My Little Farmies: a medieval village that runs on bread and trade

What it is

My Little Farmies is a browser game from the German studio upjers. The setting is a medieval village rather than a modern homestead. You start on a small piece of land and grow it, field by field and workshop by workshop, into a settlement with an economy of its own. The publisher calls it a farm tycoon game, and the word tycoon earns its place: crops and animals are only the first link in the chain. Wheat goes to the mill and becomes flour, flour goes to the bakery and becomes bread, milk ends up in a dairy and grapes in a winery.

It runs in the browser with no download. upjers also lists a game called My Little Farmies Mobile, but as a separate title, so this review covers the browser game only.

How a session goes

A typical visit is a short circuit: collect what has finished, restock what is empty and decide what the next few hours of production should be. That last decision is where the game lives. Goods feed into other goods, so a shortage of one raw material can stall a whole chain further down. The game rewards you for thinking a step or two ahead, and it is quietly satisfying when a bakery that sat idle for a day starts humming because you finally planted enough wheat.

Selling isn't a single button either. You choose who to sell to (the publisher mentions a wholesaler and a travelling salesman), and there is a marketplace for trading with other players. Further in, a Hanseatic League system adds trade and cooperation between players, and caravans head out on travel adventures. Higher levels open new regions, among them the North Sea, the Dark Forest and a Volcano Region, plus Wonders of the World to build.

The scale is large. upjers lists 112 animals, 138 buildings, 68 plants, 915 goods and more than 2,000 decorations. You won't meet most of that in your first week, and that is rather the point: this is a game made to be played slowly over a long stretch.

The time it asks for

Two kinds of time, really. There's check-in time, a few minutes to empty the workshops and fill them again. And there's planning time, when you sit down and work out which chains are worth running and what the market wants. Players who enjoy the second kind get the most from it. If you only ever do the first kind, the village still grows, just more slowly and with more bottlenecks.

Events and competitions, such as Tower Building and the Tithe Tournament, add extra goals with their own timetables. Treat them as optional. Nothing in the game's description says you have to chase every one, and a village doesn't wither because you sat an event out.

How the money side works

My Little Farmies is free to start, with optional in-game purchases. On its premium information page, upjers says that playing its games is generally possible for free, that the regular in-game currency covers all the basic functions, and that the premium currency is not strictly required. Premium currency can buy decorations and special features, speed play up, or be exchanged into the regular currency. upjers also states that purchases are one-time payments and that it doesn't offer subscriptions.

In a game with long production timers, the honest question is whether you mind waiting. If you do, speed-ups will tempt you. If you plan your chains so they finish while you are away, waiting stops being a problem at all.