Welcome to Big Farm Mobile Harvest. There is tons of information and exceptions that could turn this post into a novel, but I'm going to try and condense everything you need to know.

First, Big Farm is a great game to play. It has many features that you can't find in other mobile farming games like a simplified supply, resource and market system. Many elements surround the main farm that add interest, support your farm's growth, and increase your tournament success. Co-op projects are real time, so teamwork determines your success rather than the sum of individuals tasks. You choose your strategy and intensity. There is lots of room to enjoy quiet or fellowship, relaxed play or adrenaline pumping moments.

While this is a “free to play” game, it is a money making business and pretty much every dynamic of the game pushes you towards buying. The game is even designed and balanced to be deficient so you are frustrated and tempted to buy solutions to meet your perception of success. If you understand this, it is easy to navigate your way around them and find great joy in your farm for free. You can also wisely spend to invest in things that will have lasting and long term impact on your farm and success.

Grow crops, mill feed and feed your animals. Take dung, make fertilizer and start your orchards. Sell animal and orchard products in the market. Orchards are the engine of your farm economy, but are useless without fertilizer. A starting farm will need around 3 stables per orchard to supply enough dung to make fertilizer and you need to keep those stables running. If animal products don't fit in the barn, sell off the excess and keep going. Keep your farm busy and try to match what you are growing and milling to how long you will be gone. (Wheat and cow feed overnight after level 14.) You can learn more about how things move through your farm in the Main Farm Production Flowchart.

Everything in the game has a blue information button for more details.

When you select any building, options are shown across the bottom. Sometimes, the options for different seeds or feeds overflow, so scroll to the right or left. Selecting anything will give you details and then you use the green hammer to confirm.

Your farm's production will not match market demand. If you don't like or can't fill a contract, there is an option to refresh/trash it and wait for a new one. Holding contracts destroys your ability to make money. As you level up, materials will be added to contracts. Starting at level 8, these materials will be used to purchase land expansions and upgrades in your market and library. As you start to get more comfortable, you can trash contracts for materials you don't need and focus on materials you do need.

Every item in the game has a fixed value, so the composition or size of a contract has no impact on it's value. Just sell stuff through the market. The smaller the contract, the more value your bonuses have.

The game will guide you to build and upgrade. One of the traps of the game is to construct or upgrade buildings that you don't need, using up limited land and workers. Skip the composter till later in the game (level 39 is good) and understand that the starting dynamics between levels 5 and 11 conflict with each other, so you can't feed everything they want you to build, until after you can upgrade your mill. Upgrade houses before building more. The blue book (tasks) is there to subtly slow down your farm and encourage you to buy solutions (spend money), so ignore it.

Building and upgrading houses for workers takes happiness. Decorations give happiness. Production costs decrease as your happiness increases and decreases as your happiness falls. Keep your happiness above zero. 

Save your game! Save your game! Save your game! You only need 1 hiccup to lose your farm, so go to the bottom row of buttons, scroll over to the settings cog on the far right and register your account. While you are in settings, turn on your gold confirmation to avoid later angst. 

At level 9 you can join a co-op (very bottom right corner). You join up to 29 other players, share loyalty points, do projects (which also give loyalty points) and compete against other co-ops in tournaments every other week. Finding and contributing to a great team brings a whole new dimension to the game. There are also some amazing loyalty point decorations for early game.

Co-ops come in every shape and size. Some exist just for loyalty points, some are ultra competitive and the rest are everything in between. Some are very social and some never chat. Some have good leaders, vision, strategy, and structure, while others do not.  It is a great idea to say hi (green chat bubble), read the notes (found inside the co-op page), and make sure that your contribution/activity level match the co-op. Nothing creates tension faster than joining a competitive co-op and never helping with projects. If you can only log on once per day, join a co-op geared to that. If a co-op isn't willing to answer your questions or help you verify your fit, move on. With 1 co-op for every 3 players, it can take multiple tries to find a good one.

One problem is that many people start co-ops because they can not coexist with others or need to control the rules for their own benefit, which leads to players being wounded and abused. Leadership is a skill that needs to be developed for the sake of others; it is not self serving. Some co-ops guide and encourage you to build a better farm, while others try to take over your farm. The second you feel like you are contribution numbers and no longer a person or someone tells you exactly what you have to build/upgrade on your farm, get out and find a new co-op.  

At level 12 you will be able to do the weekly theme event. Every Thursday, a new event gives you 1 week to complete 6 tasks around the farm for rewards, experience and red coupons for upgradeable decorations. 3 of the tasks are for collecting items (always collecting finished product so you can pre-load mills and wait) produced on your farm like crops, feed, apples, peaches, etc. The other 3 tasks are collecting items when you harvest on your main farm, like bouquets, fries, trophies, etc. Every building you can collect anything from will give you these items at a fixed rate. There are 8 events with it’s own decoration and 5 difficulty levels offering more challenging tasks and better rewards.  

At level 15 you will be able to compete in players tournaments the alternate weeks of co-op tournaments. Your tournament score is your market points (purple stars) from sending contracts.

Tournaments start Monday and run for a week. Your progress and remaining time is shown in the orange tent at the top of your farm. There are 6 stages with rewards. After you complete the 2nd stage, you are placed in a pool of 19 others in the same tier/level as you (12 tiers total). At the end, prizes are awarded based on standings and the top five move up to the next tier/level and the five lowest drop down a tier/level. The better you do, the better your competition will be. Tournaments are all about sending market contracts or completing co-op projects.

Watch your notifications on the left side of the screen for details like dog bones, events, news and weekend collecting events (always under the sales). On the middle right side, you will find packages (constantly changing – some are good and some are bad) and random single day events like the trader and fortune teller. Most are designed to encourage spending or take your resources, but they can be used in a wise and disciplined way to your benefit.

There are events and new features constantly added. When this happens, be sure to have a little patience and check in here or on Facebook as we will try to break it down quickly and evaluate if it helps or hinders your farm.

Explore the rest of the site as it grows and read through the game guides, which will cover major topics, dynamics of the game, and give you strategies on how to prepare for them. You will go from lacking materials to lacking cash, then back to lacking materials and the most efficient building levels will shift with these stages. The cafe at level 40 is flashy, but isn't a good use of space till later in the game after the rewards increase. Honey sets you up for a lot of frustration unless you know it's coming and can prepare for it.

But you don't need to worry about these things yet. For now, enjoy farming and all the things to explore and discover around your farm.

Happy Farming,

Smart