The FarmVille Diaries

Friday 19th March

11.12am

Now I understand about the blueberries. Turns out that if you don't harvest your crops soon after they "mature", they "wither". Instead of finding a field of bright red strawberries when I logged in today, I was greeted with a load of old sticks and leaves. Crops take between four hours and a few days to mature, depending on the plant. Must bear this in mind in future.

Today's flood of messages included, "Your friends fertilised your crops!" This was unnerving. Who are these friends? Why did they fertilise my crops? In real life, do they creep into my garden while I am asleep, sh** in my rose bushes and piss on my lawn?

4.42pm

I have been awarded a new ribbon. These are like Xbox Live Achievements - you get them for planting a certain number of crops, earning a particular amount of money and so on. They come with free bonus XP and Farm coins.

I earned today's ribbon for being "a model of efficiency". I feel like I'm working in a Stalinist gulag.

Still, who cares? It's Friday night. I've finished work and now I can forget all about FarmVille for the rest of the weekend!

11.58pm

V. v. nice evening, lotsof wine. Told Jon + Dale how rubbish Farmvlle is and how I don't undrestand why 85 million ppl like it. They agreed.

Off to bed. Will just harvest this wheat and plant some cows frist.

First signs of addiction there. That was when I started checking my appointments schedule when planting my FarmVille crops, making sure I'd be near my PC when the soybeans came good and not out and about. That was when I still went out and about.

But then things got really serious.

Sunday 20th March

So far I haven't been too impressed by FarmVille. It just seems like a Facebook version of a lot of games I've played before. But today I realised I've been missing the point - the key word there is "Facebook".

Sounds stupid I know, but until now I didn't bother checking how many of my Facebook friends might be playing the game. Turns out there are around a dozen. Now I understand that interacting with them and their farms is key to the success of your own. For example, fertilising someone's crops earns you extra XP. Feeding their chickens might get you an egg containing your very own birdie.

Then there are all those annoying messages which FarmVille players spam their friends with. Before I started playing, they drove me bonkers. I couldn't understand why Tanja was offering me a bunch of tulips, or why Luis needed me to know he'd found some fuel.

Now I realise that when you publish these messages, other FarmVille players can click on them to receive a reward. If I accept Tanja's tulips, I can win a ribbon for having flowers on my farm. If I click on Luis' update, I can share some of his fuel and use it to power my tractor.

Here's the catch, the clue that Zynga must be run by an evil genius. You can choose whether to publish your updates, but you can't choose whether only FarmVille players will see them (at least, I can't find such an option, and I've looked hard).

You're left with a dilemma: do you annoy non-FarmVille players by spamming them with news about your butternut squash, or annoy FarmVille players by refusing to share the wealth? It make's Sophie's Choice look like a coin-flipper.

At first I tried to strike a balance. I published only the updates offering the best rewards. I tried to resist checking the site every eight minutes to see if anyone had any more fuel to share. But that didn't last long.