Furrowfield
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About Furrowfield
Furrowfield is a farm management simulation drawn in pixel art and played in the browser, in the spirit of the early-90s farm sims. The screen is a little windowed desktop: a menu bar, a row of icon buttons, a three-day weather strip, the date and your funds, and the Edit window where the farm itself lies, with a tool palette down the side.
You lay the farm out tile by tile. Fields are 8 by 8 tiles and each one keeps its own crop rotation, for example corn, then soybeans, then a fallow year, repeated. Gravel roads let machines drive faster. Ditches carry water from a pump by the river, a well that works anywhere, a windmill or a creek, and valves on them decide which fields are irrigated and which are drained. Fences make pastures, and spare land can be bought plot by plot.
The machines really drive the map. Tractors plow, plant, fertilize and spray, combines harvest, and trucks haul the crop to your silos or to the grain elevator in town. Each job goes to the nearest free machine. Machines wear out, run better under a shed roof and can be repaired or sold. When you have none of a kind, one is leased from town for a fee per job.
Every field has a nutrient, pest and toxin level plus a water gauge with a dry end and a flooded end. Crops drain nutrients, soybeans and alfalfa put them back, pests build up on the same crop year after year, and pesticide kills them but leaves toxins in the soil. Frost, drought, floods, hail and locusts all arrive in their season, and the forecast gives a week of warning. Prices move with the seasons and with sudden booms and busts, so a full silo can wait for a better week.
There are four farms, each with a goal and a deadline: pay off the mortgage on a prairie homestead, reach a net worth on a wet river bend with rice and floods, keep the soil healthy in a dry valley of orchards and windmills, and raise a herd of 20 cows on a cold highland farm. The bank lends against your land, takes interest every quarter and taxes at the end of each year. Run out of cash and credit and the farm is lost.
The score counts each farm's final net worth, a bonus for every farm cleared, the soil health you leave behind and how many weeks early you finished.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Furrowfield like SimFarm?
It follows the same idea as the classic farm simulation games of the early 90s: a windowed screen with an Edit view of the farm, fields with crop rotations, ditches and valves, machines that drive the map, weather and a crop market. The farms, rules and all of the art and music are its own, and each farm has a goal and a deadline instead of going on forever.
How do I water my fields?
Build a pump next to a river or pond, a well anywhere on your land, or a windmill, and dig a ditch from it to your fields. Water flows along connected ditches and through open valves (green). A field that touches a wet ditch is irrigated. Shut a valve (red) to dry out the ditch beyond it and drain the fields along it when it rains too much.
Why is my crop not being planted?
Every crop can only be planted in certain months, shown in its season, so a field planned for corn waits until spring. Planting also needs a tractor and enough cash for the seed. The message line at the top of the farm tells you when a job is waiting for money or a machine.
What do the icons on my fields mean?
The first icon shows the crop. Warning icons after it mean the field is too dry, flooded, full of pests, low on nutrients or poisoned with toxins. Open the field to see its gauges.
How do I keep the soil healthy?
Rotate crops. Corn, potatoes and cotton use a lot of nutrients, while soybeans and alfalfa put them back. A fallow year lets pests die out and toxins fade. Fertilizer adds nutrients at a price, and pesticide kills pests but leaves toxins.
Should I buy machines or lease them?
Leasing costs a fee for every job plus the wear the machine takes, which is cheap at first but adds up quickly. Once you farm several fields, buying a combine and a truck usually pays. A machine shed keeps machines out of the weather so they last longer.
How do cows work?
Cows appear on the last farm. They need a fenced pasture with a haystack and a water trough, and a barn when it freezes. They graze in summer, eat hay in winter, give milk money every week and have calves when they are healthy and have room.
How is the score calculated?
Every farm you reach scores its final net worth divided by 20. A cleared farm adds 2000 points times its number, 10 points for each percent of soil health and 25 points for every week left before the deadline.
Can I play Furrowfield on my phone?
Yes. In portrait mode the farm fills the screen with the tools in a bar below. Tap a tool and then the farm, use the Hand tool to drag the view and open windows from the icons along the top.
