Play on a PC. Good bye New Harvest

My tablet died... 16 days after the warranty ended... sigh.

This is the unofficial review of New Harvest and the story of how I got our family farm going again, which every New Harvest player needs to read. Trust me.

To start - what is New Harvest?

There are three version of Big Farm. The original, named Big Farm is browser based (open an internet browser and log into their website), but there is a software package that allows you to play from your desktop (with an internet connection.) The version we all know and love (or get stressed by) is Big Farm: Mobile Harvest, which was Goodgame's solution to mobile gaming and is only available as a mobile app. These 2 versions use a different gaming engine and are incompatible with each other. There are also different crops, animals, additional farms, mini games, features, etc.

Big Farm New Harvest is the browser based version of Mobile Harvest and your farm can be used on both platforms. It is still under a lot of development. Big Farm asked us to not endorse New Harvest yet. It is as simple as going to bigfarm.com and login in with your Facebook account (or email save).

We are slowly starting to gather more New Harvest users in our community.

Pros

• It uses a different connection route to the servers. If your farm won't load on your phone or tablet (like Applegate or Kindle upgrade delays), you can log in to the browser and still manage your farm. It has become a useful testing and back up resource.

• There are different packages and rewards available on New Harvest. Back in October, Goodgames offered 500 free gold for logging into New Harvest, so we told you how to do it. New Harvest also offers $200 and $400 packages, plus gold bonuses on every package.

• It gives you different payment options beyond Play and App Store

• There are different game clocks included. An example is the Christmas Tree Event actually tells you how many days are left. We have figured out a few game details from looking at New Harvest.

Cons

• There is no fishing, cafe (and supply chain), co-op village, bee tournament, farm contest, farm vehicles, gold confirmation, and other crazy little details.

• When you hit level 67, you need mallets. Mallets come from rewards, cafe (and supply chain), fishing, dog bones and real cash. If you don't have the cafe and fishing, 95% of your ability to collect free mallets is missing - you can't even fish to produce extra dog bones...

• The interface is horrible. The screen doesn't recenter and the mouse is very slow. I like to double tap plant. Very limited movement to replant fields or eggs and fairly fast. One tap to harvest, one tap to select (double tap, then) one tap to plant. Because it re-centers, finger movement is limited and repetitive. The double click is so slow on New Harvest you have to count to maintain your sanity. I went mad trying to help in a corn project. I don't know how New Harvest players do it.

So... what do you do? Here is what I did:

We upgrade our computer 2 years ago. I did the processor and motherboard, figuring RAM would come down in price and we would get memory at a later date. That date never came, so I have a really nice computer with pathetic memory. Bluestacks, a very popular emulator, won't run on my computer; not enough memory to load. (I have used Bluestacks at work for project testing.) So, under the recommendation of Laszlo, I tried Nox. (NoxPlayer) I ran into some problems...

Problem 1 - When you Google "nox", you get "Bignox.com" and "noxofficial.com". I went with the official. Turns out to be an entrepreneurial fan that named a better site. The site is loaded with fake download ads and when you finally find the correct button to hit... the installer doesn't work.

Lesson 1 - Go to bignox.com. First thing on the page is a nice big download button, and smaller links to different versions.

Problem 2 - The program installed, but then it wouldn't load all the way... time to play with some settings. Nox, by default, pretends to be a Samsung Note 8 on your computer. Big Farm is a connection heavy and graphic light game, so I went from dual core to single core processor, change to more computer style graphics processing and a smaller screen. This got the emulator up and going. Most people won't need this, but I am pushing the limits of my computer memory.

From here, it was a simple as going to the Play Store (which prompts for you to log into your Google account), downloading Big Farm, play to level 2 (through the tutorial) and then go to settings and log in.

Ah... moment of sweet relief. Double click worked again. Kids loved it.

Now it is time for confessions of a lazy man... (or energy efficient) - it was too much mouse moving. There, I said it. Phew. Feel 10 pounds lighter already.

Enter the world of emulators and the power they bring to the table. Attached is a picture that shows Keyset. This allows you to place a "point" on the screen and assign a keyboard key. When you press the key, the program clicks on the screen for you. In the picture, you will notice little circles with letters; these are mouse clicks that I have set up around the screen. "D" just happens to plant or sell excess. So I can

double click on a field (harvest and select) and then hit "D" to replant. Don't try to make sense of my letters, other then "T" trashes market contracts.

"Dad, can we have a send key?"

Nox runs some much lighter than Bluestacks and has a much nicer user interface.

Edit Feb 27th - Another user told me about Memu. I have not personally tried it, but it could be another option.

Disclaimer

Assigning a key to a click location is still emulating a device. Once you start automating sequences, you are flirt with breaking game rules.

Summary

New Harvest players, you have got to be getting close to needing mallets, and you will never advance a farm on this platform. This is a major flaw detail I will discuss with Big Farm in January. I would encourage you to try Nox and mess around with it. It opens up many dimensions of the game that you will need in the future, and being prepare for the future brings more gaming satisfaction and much less frustration.