Game controls and settings
Anyone who has ever played a farming strategy picks up the Big Farm controls in a couple of minutes – the camera, zoom and moving objects all work with the mouse, with no extra menus. The Settings tab is more interesting, that is where I match the graphics to the power of my computer or phone, switch on confirmations before spending gold and manage my player account. On this page I sum up what each control and each switch in the settings does and what has worked for me in practice.
The farm controls themselves will not surprise anyone, but the lock on gold and dollars and the graphics quality settings are worth a few minutes right at the start – it saves your nerves as well as gold spent by mistake.
The camera moves by dragging the mouse and zoom has three levels
The whole farm does not fit on the screen at once, so I move the camera by holding the mouse button and dragging to the side – no extra key is needed for that.
Zoom has three levels and I switch between them in two ways, with the mouse wheel right over the farm or by clicking the magnifier icon in the top right next to Settings. In practice I use the wheel almost all the time and only reach for the magnifier when I want to jump to the most distant view and check the whole farm at once.
Moving and rotating an object switches the cursor into a special mode
Clicking any object on the farm opens a radial menu. The Move item releases it so you can drag it to a new spot, the Rotate item turns it. The same two actions can also be switched on with the buttons along the bottom edge of the screen – that puts the cursor into move or rotate mode for any object you then click, without opening the radial menu every time.
You leave the mode by clicking an empty spot on the farm or by clicking the same button at the bottom again. A tip straight from the game that is worth using from day one, the object you are currently placing can be rotated right away with the arrow keys, without finishing the placement and then rotating it again through the radial menu.
The Info window and Farm management show an object's stats and the state of the barn
The Info button in an object's radial menu, or the same button in the Build menu for a selected type of building, opens a window with all the important properties of that object. I use it mainly for buildings and animal buildings, where I need to check the details before deciding whether it is worth building or upgrading.
The Farm management window works differently, it gives you an overview of the products stored in the barn and their current prices, and you can buy and sell goods right in it. I open it whenever I want to see quickly what I have a surplus of in the barn and what is worth selling.
Graphics settings deal with performance, battery and what is shown on the farm
The General settings tab holds the language option and a row of switches that mainly affect how the game runs on a weaker computer or phone.
- Set quality automatically – the game tests your device itself and sets the graphics accordingly.
- High performance and Long battery life – the priority between smooth play and saving battery, handy mainly on a phone.
- Show animations and Show weather effects – visual effects you can switch off when the farm stutters.
- New building system – a switch for how buildings behave.
- Show notifications – the notification boxes above objects that point something out.
- Show fishing report – the summary you get after fishing.
The settings panel also has quick buttons for Show grid, Show trees and Fullscreen, which I use to switch the farm view or stretch the game across the whole browser window.
The lock on dollars and gold protects you from one click too many
In the settings you can enter a minimum amount separately for Dollars and separately for Gold, from which a confirmation message appears before you spend. For dollars it applies to items that can be bought several at a time, for gold generally to any spending above the amount you enter. Both values can also be switched off completely by choosing no confirmation.
I recommend going through this setting right at the start, especially for gold, because without a sensible limit quick clicking in the building or purchase queue can spend more than you planned.
The player name, farm name and the whole account can be managed in the settings
The player name and the farm name can each be changed once for free, every change after that costs gold. On top of that, the player name can only be changed once every 12 hours. In the account you will also find the e-mail change, which is confirmed with a verification link and can be cancelled at any time before it is confirmed, the password change and logging out with a confirmation prompt.
Deleting the account does not happen right away, once you confirm it a fourteen-day period starts during which you can cancel the process at any time and keep using the account normally. After it runs out you can no longer log in to the game, and the complete deletion of data under GDPR can take a few more days. An active subscription has to be cancelled separately at Paymentwall, it is not cancelled along with the account.
