Chinese New Year
Chinese New Year is a seasonal event where I collect zodiac tokens from ordinary harvesting and production on the main farm and use them to build a decoration inspired by the celebrations. The decoration changes with every completed sign of the zodiac, so the look of the farm shifts twelve times over the course of the event. Besides the collecting itself, there are jokers, time-limited fireworks and daily challenges that speed up the pace of collecting.
The event is worth your attention mainly because it runs alongside your normal harvesting and production and doesn't need any extra clicking, just an eye on the fireworks and the jokers. The permanent statue on the farm and the bonus satisfaction for the village even after the decoration is finished are reason enough not to take the event lightly.
I collect zodiac tokens while doing the usual work on the farm
Collecting doesn't call for any special minigame, the tokens drop as a side product of harvesting and production on the main farm. The goal is to collect enough of them to complete all twelve signs of the zodiac, with every completed sign adding a new element to the decoration. Over the years the decoration has featured recurring motifs such as a bamboo garden, a paper or stone lantern, a rhododendron bush, a pond, cherry trees or a traditional paifang gate, just drawn differently depending on the particular year.
The decoration takes up space on the farm and can also be shrunk by one 1x1 tile in its dialogue, which is handy if I need to free up room and don't want to wait for the final version.
Jokers double the token gain for a chosen sign
Once activated, a zodiac joker doubles the number of tokens of that sign that I get from harvesting and production, for a set number of harvests and production runs. The rule is that at the moment of activation, half of the tokens found go to the sign you picked.
Jokers come from the joker game, where you spin a wheel and can choose between a random joker and a joker for a specific sign. A go at the joker game is paid for in Dollars, and if I don't have enough, the game offers to top it up with Gold. Only one joker can be active at a time, so winning a new one automatically replaces the previous one no matter how much it had left.
- A random joker assigns the sign at random.
- A chosen joker can be aimed exactly at the sign I need to finish off.
Fireworks briefly triple the token gain
Several times a day fireworks go off on the farm, and while they last the number of zodiac tokens collected from harvesting and production is tripled. The game shows a countdown to the end of the fireworks, so it's worth keeping an eye on it and planning your harvesting and production to fall inside that window.
The daily activity challenge adds a reward on top
Apart from the tokens for the decoration there's also a daily activity challenge with a set task to collect a certain number of zodiac tokens. Completing the day brings a reward, and the game itself points out that once you've claimed all of today's rewards, the next tasks are waiting the following day.
Collecting pays off even after all the signs are done
Once I have all twelve signs of the zodiac finished, the decoration is complete, but collecting tokens still makes sense. Completed signs bring satisfaction as well as satisfaction points for the village, and any further tokens collected after completion unlock bonus satisfaction and bonus satisfaction points for the village on top.
The statue stays on the farm all year round
Just before the event ends there's a last chance to make final adjustments to the decoration, so it's worth collecting tokens for anything still unfinished at that point. Once the celebrations are over the decoration turns into a permanent statue that stays on my farm all year, and any event reward waits in the inventory in the Interim storage.
