#another thing that is hard to show in screenshots - decorative egg collection

[victorluvsalice]

-->And then it was Smiler's turn to go on the egg hunt! Giving me a chance to show off the new first floor landing rug -- yeah, I decided I wasn't really a fan of my first option to replace the old one that got burnt up in the Winterfest Tree Fire, so I went hunting in the catalogue and settled on that one with the big yellow and blue blocks. *shrugs* Seems more them, at any rate!

Anyway – Smiler checked out the living room while while Victor used the upgraded downstairs bathroom and Alice got the day’s milk from Moory, and managed to dig two Freezer Bunny-patterned eggs out of the living room couch and one of the armchairs. Prompting the game to inform me that the household had completed the decorative egg collection! Something that seemed to be a lie when I checked the actual collection tab and found that there were still two missing according to that, but if the game wants to send them a plaque, I will happily hang it! XD They then proceeded to check the front porch couches, and got an orange chicken egg out of one of them, completing the tradition! :D I then sent them to collect the actual eggs from the chicken coop (three perfectly ordinary ones), since I didn’t have to worry about those counting toward the tradition anymore and thus depriving Smiler of the fun of finding decorative eggs. XD Victor, for his part, went egg-hunting in the kitchen once he’d fulfilled his bladder need – he got two decorative eggs (orange and yellow stripes and blue with a star pattern) and one chicken egg (rainbow). Very good work, you two!

-->With two out of the three in the house having completed the “Hunt For Eggs” tradition, it was time for Alice and Smiler to get their gardening on! Having Alice fertilize and pick the strawberries and fertilize the black beans in the greenhouse fulfilled the tradition for her, while Smiler harvesting their plasma fruit and various herbalism plants fulfilled it for them. Alice then headed up to the second story bathrooms to look for eggs while having a pee and a shower – she found a very patriotic red-white-and-blue egg in the blue-and-white bathroom before her shower, and then a nice wavy egg from the yellow-and-black bathroom afterward. :D That was two out of four traditions complete for all three residents – and, unfortunately, one fox, who I noticed had stolen an egg out of the coop a little too late for me to do anything about it. >( Really gotta get those livestock upgrade parts already. . .

-->Anyway, that still left two more traditions to complete – or, at the very least, one more to complete to guarantee everyone had a good Egg Day. And the easier of the two (which didn’t involve waiting around for an NPC to show up) was “Decorate!” And that has always been Smiler’s job (occasionally helped by me dragging stuff into the front yard). First, though, they really needed a snack –

And, well, we know who has the best plasma in the whole house, don’t we? XD Victor had been keeping busy cleaning out Moory’s shed (and rummaging through the resultant trash pile for bits, pieces, and upgrade parts) and feeding Toothy in their new pen while Smiler and Alice fulfilled their gardening traditions – Smiler caught up with him right in front of the cowplant and politely asked for some plasma, which Victor happily gave! Even though it put him right on the edge of collapsing in the yard. Fortunately, nobody in this house is lacking in satisfaction points, and he was easily able to buy himself some sleep replacement potion and get his energy up to full. :) We do love satisfaction potions in this game!

-->And with that, I just had a few last things for them to do around the house:

Victor went and super-sold everything that was left in the greenhouse, because, uh, honestly, we don't really need to pick all of it every day – there's just SO MUCH

Alice drank some Lifestyle-Go-Poof potion to get rid of the “People Person” lifestyle she and Victor keep developing (I know it’s my own fault, they socialize more than they should, but still) and cleaned up the dishes around the lot; submitted her latest book “Knight To E-4” to the literary digest; and checked on the pets (either Shock or Surprise was sitting on the voodoo doll, which amused me XD)

And Smiler hit the decoration box to put up some cute spring banners and some fun colorful lights for the holiday, before heading outside to catch some butterflies fluttering out in the front yard (never know when you might need them for herbalism!).

You know, typical Sims 4 household nonsense. :p But eventually they were all sorted, and they were ready to head out –

[kneelingshadowsalome]

Id love to see how DOG! Konig actually first saw Reader or even when he knew he fell in love with her <3

König saw reader first time on TV :)

It was one of those boring moments when the latest mission was done and he was coming down from his adrenaline/testosterone/cortisol high, channel surfing at the base with a blank stare.

He passed this one channel that never had anything worthwhile to watch, except this time—wait a minute—there’s some cute girl whipping egg whites there. He changed the channel out of habit but immediately changed it back again, his eyes boring to the screen where this woman was making lemon tartlets.

He pays attention to the nice voice… Nice lips… Her hands, very delicate when she decorates each tart with raspberries and mint leaves. It’s always hot in his opinion when a girl prepares dinner or dessert, and this cutie is doing both. She has a sad smile and a pair of depressed eyes, her body language reminds him of tortured prisoners on the brink of confession. The despair in her eyes resembles the look on women just before they cum, and it drives him fucking nuts.

She’s fucking perfect… So weak, just a poor little thing who’s trying to hide, probably hates the camera and her audience, every small prick she has to work for and with.

König binges her whole show within a few days from some streaming service, even faps during or after watching – just a few times because in a few episodes, they filmed her breasts and hands a lot, although it must be said it’s that helpless look in her eyes that truly makes him cum hard… He fantasizes about arriving at her studio with his guns blazing, wondering how she would react when he stains her cute little tarts with blood. How she would react when she sees a big, able man come to take what’s his – would she kneel and beg him to save her life, or would she gasp and look like a stupefied goldfish when he pulls his dick out after the bloodbath and tells her to give it a kiss?

Next thing he does is he googles her, finds a few articles in some lousy girl magazine where she mentions she has “learned to make peace with solitude” and that “time spent alone feels good nowadays”. Ja, sicher! Poor little thing is lying her eyes out, anyone can see that. She tries so hard to be brave, looks so fuckable when she sighs and looks down at the food she just made like it’s the only thing in this world she can do right. Just cook some food and decorate dumb pastries, looking like a spoiled little princess while she’s doing it.

He gets his hands on the actual, physical articles and keeps them in his locker because they include pictures of her. Finds her on social media and looks at her Instagram feed first time in the morning and last time before bed, chuckling to himself from how pathetic she is, so fucking desperate to get attention... He has a collection of screenshots on his phone: one of his favourites is, surprisingly, not a picture of her delicious ass, trying another dumb hobby that’s supposed to be trendy. It’s the one where she’s smiling at a big mug of coffee in front of her, looking like a cute little kitten who’s been offered a treat. Or her on the beach with a big straw hat on her head, looking at the waves and smiling a big, silly smile, her worries forgotten for a moment. Her at a party, all dolled up and practically begging to get fucked, holding the waist of some weak civilian he could kill with one punch.

But his ultimate favourite is a selfie she took while she was out on a walk. She’s without her makeup, wearing a simple old faded t-shirt, looking up at the camera with a fake smile and those sad, pleading eyes, silently begging for someone to take the pain away. She’s unprotected, and lonely, so pitiful that König would do anything to teleport beside her right now and haul her away like a sack of whimpering potatoes thrown over his shoulder.

Is no one going to fucking come to her rescue and spoil her to bits, is no one going to fuck those dumb little thoughts out of her head? What the fuck is wrong with men these days, he doesn’t understand, but he’s not going to watch this ridiculous shit for a moment longer…

(If you asked König when he realized he was in love with her, he would answer it was love at first sight. Or… maybe… that one time when she asked where she put the cream. She was talking to herself while the cameras were rolling, looking helpless, lost, and dumb because she literally had one job... König found that very endearing.)

[megadads]

A Winter Storm Warning had been issued, with up to a foot of snow projected to blanket the state. We stocked up on the necessary supplies of root beer, chips & salsa, prepared to be home bound for the entire weekend. The only question left unanswered was what were we going to do for the next 48 hours to keep ourselves entertained? While we brainstormed ideas, I happened across a post on Twitter from a games journalist listing his favorite games of the year so far. I was familiar with every title on the list except for one, Farm Together. How could one of the best games of the year be something that I’d never even heard of? I looked it up on the Nintendo Switch eShop and after seeing a few screenshots thought “Hey, this looks neat. I bet the kids would like to play this.” so I threw down my Andrew Jackson and began the download.

I had no idea what we were in for.

Farm Together is a farming “simulator” developed by Milkstone Studios, a developer I had never heard of before but is apparently responsible for games such as Sushi Castle, White Noise & Avatar Ninja. From the description of the game, you’d be excused for not chomping at the bit to play, as it seems fairly straight forward and familiar.

“Grow crops, plant trees, take care of the animals, and much more! Spend your hard-earned money on new buildings and items for your farm! Earn experience and unlock even more items and buildings!”

Simple isn’t necessarily a bad thing though, I wasn’t looking for the next Skyrim, just a fun little game for the family to pass the time with while we wait out the bad weather. Thankfully what they managed to deliver was something much, much more.

We decided that my wife would take the first crack at it, giving the kids a chance to watch for a while and see how the game plays. When you begin the game you first need to create your avatar, then choose a plot of land to begin with and give it a name. She chose a location filled with ponds & rivers and kept the default name of ‘Cranberry Fields’. You start with a pretty decent sized plot of land to get things rolling but you can expand your farm as you level up to create a sprawling ranch, in fact your farm can get so enormous later in the game that they’ve included the ability to place fast travel markers to get around the map.

Right off the bat we noticed how they’ve made simplicity and ease of play an important aspect of the design. While there is a lot of depth to the game, they’ve done a great job of making the controls intuitive enough for young kids to be able to grasp right away. You press A to till the land, then A to bring up your crop menu, then A to plant, then A to water. Most of the actions are contextual and there’s no fumbling around for different tools to use.

She started off by planting a few vegetables and fruit trees. Once you plant something you’ll see a timer that shows how long until you’re able to harvest your crops. It’s different depending on the item and the timer works in real-time, meaning that it’s still going even if you’re not playing the game. It creates a fun, Animal Crossing-esque element that will have you jumping into the game when you have a few spare minutes to quickly harvest and replant your crops. When it’s time to harvest you’ll collect money and experience points, and you can also sell the fruits and veggies for diamonds (which are used to purchase certain items in the game). The whole gameplay loop feels somewhat like a mobile game, but without the gross time gates and micro transactions that usually accompany those titles.

Once you’ve planted your crops you can water them, which brings up another smart decision the developers made. They’ve kept the game friendly and stress free by creating a system which doesn’t punish you for not keeping up with your chores. Watering your plants and feeding your animals speeds up the time it takes for your crops to be ready for harvest or your animals to produce their wares (milk from cows, eggs from chickens, etc.) but you aren’t punished for not doing these things. They’ll just take longer if you don’t stay on top of it. So the game has a lot in common with parenting young kids in that the best practice is usually to reward good behavior instead of punishing bad. You really can’t “fail” in Farm Together, playing well just means getting the most money out of your time spent and growing your farm faster.

These gameplay decisions mean it’s a perfect game for young kids and both of our girls were immediately hooked. The colorful visuals, cute animals, and simple gameplay all had them glued to the television. Lucky for us the game changes seasons every 17 minutes so there’s a nice, built-in timer for having the girls switch back and forth. “When summer is over, it’s your sister’s turn to play.” They passed the game back and forth all afternoon, their favorite part probably being when they unlocked the option to choose a pet that they could customize and which follows you around all over the farm while you do your chores.

When it was my turn to play I found the gameplay hook to be incredibly addicting. Almost every action you do gets you something in return whether it’s money, experience, diamonds, etc. and there’s so much to unlock that you never go very long without feeling like you’ve accomplished something. There are dozens of plants, flowers, trees, animals, buildings and decorations to unlock as you progress so you can make your farm unique. I’m even in the process of building a house which you’re able to customize and decorate, unlocking all sorts of new objectives and rewards. The sheer number of options available in the game are impressive, but it never feels too overwhelming or complicated. The core gameplay still remains the same. Plant, water, harvest, sell, buy.

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After spending more time with the game than I originally thought that we would, we got the girls into their pajamas and off to bed, then my wife and I played some more… and some more… and then some more. Our farm continued to grow, we completed challenges, we unlocked new crops, and on and on. The pacing of the game is so addicting, with a constant drip feed of rewards and the lure of that next unlockable is irresistable. It’s the epitome of the “just ten more minutes” type of game. In fact this ‘Family Game Night’ turned into a ‘Family Game Early Morning’ when we noticed that all of a sudden it was 2am.

Our love of the game continued through the rest of the weekend and every day since. It’s mix of charming visuals and music, relaxing and addictive gameplay, and accessibility to every member of the family has made it the best surprise of the year and a game that the whole family will undoubtedly spend countless hours with for the foreseeable future.

Kid’s Take

Chloe “It’s very fun and a lot of hard work!”

Samantha ” I like it because it lets me practice at farming. Maybe I can be a farmer someday!”

Parent’s Take

Cristina “Embarrassingly addicting”

John “It’s an addicting mix of Animal Crossing, Viva Pinata and Harvest Moon. I’ll certainly be playing this for a long, long time.”

Farm Together is available now on the Nintendo Switch, Xbox One and PC

  Family Game Night: Farm Together A Winter Storm Warning had been issued, with up to a foot of snow projected to blanket the state.