Grow Your Own Plants!

Hello citizens. It's my great pleasure to be the one to tell you all about SmallWorlds newest release. For all you technically-minded citizens out there, this one is called Release 2.3. But I like to call it the Plant Release, because for a while now I've been staring longingly at that planter widget on my Home Page and wishing I could grow some beautiful flowering plants for my own room.

I'm simply thrilled to be able to announce that my wish has been granted... yes citizens, farming has come to SmallWorlds!

Grow Your Own Plants!

Here's how to start growing your own plants.

To start with you'll need a planter.  They're available in Garden Life and the cheapest planter is only 100 tokens or 10 Gold to buy, so it shouldn't strain your budget!  Planters can be re-used once you've harvested your plants, but if you really want to get your Farmer XP levels up, I recommend growing more than one plant at once.

Remember that you can sow, water, harvest and cross-pollinate your plants from either your Home Page or in-world, it's your choice.  Personally I like to see my plants growing in my home space so I usually tend to them in-world.  But it is nice to be able to water them from the Home Page too! 

Click on your planter and then choose the Sow A New Plant icon. You'll need to buy your first seeds, but don't worry, harvesting your plants will create new seeds which you can then either use or sell.

Don't forget to water your plant. If you let it dry out too long, you won't get any extra seeds when you harvest it. 

When you harvest or cross-pollinate a mature plant, you'll earn Farmer XP.  You'll also earn Loyalty Challenge points when you harvest or cross-pollinate (refer below for more details).

Watering Your Plants

Clicking on your plant will let you know how long you have until you next need to water it.

To water it, simply click on the watering can, and then click on your plant.

If you let your plant dry out it won't die, but you won't be able to harvest as many seeds from it as you would if you keep it fully watered.

You only need to water your plants once during each growing cycle. Extra watering won't produce taller plants or more seeds!

Harvesting Your Plants

To harvest a plant, click on the Harvest icon. 

It will let you know how much XP you'll be rewarded and how many seeds you can expect to harvest.

The number of seeds harvested depends on how well you've been watering your plants.

If they haven't been dehydrated, you will receive the full number of seeds possible.

Cross Pollinating Your Plants

Once you've leveled up your Farmer XP, you'll be able to cross-pollinate your plants to create brand new varieties, and harvest their seeds to use or sell.

You can't cross-pollinate a plant until it's mature, and only some plants can successfully cross-pollinate with others.  

When you decide to cross-pollinate, you'll be shown your chances of the cross-pollination being successful, and you can choose whether to go ahead or not.  If successful, a brand-new plant will be planted.  If it's not successful, you will lose the seed you attempted to use for the cross-pollination (the mature plant will not be affected). 

Are There More Plants?

There are several plants you can only grow by cross-pollinating the six basic plants that are available to buy. And once you've cross-pollinated those plants, the new varieties can also be cross-pollinated to create plants that are even more rare and unusual! Of course, these cross-pollinations can only be achieved by someone with high levels of Farmer XP.

Some of the more advanced plants even light up in the dark! (I've given you a special sneak peak at one of those plants here).

I imagine that these harder-to-grow plants may become highly sought after in the future, so I'm very busy getting my levels up so I can grow them.

What's Next With Planting?

Growing your own plants is just the first step.  In the future you'll be able to use the plants you've grown to craft your own potions!  We've got lots of exciting plans for future releases, so stay tuned, and watch this space.

More Ways To Earn Your Loyalty Challenge

In this release we haven't just added farming to SmallWorlds, we've made some other changes as well.  One of those changes is that we've increased the ways in which you can earn your Loyalty Challenge!  

The weekly challenge is now to earn 6 Loyalty Points each day, for three days in a row.  Here are the all ways you can earn your points each day:

• Complete a Featured Mission - You get + 6 Loyalty Points

• Complete a Peanut Labs or SuperRewards Offer - You get + 6 Loyalty Points

• Look after your pets - You get + 1 Loyalty for every new Pet Point you've earned

• Harvest or successfully cross-pollinate a plant - You get +1 Loyalty Point

• Play Spin-to-Win - You get + 1 Loyalty Point

• Play a Tournament Game - Points are earned according to your score (only awarded if the minimum score is met).

You'll notice that your gems have disappeared from your in-world screen - we've moved them to a new Loyalty Challenge panel on your Front Page.  This panel will show you how many Loyalty Points you've earned for the current week, and what gem you're on.

One progress marker fills up for each Loyalty Point you earn.  When all six are full, the current day's challenge is complete and one third of the current gem will fill.

Mission Helper!

Do you find it frustrating having to open your Active Missions panel to take another look at a mission card? We've added a new feature to make that easier!

At the top right hand side of your screen, you'll see we've added a small brown hat. This is your Mission Helper. Click on the hat, and you'll see the name of the mission task that's currently active. Click on the task name and the active mission card will pop up on your screen.

Click on the hat a second time, and you'll see a list of your active mission tasks - up to six of them from the last six missions you activated. You can click on any of those mission tasks to open the mission card for that task.

XP Progress Bar

Now every time you earn XP, a progress bar will drop from the top of your screen to show you how many XP points you have of the type you've just earned, and how close you are to leveling up.

The XP Progress Bar also activates when you click on one of your planters in-world, showing you how much Farmer XP you have. This makes it easier for you to see how close you are to being able to sow or cross-pollinate those plants that require higher levels.

If you click on the XP Progress Bar, you'll see a leader-board showing you how you compare to some of your friends for this type of XP. 

Item and Avatar Panel Changes

When you click on a person or an item, you'll see that there are now icons at the bottom of the information panel, instead of the old links. We think this will make it easier to find the option you want.

We've also moved the spanner down to the bottom of the avatar information panel, so it's with the other icons.  All the same options are there, they're just all in one place, and easier to access.

Play Games From Your Home Page!

Now you can play games straight from your Home Page! Play a tournament game and you'll earn Loyalty Challenge points as well as Gamer XP.

Rare Items Are Now Reusable

Have you ever eaten a valuable rare item by mistake? We know that some citizens have, so we've come up with a way to stop that from happening. Your rare consumable items (things you can eat, drink or use) are now reusable items, so you can use them over and over - just like the Hot Chocolate.

Important: All reusable items have the word REUSABLE in their default description, so don't try to reuse anything which doesn't say it's reusable!  Also remember that players can change item descriptions.  If you buy an item from another citizen, it's best to ensure it shows the default description beforehand - just to be sure.

Seasonal items are not reusable. How can you tell which is which? Seasonal items say 'Seasonal' in the default description. As long as you only try to reuse items which have REUSABLE in the default description, you'll be safe.

Enjoy this New Release!

We've made a few small changes to some of your public spaces... but I'll let you discover those for yourself!  All I'll say here is that you should make sure to say Hi to Todd when you're next in the Cue Club - he's the new friendly barman who's always keen for a chat.

I do hope you enjoy this release as much as we've enjoyed creating it.  I love the new plants growing in my room, it's so exciting seeing them sprout and take shape.  Happy farming everyone!

~ Honesty Blaize