Though I've been using social networks since before they were called
social networks, it took me some time to understand exactly what a Facebook
game is. What I mean to say is, games have rules and win conditions,
don't they? Well, yes and no. Competitive games do. But when you think
about socializing with your friends on a Friday night - though you may
be playing poker - it isn't about the game; it's all about sharing an
experience.
(lil) Green Patch reminded me about sharing an experience, or rather Sarah did. Yeah, I'm going to blame Sarah, it's all her fault.
Never a big Facebook user, I was surprised one day to receive Jenny
Appleseed from my friend Sarah asking me to help fight global warming.
I needed to learn more about Facebook applications, I like my friend
Sarah, I’m not particularly fond of global warming and of all the
invitations for various applications I’d received, this seemed the
least obnoxious. I hit accept and next thing I knew I had this little
girl with a Red Delicious for a head. Cute! Now I could send a few
back.
In general, that’s the basics of (lil) Green Patch:
you send your friends plants and they send you plants. Sponsors (read:
advertisers) donate a portion of revenues to the chosen cause of (lil) Green Patch. Each month, they donate revenues to The Nature Conservancy: Adopt an Acre program. As of the time I write this, 76,820,441 square feet have been saved; 220 feet by me! That’s bigger than my bedroom.
So,
Sarah sent me the apple-girl and I started sending lots of different
plants to friends. Some are little people with names like
Strawbelicious, Tangy, Le Mon or Cam Quattic. My personal favorites are
the plants that resemble their counterparts – particularly wildflowers
– hyacinth, foxglove, and others among some pretty hot house flowers
like Cattleya Orchids and Lady Slippers. Not every plant is available
when you first start your own personal nursery. You earn new ones by
saving additional square footage or (for those who have limited friends
lists) can buy them with GreenBucks.
GreenBucks are the currency of (lil) Green Patch;
you’ll get a cool 50 GreenBucks just for logging in each day. 200
GreenBucks will buy you the next plant in the list to send to friends –
some days, when you look 20 plants ahead and it says “save 259 more
SqFt” to unlock it can be a little intimidating. In addition to the
nearly 100 plants available, are 1-2 additional limited plants that
change regularly – some are available for as little as a week, some for
a month. Though I’ve yet to see any rotate through again, some do
become available for purchase in the Store if you save up your
GreenBucks.
Building and maintaining your garden is
a shared experience. Once you’ve accepted any plants sent you by
friends, you’ll head to your garden and see what condition it’s in. It
may need watering, raking, or there could be rabbits or a pesky
squirrel in the garden. In the Crazy Al’s Green Store you’ll find all
the gardening supplies you need – rakes, gloves, carrots, dog bones,
and even a camera for taking pictures of frogs, deer or any other
visitors to your garden.
Each
time you use your gardening supplies you earn GreenBucks. Your friends
may be “busy at work” or perhaps your “green thumb” can be used at
another friend’s patch. Head on over and do a bit of gardening and earn
a few GreenBucks. Keep your eye out, though! Butterflies and ladybugs
abound and if you catch them there’s GreenBucks to be had as a reward.
At
Big Al’s you’ll find gifts to give – regularly available water
fountains, wheelbarrows, flagstones – each available as a gift that
will last for 3-6 weeks. Then there are the seasonal gifts: pumpkins,
cornucopias, snowflakes, menorahs – something for everyone. If
flamingoes in the garden don’t strike your fancy, you can always gift a
lawn gnome.
If gardening in a Green Patch was restricted to friends lists, then a
little corner of Costa Rica wouldn’t have been purchased by the passing
of virtual flowers. With just a few clicks, you can expand your
gardening skills to the entire world.
Each Green Patch indicates who the last three and most frequent
three tenders are, as well as the last three and most frequent gifters.
Though you may find yourself and your circle of friends to be the most
common, it’s the clicking of someone random that results in fun. A
random click took me to a garden of flowers ordered by color and owned
by a young woman from Brazil. I know this because she came back to my
garden, watered my plants and said thank you.
If clicking on random strangers isn’t your thing, you can go chasing
rainbows! Click on the “Chase a Rainbow” link and you’ll find yourself
at the garden of a stranger who has a rainbow in their garden. If
they’ve not managed to hide their rainbow behind clouds, you can kidnap
the rainbow and try to keep it for your own. Pots of gold are given for
those who can hold on to rainbows the longest. If you lose your rainbow
before you can hide it behind the clouds, use a map to try and find it.
The map will take you to the last 10 gardens that had the rainbow – be
sure to tend their gardens along the way and leave a note if you dare.
You could simply check out the top Greenies. They’re listed by the top
Global Greenies – 23,126 SqFt on Facebook; by Friends – Sarah is up to
302 SqFt; and by Teams. Teams are new and interesting as not everyone
is aware of them yet. Teams are comprised of a combination of Facebook
networks and groups synthesized from location data. So, while Australia
is listed first at 69,579 SqFt saved, the members of Stuyvesant High
School – who come in at a cool 5th place with 20,362 SqFt – had to
choose to be part of their network. (I could only find Phoenix, Az. for
my teams – 118th. I signed up for my high school but apparently I need
to speak to a few people; we’re not even in the top 1000.)
Other new additions to (lil) Green Patch include
Galleries that not only allows the players to display plants in any
theme they choose, but includes the ability to overlay plants, keeps
gifts from deteriorating and encourages users to vote on the most
creative. Oh, and we have new Mushroom Apartments! We can place
furniture in them. I’m not quite sure yet how they relate to the
Gardens yet but as (lil) Green Patch has begun expanding into the fishery business with (lil) Blue Cove and Racing with (lil) Eco Racer (neither of which are finished yet).
None of the above costs a dime, though if you’d like to buy additional
GreenBucks to spend (or Gold Coins to decorate your Mushroom Apartment)
they’re available for rather nominal amounts. As I play to get the next
wildflower, see the next special edition item or just to have a young
lady from Brazil tell me hello, I’ve never found a need to spend the
money. But I have friends with beautifully organized gardens who take
great pleasure in arranging every plant just right.
Whatever your flower fancy, you’ll find it with (lil) Green Patch. And who knows? You may just save a little piece of Rainforest along the way.
Click here to play (lil) Green Patch. (You'll need to sign up for a free Facebook account.)The game is also available on MySpace.
