Big Farm Anniversary
The Big Farm Anniversary is a seasonal event for the game's birthday in which you collect material for a parade float for the shared celebration. The material comes as tokens earned straight from ordinary farming - all you have to do is produce and harvest on your fields, in your orchards and in your animal buildings. Unlocking the individual parts of the float's decoration also brings practical bonuses for the village.
The event doesn't call for any special strategy or extra purchases, since the material drops from ordinary harvesting, so it's worth joining in simply by playing. I treat jokers and buying material for gold as an optional shortcut for anyone who wants to be sure of finishing the whole decoration and picking up the extra bonuses.
The Big Farm Anniversary celebrates the game's birthday right on your farm
The Big Farm Anniversary is a seasonal event the game runs for its own birthday. The brief is simple - find the material for a parade float to celebrate the birthday with. The game adds straight away that all it takes is being active on the farm, meaning producing and harvesting, so there's no need to prepare for the event in any special way or buy anything extra.
I see it as one of the few events where you can just play at your usual pace and the material builds up by itself from normal farming. In one version of the event I played, the game was celebrating three years of Big Farm and the marketplace message invited me to help look for material in exchange for a reward - the anniversary itself and the rewards change from year to year, but the collecting works the same way.
Parade float tokens drop from fields, orchards and animal buildings
The material for the float is collected as tokens, and the game distinguishes three sources the individual tokens come from:
- tokens unlocked by harvesting fields
- tokens unlocked by harvesting orchards
- tokens unlocked by harvesting in animal buildings
Completing one token unlocks another part of the parade float's decoration, and with it another bonus, which is shown the moment you pick the token up - so I can see in advance what finishing it gets me. That's not the end of the collecting though, you can keep going with the same token and the game adds a small extra bonus for completing it a second time.
Jokers speed up the collecting and material can be bought for gold
Each token has a joker button in the event's main window. Clicking it buys a joker that increases the amount of that token I can get from a harvest for a certain time. I can buy several jokers at once, or extend how long they last by buying them repeatedly.
If I'm only a few pieces short of finishing, the game always shows me straight away how many units of material are still missing and offers to sell me one or more of them for gold.
The decoration also brings practical bonuses for the village
The parade float isn't just an ornament - each unlocked part of the decoration carries a specific bonus for the village, such as extra village satisfaction points or more storage space. Among the individual decoration pieces I've come across in the event are a gift box and a table of presents.
The event has a fixed end and the finished decoration waits in interim storage
Before the event ends a last chance message pops up - the decoration usually looks pretty good by that point, but this is the final opportunity for any last touches, and I'll find the finished version in interim storage. Hovering over a token shows the details of what's still missing at any time.
If the parade float doesn't get finished in time, the game takes it in stride with a message saying time is up and the float couldn't be fully completed, and thanks you for your loyalty. Finish it successfully and you get congratulations and a reward for taking part in the celebration instead.
