a time accelerator that allows you to speed up the game when appropriate (see section 5 of the players guide ‘Game techniques’ for details).

You can stop playing at any point in the game and resume at your leisure. It’s fully mouse controlled, with no keyboard input or facility to use a game controller . (I tried using an X-Box controller attached to the computer via a USB port). There are no levels of difficulty and no player profiles to create. Only one game can be played at any one time. If you start a new game the progress you made previously will be lost.

The following is a link to several game screenshots:

http://s109.photobucket.com/albums/n61/Whiterabbit_01/gaotd/Exotic%20Farm/

Googled images:

Specifications:

CPU……………………………….1Ghz
System RAM………………………512MB
Graphics RAM…………………….64Mb
Sound and Graphics……………….DirectX 9 compatible
O.S……………………………..…XP or later

Conclusion

This is well worth having if you have children. It’s a very simple take on ‘Zoo Tycoon’, which you can buy for less than this game now; however that particular game although far superior is probably much to complex for young children to play, though I’m sure if they are anything like my own children, they loved Zoo Tycoon when we used to play it together as a family. My Exotic Farm is relatively easy and will teach a child the basics of caring for an animal, as well as some basic management skills. The sound effects as you would expect from the large number of wav files are quite good, but I do think the graphics let the game down a little, though this doesn’t affect game play, which is more important. I doubt the young ones are going to be bothered about eye candy though. Good news is that this game actually installs a desktop icon which for Merscom games is unusual. Unfortunately I was unable to create a video of the game. I tried a couple of times using Camtasia Studio and once using Capture Wiz Pro and each time the computer froze, so I gave up. The few images that I’ve posted plus the ones I Googled should give those that have not seen this game before an idea as to what to expect.

If you like My Exotic Farm and would like more games of this genre I don’t know of any free ones (yet), but there are several commercial alternatives such as Funky Farm, Magic Farm, My Farm, Sunshine Acres and even Alice Greenfingers, all of which retail for the usual arcade price of $19.99

Thank you Merscom LLC and the Giveaway team for another good game. My daughter loved My Exotic Farm the first time they it was given away, and will probably re-play it when she sees that it is a giveaway again. I give this 6 out of 10 for playability, graphics and sound effects. Personally I thought it became a little boring after a while because there wasn’t a great variety of animals or other items to manage.

a great game! thanks!