Review of new Island in Family Farm Seaside, a mobile device game

Family Farm Seaside always has been my favourite game for mobile devices.  I have been playing it faithfully on a daily basis for almost two years.  A small break in my log-in record occurred when I took a 30 day cruise and the Queen Mary had the worst internet, making it impossible to complete the Mother's Day Quests that year.  Nevertheless, it is a gorgeous game graphically with old-fashioned values in the Quests and moreover, it explores global festival traditions in the time-restricted Quests, making it even more attractive to me.

I have written reviews of mobile Zynga farming games such as FarmVille 2: Country Escape and the CastleVille Legends.  Although I played them without too much frustration initially, once I reached Level 20 or so, I became exhausted by the constant demands that gameplay levied on farmers.  Too many options all at once, too much to do... too frantic.  Thus, despite the fact that some of my friends and even one of my cousins plays these games, I opted out of them.  I still have the games but never play them.

Imagine my horror, therefore when, after Family Farm Seaside announced that they were going to release a second farm, that farm proved to be almost identical in its options to the frantic Zynga mobile device farming simulation games.  I wrote an initial guide for the Island which can be found at

Family Farm Seaside Guide

It includes all time-restricted Missions and Quests as well as Strategy tips for the game and other useful information.

Every player must judge for himself or herself but I find the Island exhausting and do not care for the options there.  New Items can be unlocked for the most part only by making farm expansions or amassing Dev Points, earned by completing Helicopter Orders.  This would not be a problem if there were not a primary Farm with its own Daily Order Board, Cooking Stand Missions and other Time-Restricted Quests.  What we have now is a situation where there are too many options at play all at once, all due to expire within a specific time frame.  It is NOT fun.

The original Family Farm, played on laptop or desktop through Facebook, remains the greatest game of all.  It is a game where developers actively seek and follow player advice, where premium cash is GIVEN as a daily log in reward, where beautiful Decorations can be crafted and then placed on your Farm rather than being on sale for REAL cash as 'Limited Items' as Zynga is wont to do.  The Christmas Quests in the original Family Farm are fun and allow sufficient time for all players to complete.  The Christmas Tree this year, when fully decorated has an animated train running round its base and is exquisite.

If you are a fan of Zynga's FarmVille 2 Country Escape and CastleVille Legends, no doubt you will become a player of Seaside because of the new Island option but I for one am sad that the developers chose to follow a gaming company that does not have the best track record really.  The original FarmVille becomes increasingly difficult even to play.  With far too many farms to ever visit, and far too many new options and purchase offers bombarding the player, it is almost impossible to log into the game now.  Most of my old Neighbours no longer even attempt to play the game, having encountered some of the same problems.

Ah well... I still do love my original Farm on Seaside, although I wish they had offered a new Farm Expansion for our existing Items.  The fact of the matter is that the Island, which we thought would give us an opportunity to decorate with Items that no longer fit on our original Farms, does not accommodate ANY original Farm Items.  This is a serious defect in the game.  You have new farming land but there are entirely different crops, entirely different animals and entirely different machines and decorations... leaving me with far too many Items in my Warehouse and a crowded original Seaside Farm that barely can fit one Machine when needed.  Please, please do offer us a new Expansion at least!