Riverside: Farm Village

Steady pace sadly gives way to lengthy pay-to-play pauses.
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Riverside: Farm Village
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A Lot or a Little?
The parents' guide to what's in this app.
What Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that Riverside: Farm Village is a simulation game for iOS and Android devices. The game offers plenty of things to purchase, including in-app currency packages that range from $0.99 to $89.99. Other for-sale items are sometimes presented in a way that makes it seem like they're necessary, instead of something extra. Access to an additional storyline, for instance, looks at first like it might be required to continue playing -- it's not identified as an additional item, and kids can only click out of the window by hitting a button that's labeled "Probably not." The in-app currency cost can be notably more than you've earned by that point, so the only option would be to buy more currency with real money. Although the game does good job initially of explaining elements, and there are two separate lists to help kids figure out what to do next, they may still find themselves unsure of some of the steps involved in processing materials and expanding the town because there are so many multi-step tasks. An FAQ is available within the app's settings section, but it doesn't include information about many aspects of the game.
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What’s It About?
Kids try to rebuild a town in RIVERSIDE: FARM VILLAGE. They fix and create buildings, plant and harvest crops, and otherwise manage the city as its mayor. To perform story-related tasks, such as conversations, they need yellow stars, earned by fulfilling residents' orders for milk and other items. Orders also provide blue stars that are needed to level up. Speeding actions up costs dollars, and coins, also earned from orders, will buy various town improvements. Adding more homes attracts more residents to gain additional tasks, and certain numbers of residents are required to unlock items.
Is It Any Good?
Kids get some guidance to keep them on track in this multitasking-based game -- but gameplay slows down significantly, unless you spend real-world money. Kids have a considerable amount of things to do to get the town in Riverside: Farm Village up and running, including constructing new homes, repairing existing buildings, and adding factories. As the app's name suggests, farming is also involved, and -- like many of the tasks -- often requires more than one step to complete. Kids choose which crops to plant in fields, and then harvest them once they've finished growing. Fruit trees will periodically need to be harvested -- but there's a twist: The trees can only survive a few growing periods and then need to be replaced. Some tasks can't be performed until kids have completed previous actions to earn items. Fulfilling orders residents have placed earns coins, which fund building additions and other enhancements, and two types of stars -- blue, which let kids move to the next level once a certain amount has accumulated, and yellow, which they need to perform storyline actions. But that process is more complex than necessary, with some features remaining completely unexplained.
The gameplay progresses pretty smoothly at first, with large blue arrows pointing out where kids should click to help them figure out what to do. Things get a little more confusing, though, before long, as the cost to speed things up increases, and the currency required to do that is doled out sparingly. To fill orders and earn them, you need to have the required goods, dependent on processes like growing crops. Without dollars to speed this up, you have to either wait it out or buy a package of in-app currency, which can be costly. There are also other pushes to buy things. Ads pop up occasionally with offers, and you're taken to a screen at one point that offers access to an extended storyline. Kids will also see plugs for a gold pass they can buy. The fun factor drops when you find yourself having to spend actual money to play -- or sit around and wait for things to be completed, which can take awhile. Some interesting elements have been woven into the storyline -- including efforts to clean up a polluted river and recycle, which could help kids learn about some environmental issues. However, because they're forced to take a more passive role fairly early in the game, unless they're able to shell out some cash, they may not get far enough in Riverside: Farm Village to find out about its ecological and other plot points.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about how to handle responsibilities and manage your time in Riverside: Farm Village. Does your child feel the amount of tasks in the game are reasonable, or too much?
Does your child feel overwhelmed when faced with a lot of things to do? Discuss some ways to handle stress positively.
Is there a goal your child would like to reach? How can you break a larger task like that down into steps to make completing it easier?
App Details
- Devices: iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Android
- Pricing structure: Free
- Release date: June 9, 2022
- Category: Simulation Games
- Topics: Horses and Farm Animals
- Publisher: Playkot LTD
- Version: 1.1.0
- Minimum software requirements: Requires iOS 11.0 or later or Android 6.0 and up.
- Last updated: July 19, 2022
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