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Penny Arcade - Comic - Farm Minimization

DogDog Registered User, Administrator, Vanilla Staff admin

Farm Minimization!

Penny Arcade - Comic - Farm Minimization

Videogaming-related online strip by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins. Includes news and commentary.

Read the full story here

Posts

  • LttlefootLttlefoot Registered User regular
    They don’t remember the FarmVille epidemic from over ten years ago?

  • Johnny17Johnny17 Registered User regular
    Question to people who play World of Mice & Men:
    I built a puppy farm next to the mental asylum but the puppies keep dying, what did I do wrong?

  • Commander ZoomCommander Zoom Registered User regular
    edited September 2022
    Lttlefoot wrote: »
    They don’t remember the FarmVille epidemic from over ten years ago?

    I'm not sure it ever really ended.
    Much like the continued fascination with zombies (which are a metaphor for total social collapse, complete with starving mobs that are 100% morally okay to shoot in the head).
    Or plants vs. zombies!

    ... my point being that we'll probably keep telling stories and making games about zombies until we either feel "safe" again, or society really does collapse and the whole thing becomes moot/redundant/too "real".

    Commander Zoom on
  • FireballDragonFireballDragon Registered User regular
    I started playing Stardew Valley a few years ago to cope with the pandemic, and I got so into it that I managed to achieve 100% completion. It was pretty satisfying to look back and see how far me and Leah, my beautiful wife, had come.

  • LttlefootLttlefoot Registered User regular
    In stardew I beat 40 floors of the first mine and then traveled to another area with another mine but I found the fights much harder

  • AldoAldo Hippo Hooray Registered User regular
    Lttlefoot wrote: »
    In stardew I beat 40 floors of the first mine and then traveled to another area with another mine but I found the fights much harder

    The mines in the desert are a bit more end-gamey and are mostly just far more random. It's that way by design: less curated, more focus on forcing you to either push your luck or run away with suboptimal rewards.

  • LucascraftLucascraft Registered User regular
    I love the wholesome art style of panel 3 and wish to see more of Mike's art drawn in this style.

  • GrendusGrendus Registered User regular
    Lttlefoot wrote: »
    In stardew I beat 40 floors of the first mine and then traveled to another area with another mine but I found the fights much harder

    That's odd. You shouldn't be able to get into the Skeleton Mine (the one in the desert) until after you complete the entire first mine. The key is on the bottom floor. Trying to remember if maybe it was different in an earlier patch.

    But yeah, that second mine is meant to be *much* harder. It's randomized and you start at the first floor every day, but you get better rewards the deeper you go. A lot of players will collect huge amounts of stone and just craft stairs to get to the bottom.

    And then there's the Volcano Mines that got added even later...

  • V1mV1m Registered User regular
    This one kicked me right inna feels

  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    edited September 2022
    Give it another few decades, and we'll all be escaping into the oxygen production games.

    (We've already got one in the genre.)

    dennis on
  • Monkey Ball WarriorMonkey Ball Warrior A collection of mediocre hats Seattle, WARegistered User regular
    Real agriculture has a tendency to.. Smell. Really bad. Especially animal husbandry. A video game does not.

    Every time I get sick of the modern world I remember what it smelled like to drive through farm country and.. No I think I will stick with grocery stores.

    "I resent the entire notion of a body as an ante and then raise you a generalized dissatisfaction with physicality itself" -- Tycho
  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    edited September 2022
    Real agriculture has a tendency to.. Smell. Really bad. Especially animal husbandry. A video game does not.

    Every time I get sick of the modern world I remember what it smelled like to drive through farm country and.. No I think I will stick with grocery stores.

    Two words: chicken litter.

    (And no, were not talking about chickens that throw their trash out the windows.)

    dennis on
  • DjiemDjiem Registered User regular
    dennis wrote: »
    Real agriculture has a tendency to.. Smell. Really bad. Especially animal husbandry. A video game does not.

    Every time I get sick of the modern world I remember what it smelled like to drive through farm country and.. No I think I will stick with grocery stores.

    Two words: chicken litter.

    (And no, were not talking about chickens that throw their trash out the windows.)

    We're talking about people who throw their chickens out the windows, right?

  • Hexmage-PAHexmage-PA Registered User regular
    I think the real reason is that farming presents a simple-yet-effective game play loop. Plant, water, harvest, repeat. It takes much longer IRL versus getting crops in something like Dragon Quest Builders 2, where vegetables are popping up faster than you can collect them.

  • OverkillengineOverkillengine Registered User regular
    Johnny17 wrote: »
    Question to people who play World of Mice & Men:
    I built a puppy farm next to the mental asylum but the puppies keep dying, what did I do wrong?

    You didn't look at the rabbits long enough with your pvp flag enabled.

  • Rhesus PositiveRhesus Positive GNU Terry Pratchett Registered User regular
    dennis wrote: »
    Real agriculture has a tendency to.. Smell. Really bad. Especially animal husbandry. A video game does not.

    Every time I get sick of the modern world I remember what it smelled like to drive through farm country and.. No I think I will stick with grocery stores.

    Two words: chicken litter.

    (And no, were not talking about chickens that throw their trash out the windows.)

    We're talking about a chair for chickens carried around by a sexy retinue, right?

    [Muffled sounds of gorilla violence]
  • OverkillengineOverkillengine Registered User regular
    dennis wrote: »
    Real agriculture has a tendency to.. Smell. Really bad. Especially animal husbandry. A video game does not.

    Every time I get sick of the modern world I remember what it smelled like to drive through farm country and.. No I think I will stick with grocery stores.

    Two words: chicken litter.

    (And no, were not talking about chickens that throw their trash out the windows.)

    Plus also adequate space for the livestock. Factory farms suck. Neighbors that keep too many hogs (or other livestock, but man are pigs super pungent) for the size of their pen and pond suck.

  • V1mV1m Registered User regular
    These comments about the industrialisation of agriculture are describing exactly what this comic is addressing

  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    V1m wrote: »
    These comments about the industrialisation of agriculture are describing exactly what this comic is addressing

    I disagree. I think this comic is more about the overall environmental state of the planet rather than just the slice that is agriculture. Especially related to the current forest fires.

  • Monkey Ball WarriorMonkey Ball Warrior A collection of mediocre hats Seattle, WARegistered User regular
    edited September 2022
    I did not interpret it like that at all. I think it's more just getting old, parenting (which makes everything messy), and how dirty cities specifically can be.

    And I have to imagine pre-industrial farming smelled much worse than modern farming, they literally used manure as fertilizer back then.

    Though perhaps they did not notice as Europeans were... Very late to the whole "bathing" concept so everything smelled bad all the time.

    Monkey Ball Warrior on
    "I resent the entire notion of a body as an ante and then raise you a generalized dissatisfaction with physicality itself" -- Tycho
  • spool32spool32 Contrary Library Registered User regular
    I love that Tycho's game avatar is a Jerry

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