New Farm Beauty Contest

With the last big update in Family Farm Seaside came the release of a new option that changes the rules in terms of how you choose to decorate your own Farm, if you choose to avail yourself of this new option.

The Farm Beauty Contest is a new icon in your Menu as well as appearing on your screen near the top whenever you obtain points from Neighbours or have points to give to your Neighbours.  You are given 3 points per day to 'vote' for Neighbours' farms.  Doing so will give you some Rewards, by the way, in the form of a gold Treasure Chest that contains random Farm Aids.

There are two different window in the Menu when you open it.  The first is 'My snapshot' which deals with your Farm, your Charm total and so on and the other is 'Vote for others' which is where you can visit other Farms to use your three Votes.

When you tap on 'My Snapshot', you will have a number of possible choices.  The first is to take a photograph of your Farm for viewing by Neighbours.  The next is to collect your Votes by tapping on the various icons at the bottom of the window.  Tap on the Neighbours' votes first and then move on to collect points from Felicia, Dad, Darryl and Grandma. 

Tap on Rewards to collect any current Rewards.  Until the current Contest, Grilling and Chilling' ends, the only Rewards to collect are those that are given for specific Ballot totals.  Claim them when you can for Coins and 5 Purple Mystrons.  As you advance up the Reward page, you will find Farm Aids are added to the Rewards that you collect and, ultimately, two special Bobo items and RC.

The Beauty Contest is based fundamentally on your Charm total, although the four main Characters have their own reasons for giving you their Ballots, including size of farm, number of Trees or Animals on the farm and so on.  The specific theme that is current will give you Ballots with them as well.  At present, it is 'Chilling and Grilling'.  Having the specific items that are designated as part of the current theme will give you advantages.

Charm total is based on Decorations that are currently placed ON your original Seaside Farm.  For those of us who had attempted to clear our farms of clutter, this new development has reversed the trend completely.  Now the goal is to place as many Decorations as possible on your Farm, whether or not those Decorations are cleanable.  Each Decoration now has a specific Charm rating.  Your total Charm will be displayed at the top left of the screen in a box with a red clover icon.

The Votest that you receive from your Neighbours have nothing to do with your Charm total, by the way and may or may not have anything to do with your photograph.  Your Neighbours have the option to choose how to disperse their 3 Votes as follows: 'Random pick', 'Great farmers', My Neighbours'.  It is the last of the three that will allow you to choose specific Neighbours.   If you have many personal friends who play the game, you are more likely to receive Votes from the 'My Neighbours' category.

Voting is a little more labour-intensive, I think, than it should be.  It requires a specific trip to the Farm in question to deliver the Vote rather than being available whenever you visit a Neighbour's farm for cleaning and collecting XP and Cooking Bags.  Perhaps this will change in future.  After all, the Farm Beauty Contest is new.

It can be fun to see how many Votes you have earned during the course of a day but I have a feeling that ordinary Farmers like myself never will obtain First Prize...  I never have gained a top position in the Global Events in the original Family Farm for the computer either.  In this context, there are a number of new items in the Gallery consisting of various Bauty Contest trophies.

For those of us who upgraded our Warehouses again and again in order to be able to store unwanted or unliked Decorations, now all those Decorations must be found a place on the Farm again.   I am certain I am not the only Farmer who sold an unliked Decoration once it had been registred in the Gallery, thinking I would have no further need for it.  Well, now that Grandma's Bike, which I sold TWICE (sold the first and then bought another with Yellow Mystrons in order to register it when the Gallery option was released), is part of the 'Chilling and Grilling' theme and I must decide whether or not to use my precious Yellow Mystrons to purchase a third one!

There was a time when I tried to make certain that my Farm had clearly visible Decorations that give out the valuable Blue Cleaning Boxes.  Now, that is impossible if one wishes to compete in the Beauty Contest.  Once again, Cleaning Brush icons are cluttered everywhere, and sometimes the one associated with the Blue Box is obscured by ones for lesser rewards...  What can one do???

The fact os the matter is that almost all colours of Cleaning Boxes are worth something, even if only in the form of completing an Achievement for collecting a specific total.  The Blue Boxes and the Golden Boxes contain the best Farm Aids but it one visits all Neighbours regularly, one should be able to receive a goodly number even if one cannot target the best Decorations now.

It will be interesting to see how many Farmers participate in this new Beauty Contest option.  Most appear to be participating now in the Cooking Contests.  After all, the 'Final Reward' always is a Decoraiton that yields a Blue Gift Box when cleaned.  Many of these are animated as well.  The only problem now will be to find an empty spot where the Decoration can be placed.

With all Decoraitons now having a Charm point rating, tye ability to purchase special Decorations using Yellow or Blue Mystrons becomes even more attractive as an option.  Originally, apart from any personal aesthetic preference for a Decoration, the only Decorations that actually had an effect when placed were the Cleanable ones.  Now they ALL have a Charm rating.  Primarily that Charm total depends on the size of the Decoration, the number of plots it occupies on your Farm in other words.

They really need to give us another Farm Expansion...

You can purchase Decorations no longer available in the regular Decorations section of the Market using Yellow Mystrons or Blue Mystrons.  Yellow Mystrons are given for completing the Weekly Activity, randomly in the Gold Treasure Chests and sometimes for cleaning special Decorations sold in sales for a sepcific number of days.  At this point in time, there is a Boy Grass Hair Deer for sale that will give 10 Yellow Mystrons for 5 days when cleaned.  After that, it simply gives Purple Cleaning Gift Boxes.  The Weekly Activity gives a Reward of 10 Yellow Mystrons when completed.  1 Yellow Mystron sometimes is to be found in the Gold Treasure Chests at the end of the Daily Quest path.

Blue Mystrons can be obtained only when you have completed all other Rewards on the Daily Order Board 'path'.  Once you have received the Gasoline Sheep, you can begin to earn Blue Mystrons for each Order completed.  You need 300 Blue Mystrons to purchase any Decoraiton in the Mystery Shop.  These tend to consist of the Final Rewards for special time-restricted Missions in the past.

In the Yellow Mystron Mystery Shop department, you need 100 Yellow Mystrons to purchase any Decoration.  Some will be cleanable and others will not but they all now have Charm totals.