Why my nephew would be great at farmville

Being totally jobless after 4 years has its plus points and its minus points. The plus point is total peace of mind courtesy the very minimum no. of phone calls but the minus point is sheer boredom. So I decided to observe my equally jobless and obviously pregnant older sister playing farmville.

Farmville is supposed to be one of the most popular games in the cyber world which is weird because I am really not a part of it and I do consider myself quite the early trend spotter. You do not get an id like pranay@gmail if you are a laggard. In my defence I did join farmville ages back, but slow net speeds in rural Karnataka stymied my initial enthusiasm for a game which I considered to be a poor cousin of the hugely popular original Simcity which I loved as a teenager.

Anyway I decided to observe the game being played by my sister and realized why my nephew would excel at the game. For starters it has a few plots of land where you begin growing some crop with some seed which you buy with your initial seed (unintended pun) capital. The interface has big pictures of all these vegetable seeds which would really appeal to a toddler. All the farming is make believe and that is where my nephew excels. And every time I see a message on my facebook page about some friend having found a lost sheep/horse/hippo I think about the little guy who seems to find (and lose) car keys, toys, imaginary articles etc etc quite easily.

The clincher though is the part where every farmer fertilises his neighbours farm. This is where I firmly believe my nephew would be the best. His attempts at potty training not withstanding, he could (if left diaper less in a farm) fertilise and irrigate the entire place in next to no time and would also probably win a ribbon for the same.

Farmville is the digital manifestation of the mind of a 2.5 yr old toddler who is  excited about all the wonderful things he believes he has done which probably is the reason why so many people love to play it. The community is like this big playschool where a lot of kids come together and live a fantasy together which is what makes it so addictive.

So go forth and fertilise,

with a fertile imagination,

PR