FarmVille Pic of the Day: Curtlav's mountainside farm

Curtlav's FarmVille design takes a very different approach from the past few featured farms. Cat99 and Cynne's Gaga-themed farms were crazy and colorful. While Curtlav's mountain farm is just as technically impressive, it embraces a peaceful mood that simply wasn't present in the crazy Gaga farms.

This mountainside farm is deceptively complex. At first glance you might not realize that all the incredible depth and variable height is actually created using careful item placement and stacking. The mountains and bluffs are made up of dozens of small rocks and logs. Train tunnels, mountains, and an entire farm were all built using this technique.

Also, don't forget, there is no water in FarmVille! All those waterfalls, rivers, and lakes are created using other items such as hay bales.

Luckily, Curtlav was able to answer some of our questions about the farm. Check out what the farm-artist had to say about this awesome design:

    "I've always been detail oriented and I put a lot of hours into [this farm], a couple hours here and there. I would estimate forty hours over two months.

    I first made tunnels on my winter farm coming out of the mountains. Then I cleaned my winter farm up, stored everything cause I needed more crops for coins. Shortly after that I had all these logs sitting in storage so i just messed around, that's how it ended up.

    I was messing around again with the rocks and said, "Hey i can make cliffs with these!" So i spent every coin I had on them. I've changed the waterfall and river three times. It wont be changed again, I'm happy with it now.

    I'm more into the realistic looking farms and the art of it. I'm not even much into the farming part." - Curtlav


Curtlav's knack for details and realistic looking farms certainly shows through this mountainside farm masterpiece.

What do you think of Curtlav's farm?

If you have an AWESOME FarmVille farm that you want to see featured on Games.com, please email a picture to editors@games.com, Include a few words about the inspiration for your design and maybe a few tips for people who need an assist!

FarmVille Pic of the Day: Makiziki's lush desert oasis

Click the image to make it larger.
farmville english countryside lush grass
Howdy folks. Today's featured farm is a handsome design by Makiziki, a player who spends time over at the FarmVille Forums. Makiziki's farm caught my eye because it does something rather novel: paths. Paths may be common in other games such as CityVille, Empires & Allies, and FrontierVille, but in FarmVille, there is no easy way to make paths. All the dirt trails you see are actually created by hand placing the Lush Grass decoration all over the farm.

So not only is this farm a beautiful estate full of crops, animals, and items; but it also serves as a great design guide for other FarmVille artists. Using Lush Grass to cover a farmville tall grass makizikifarm hasn't been done too much, especially considering how nice it looks. Unfortunately, Lush Grass was a limited time English Countryside item that is no longer available. However, a different item, Tall Grass, can be bought in the decorations tab of the market for 1,500 coins apiece. The only difference is that Tall Grass is a little taller, so it will give farms a more wild, natural look.

In addition to the unique use of grass and desert background in order to make paths, the farm has a lot more going on. In an age where FarmVille players have absurd amounts of stuff, Makiziki's farm remains rather organized. Here's what they had to say about their farm:

    Well, first of all, I love to design with paths. FarmVille doesn't actually have them yet. And I love a lot of green, so my design looks like a real farm. I worked about 3-4 hours to finsih this farm, and I was so tired when I was done :) But I love my new farm :)
    -Makiziki

What do you guys think of Makizki's Lush Grass-filled farm? Add Comment

If you have an AWESOME FarmVille farm that you want to see featured on Games.com, please email a picture to editors@games.com, Include a few words about the inspiration for your design and maybe a few tips for people who need an assist.

FarmVille Pic of the Day: Hop on a train to Onisuka057's fall oasis

Even though we're in the end of September, the leaves are still green in New York City. But Onisuka057's FarmVille farm is clearly headed for autumn with the yellows and reds of what appears to be the Autumn Ginkgo Tree, Maple Tree, Red Maple Tree, Sugar Maple Tree, and Rowan Tree. On top of that, there's also a Maple orchard below, though that seems to have been thrown in at the last minute. Maybe he can build up the bottom of his farm once Halloween comes around. But he has already dipped into the recently released Lighthouse Cove decor with several Tree Arches, Autumn Creeks, and Outdoor Picnics. So yeah, there's a lot of premium Farm Cash goods going on in this one.

Beyond the colors, the next most striking aspect of Onisuka057's farm are the train tracks bordering it, which are actually two-dimensional, but some massive fence-stacking and blue hay bales have fooled your eyes into seeing an elevated "bridge" hanging over "water." That's the sort of low-cost ingenuity farm designers love to see. But while building a bridge out of fences was a bit of improvisation on the creator's part, limited edition railroad decor did come out in FarmVille last fall as part of the Wild West package, so those are real tracks you're looking at there.
Onisuka057 FarmVille farm closeup
Finally, hidden in the top corner is a plume of smoke that's actually another limited edition special--an Old Faithful geyser eruption from the Yellowstone collection.

Have the trees changed colors in your town yet? Does the use of lots of Farm Cash items in a farm bug you? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment

FarmVille Pic of the Day: Have fun getting lost in Aliciafay03's farm maze

Don't let the look of this farm fool you. Because the first thing someone would notice about Aliciafay03's FarmVille farm is that she's got "FARM VILLE" spelled out in an outline of red, orange, and blue hay bales, which I know isn't a big whoop. Hay bales as a design element have gotten pretty stale in the landscaping community. Bales are good for spelling out visual shout-outs, portraits, and the occasional fun art (care for a whopper?), but there's rarely any impressive ones anymore. But look closer at Aliciafay03's farm, and you'll realize that it's an interactive maze.

Originally designed to be a cornfield maze, Aliciafay03 was eager to debut her farm for Zynga's official Farm of the Week contest, so she released her entry before the corn had a chance to grow. This is probably better, cause a cornfield would've obscured all the clever lettering. What we know about hay bales is that there's a cheat for players to harvest crops faster by trapping your FarmVille farming avatar in hay bales -- now here's where the interactive part comes in -- so if you click one end of this farm, your avatar can't go anywhere but to run through the maze!

Have you ever played in a real cornfield maze? Sound off in the comments. 1 Comment

If you have an AWESOME FarmVille farm that you want to see featured on Games.com, please email a picture to editors@games.com, Include a few words about the inspiration for your design and maybe a few tips for people who need an assist.

FarmVille Pic of the Day: Yesn's flower bouquet forest

After featuring Hemi 426's zoo farm yesterday, I decided to feature something a bit more abstract today. Yesn's FarmVille tree bouquet is exactly that. Yesn seems to have thrown out the structure, thrown out the organization, and settled with a very organic, fun, and ultimately beautiful design.

If you've ever read any of my FarmVille Pic of the Day posts, you know I love seeing art created with items other than the usual hay bales. I'm especially fond of tree art, and this is an excellent example of how to flawlessly execute it. I'd say this FarmVille design is on the same level as the fire-breathing dragon and giant Lady Gaga, two tree art masterpieces. In addition to the wild design, the arrangement of flowers itself is very nice. Yesn seems to have worked hard to ensure the bouquet doesn't feature any flower repeats, each one is unique.

Great job Yesn, and here's to hoping you have plenty of arborists!

What do you think of Yesn's FarmVille flower arrangement?

If you have an AWESOME FarmVille farm that you want to see featured on Games.com, please email a picture to editors@games.com, Include a few words about the inspiration for your design and maybe a few tips for people who need an assist!