Customer Reviews

The Farming Game

5 star:		(45)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you like monopoly, you will definitely enjoy this game. Its monopoly with a country twist. The board represents one year and you pass through all the harvest seasons--corn, hay, livestock, etc. During these seasons, you receive the chance to roll the dice and collect your harvest. As you climb your way out of debt, you have options to buy more cows, more hay, more land, tractors, harvestors, and even fruit trees. Its a game of chance and luck that can last for hours or days. Just as you think you've struck it rich, though, there's the operating expense cards and the farmer's fate cards that can take it all away! The Farming Game teaches a great deal about how to manage (and spend) your money, the ups and downs of the market, and how risky farming really is. AFter all, it was invented by a farmer! The Farming Game is one of my favorite games of all time.

I honestly could not imagine how a game about farming could be fun. Real farming doesn't look the least bit fun to me. After 4 years of reading game reviewers applaud this game, I broke down and bought it for a reunion weekend with a longtime game-playing friend.

When we were well into the first game, my friend put off going to the bathroom for 45 minutes so she could take "just one more turn" and then another and then another. We finally pried ourselves away from the game to go eat at 9:00pm.

It does start out slowly, so give it 2 or 3 times around the board before you give up on it. You start out in debt at the beginning of a new year. One trip around the board is one calendar year. Your goal is to build a profitable farming operation by buying/renting equipment,planting and harvesting, buying and selling livestock. In the meantime, Real Life intervenes in the form of insects, drought, disease, bad weather,taxes,equipment breakdowns, etc. In spite of these frustrations, the fun part is in the harvest. It's sort of like Monopoly with an adrenaline rush! The more fields you own, the bigger the harvest. The more land you own, the more livestock you can support.

The Farming Game is a great educational model for any business, or Life for that matter. You can borrow too much and end up bankrupt. You can have too little cash on hand and not be able to plant. No planting, no harvest. No harvest, no money. No money, no planting.

This is a great game for competitive players. For it to be fun for everyone, players need to be able to count money and either read the cards or be able to follow directions if someone else reads them. If a child can play Monopoly, he or she can play the Farming Game.

I bought this and other board games for my husband at Christmas. Everyone loved playing this game, even the grandparents. It is a very well thought out game very true to life. You never know when your operating expenses will be higher than your crop harvest or if it's your year to get top dollar for your cherry crop. It's also a good game to play if you need to be getting up to check on the kids or get snacks because nobody elses crop effects yours. Your fate is in the hand of the cards, where you land, or what you roll. You don't constantly have to be watching to see if someone lands on your property. I think it would be and excellent game for teenagers because some of the rules are facts of life. For instance, you must have at least 20% down to buy property. I would recommend this game to everyone.

My Dad got this game for Christmas and we could not stop playing it. Because he grew up on a farm it had special fun for him. Being a non-violentist (who too frequently expresses his shadow over the game board) I really enjoyed the fact that this game can be as cooperative as you want it to be. There were just a couple of rule disputes that my Father and I had but they were minimal and more family than game related.

This game is addictive and fun. The board follows the course of one year. You begin at Christmas Break and your part-time job (so you can keep farming). The goal is to build a farm large enough so you can quit your job in town and become a full time farmer. You buy equipment, acreage of hay, grain (wheat and corn) and fruit, cows and lease ridges in an Eastern Washington farming Valley. If you are familiar with that area of the country this game might have particular appeal to you. As you travel around the board you come to different harvest times. The dollar amount you earn depends upon how much of that crop you have and a roll of the die. Whenever you harvest you also draw an operating expenses card, and if the space you landed on says so you may also draw a dreaded "Farmer's Fate" card. You realize how hard farming can be when you are $45,000 in debt, you harvest doesn't cover your operating expenses and the IRS comes to audit your farm all in one turn.

This game is a lot of fun for the whole family. I recommend it for its educational value because it requires some simple percentage, addition, subtraction, budgeting skills and for its social implications.

This is one game that far exceeded my expectations. With a title like "The Farming Game" I expected a game that I'd probably play about 1/2 of once. Now, it is now one of my all time favorite games!

Gameplay consists of going around a board where each square represents about a week of a year. The only time you make money is at harvest time, but there are a range of crops, each to be harvested at a different point so if you diversify your holdings you get to make money at lots of different points on the board. The only time in the game where you don't harvest, you buy. Buying new land for crops and new cows to milk really shouldn't be this fun!

It has a very strong gambling appeal without requiring air-fare to Vegas. Every harvest requires a roll of a die and a draw from the dreaded Operating Expenses pile. The higher the die roll, the more you make, but some of those Operating Expenses can make short work of a small fortune. While it is possible to lose money on the harvest and bleed money all over the board, the designers have thoughtfully tilted the odds in your favor. That is to say, you'll get richer rather than poorer as the game proceeds.

Are you bored with Monopoly? One of the biggest advantages to this game is that it is not actually competitive. In fact, you can build partnerships with other players. Of course, the most successful player is the "winner", but you do not win at the expense of the other players. Great for any family!

The original game is great, with tons of stickers that don't slide and make it possible to have tons of acres to harvest.
But this version comes with interlocking puzzle pieces that slide all over the board at the slightest bump, and less pieces so you are more limited. Buy the other version.

This is probably the favorite game of our family of six. Whenever we ask the children what game they want to play as a family, they almost always say: The Farming Game. It usually takes us about 2 or 3 hrs. to finish a game.

As a mother, my favorite part is that each player is independent; you win or lose by your own decisions and chance. You don't win by putting everyone else out of business - you win by having the most money/assests when someone calls 'time.' This is great in not creating hard feelings and angry exchanges among the players. Nobody ends the game with a grudge towards someone else.

We have had the game for at least 10 yrs. and it is still a family favorite.

I grew up playing this game with my brothers, spending countless summer days on the living room floor. The best part about this game is you play against yourself, where as Monopoly(our other favorite pasttime), you compete against the other players.
I have recommended this game to numerous people- farmers and city folk alike. You just cant beat this game. Its great. 5 stars.

This game is nearly 20 years old and never gets old. You have more fun and laugh . This is a game of learning about farming that you would never know about. I can't say enough about it once you play and share with others they go out and get it to...