From the People Who Brought You Clash of Clans: Hay Day

BreakingModern — If you send me one more notification, I swear I will … oh wait, this isn’t FarmVille? Hello everyone, Puching Zhang back again for another mobile game review. This time it’s the farming game Hay Day, which is a breath of fresh air from the notification-clogging travesty of FarmVille. Like other farming games, Hay Day does let the user grow crops and raise animals — but the real features of the game go far beyond that. Let’s take a look.

Hay Day

Crops Galore

First off, Hay Day boasts by far the largest array of crops in any farming game I’ve ever played. I’ve got to give credit to Supercell, makers of Clash of Clans — after playing that great game, I had high expectations, and Supercell did not disappoint. You can grow mundane crops like wheat and corn, to more complicated produce like coffee beans, tomatoes and blackberries.

Now, for most of you guys, that’s probably enough to get you hooked, and it’s a perfectly good reason to stop reading and get the app right now, but like Billy Mays once said, “but wait, there’s more!”

Hay Day

The huge amount of crops in this game doesn’t even scratch the surface of the amount of features in this game. While the animals in Hay Day are pretty common farm denizens — you have your classic cows, pigs, sheep, goats — the secondary products truly push this game over the top. You gather milk, eggs, bacon and the usual stuff like any ordinary farming game, but Hay Day gives the player the opportunity to convert these simple products into other items through the proper machines.

For example, say I harvested milk from my cow. I can use the dairy machine to turn that into butter, cheese or cream. Then I can take that cream I made, put it in the cake oven with wheat and sugar to bake a cake. I love these secondary items because they add a layer of depth and strategy to the game. Instead of just hoarding items, the player has to strategize how much of each crop to spend on creating products. Some items, like cheesecake, require up to five total steps to produce (grinding the sugar, baking the cookie, making the cheese …), which means players will have to plan ahead and really think about how to maximize product efficiency. With these features alone I would download immediately, but there’s even more.

Hay Day

Mini Game and Multiplayer

Hay Day also includes a fishing mini game. When the player reaches a certain level she can access this awesome experience and fish — all with different weights and fish. Lobster fishing can be unlocked later in the game too, which just makes Hay Day a lot of fun.

Finally, Supercell created a multiplayer option for the game. And that’s what I’ve been looking for — a feature that prevents Facebook notification spamming! Hay Day includes neighborhoods, where users can join together and help each other in case they need anything. Now users don’t have to get on Facebook and plead for their friends to bail their farms out like in FarmVille. Instead there are neighborhoods that can do that for them. Thank you Supercell — you avoided the one pitfall that got users so frustrated with FarmVille. Plus, Supercell managed to incorporate multiplayer into a mobile game, which is pretty impressive.

Overall, I’d give Hay Day a 9/10. I never thought I’d rate the game so high — in fact, I didn’t even think I wanted to review it at first. A few key factors changed my mind: the large variety of addicting gameplay and the massive improvement over any other farming game I’ve played. Admittedly the graphics aren’t stellar, but this game’s not about graphics. Yes, it may be childish and silly, but Hay Day is just a fun game that gets highly addicting if you’re willing to invest hours in it.

Don’t worry, it’s free to download for Android on Google Play and Apple iOS.

Until next time, this is Puching Zhang signing off for BMod.

All Screenshots: Puching Zhang Courtesy of Supercell

Featured/Header Image Credit: From the farm, Gotland, Sweden” by Berit Watkin via Flickr Creative Commons

Puching Zhang

Author: Puching Zhang

Based in Chicago, Puching Zhang covers the gaming beat for BreakingModern.

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