1 free read left. Create a free account for unlimited reading + AI research.

Create free account

PocketGamer.biz10 Nov 2015

FTUE: Farm Away

Key insights

6 takeaways

01
The onboarding process is optimized for brevity, ensuring new users understand the core gameplay loop within the first ten minutes.
02
The design minimizes friction for new players by avoiding the steep learning curves typically associated with traditional farming simulations.
03
Core progression relies on rapid resource accumulation and mathematical scaling, utilizing hard currency to facilitate plot expansion and upgrades.
04
The game employs a 'view-to-play' advertising model that incentivizes users to watch short video ads in exchange for temporary profit multipliers.
05
Futureplay Games designed Farm Away to transition players from active manual tapping to automated idle production, prioritizing immediate gratification over complex resource management.
06
To drive user acquisition and potential viral growth, the title incorporates social features through Facebook integration.

Ask AI about this video

Transcript

hello and welcome to pocketgamer.biz this is our first time user experience channel where we play games for the first time and see what the user experience is like so the game is playing today is a farm away so let's start it up start the stopwatch generally we play games for about 10 minutes or so just to get a kind of early feel really what the tutorials like so and kind of get an idea stuff like we call the social aspects a little bit of monetization although that's normally a bit later in the in the flow but um basically developers spend a lot of time on tutorial the first time user experience which is what the first time user sees um because everybody plays the game this is what they experience so you want to make this as smooth as possible so just down on farm i want to be rich like you far more okay so this is going to be lots of very casual lots of tapping so yeah tapping there's some carrots

collect 20 kilos 20. so keep coaching our gold as soon as the characters made the gold so we're going to unlock something in a minute hopefully i'm going to click 20 gold and it's going to give us a some sort of nice reward so we're going to send this to quite a simple game plant 5 carats tap that am i doing the right thing i want to unlock the second plot okay

okay i think so see what's going on with planting more of these they get more money it's quicker to tap i think now i've got pigs collect what's that a hundred gold i guess remember to plant can i plant pigs yet no okay run that money pigs are giving a lot of money there there's my hundred gold is it farmed up grumpy formula so i've got some dead gem there that's probably some sort of um hard currency so interestingly so we just not even two and a half minutes in already we're getting the idea of what we're doing fantastically tapping tapping get resources to build up

the plots and then we're waiting for the timer to go so we can make more money we have a lot more plots i guess there would be a bit more to the game than this but at the moment seven pigs 21 carats 22 carrots so this is german level two let's get to 720 and uh you can see here this goes on to um some big numbers here assume this is thousand million billions trillions and then we're getting into mathematical

extremes come on there we go we'll get it there more pigs maybe those are not pigs there maybe there's okay i'll see what picks to me so there's okay so each of the ones so each of the plots that's what it costs to uh to add more of them i farmed up got a carrot master another 15. i'm supposed to get into a thousand this has been odd actually instead of one thousand they've got one almost like 1.00 k which is a slightly odd kind of new numerology numerology so i've got that there we go and now i can automate carrot production aha so can a bit less tapping

automates carrot production it cost me a thousand i've got a thousand upgrade board is that it's an idle gamer idle gaming first okay progress brought you that's cool out there okay so you can kind of see what's going on now this is time skip moves about four and four hours all profits so we can kind of see now kind of what things are so these are these this is this currency so i can kind of see what i'm getting more currency will do to my game i can even go in and look there we go i can buy some current buy some gems but interestingly this is quite a casual game it's designed actually to be quite the game designed to be quite kind of advertising heavy although they've not come to any advertising yet but most we can spend can't spend that much the most we can spend is lost at 15 pounds so about 20 um it's not looking to heavily monetize so this should now be yeah that's just doing itself now that's nice make it rain view a short ad and get profit so now we're seeing the the advertising on it

um so sure i'm gonna watch an advert get two times profits for four hours so there we go this is like a typically we see avid video advertising games is very popular now quite lucrative for the developers running it this is a game from another developer um a bit more of a complex farming game sunken secrets only that spy didn't say it just says it when i um don't complain out not really bothered i'm enjoying my thumb weight there we go so now this is my two hours my profits are going up i'm gonna speed up by two times so you can see the little current they're madly producing so we can probably planting and we'll get some more of these little pigs on the carrots but now they just

themselves so i can also make cows okay so then they're cows not pigs i guess they do look like piggy cows so i need to get 12 000 to get those it's gonna take a bit of time isn't it it's going on more games so that's quite certain advertising in there so it's just telling me it's a very simple game actually really um these are the plots this is what you do this is what my next task is um there's a few more things here looks like i can um unlock what's the seed okay so a seed bigger farms more so you get seeds from the market okay there's a few more things to unlock i have several this one was this hey farmer so i can connect with um probably facebook i'm megan what's it gonna go to there we go contact with facebook and do a bit of a

good old facebook spamming a friend's friendship um so yeah i guess i guess we see what's going on with the fun way so much simpler than stuff like heyday and and even um farmville the original kind of facebook game from zinger but it's um i think um yeah just a very pick up and play be interesting to see what the retention is like whether people do want more depth really in the long term or not whether they're just happy kind of um obviously there's a few more things to unlock but i think for a for so much apart from some of these some of this terminology um i think that's almost a very good example of a very simple game to get into you just start tapping and then yeah that's the game but there we go it is a very simple game so there's farm farm away um and that's from future play games from helsinki so we'll maybe come back play a bit more get some more automation going on and come back um in a couple of weeks and show you some more uh monetization in farmweek but um don't forget to subscribe to our channel lots of things going on lots of interviews lots of

games lots of mobile news so subscribe and find out what's going on okay cool see you soon

Summary

Farm Away, a mobile title developed by Futureplay Games, serves as a primary case study for the mechanics and user experience of idle farming games. The game centers on a simplified, high-frequency tapping loop designed to minimize friction for new players. By focusing on rapid resource accumulation—specifically carrots and livestock—the game quickly introduces players to core progression loops, including plot expansion, currency management, and the eventual transition from manual interaction to automated production.

The onboarding process is characterized by its brevity and intuitive design, allowing users to grasp the fundamental gameplay within the first ten minutes. Key mechanics include the use of hard currency for upgrades and the implementation of a "view-to-play" advertising model, which incentivizes players to watch short video advertisements in exchange for temporary profit multipliers. This monetization strategy is integrated early, positioning the game as a casual, low-barrier experience that relies on incremental growth and mathematical scaling rather than complex resource management.

The game utilizes a standard progression path where players move from manual tapping to unlocking automated systems, effectively shifting the experience from an active clicker to an idle game. While the title incorporates social features, such as Facebook integration for potential viral growth, it maintains a significantly lower level of complexity compared to traditional farming simulations. Ultimately, the design prioritizes accessibility and immediate gratification, suggesting that the developer’s primary goal is high initial retention through a streamlined, pick-up-and-play loop that avoids the steep learning curves often associated with the genre.