Farmassone

The game is a minor variant of Carcassonne with a different skin, and you’ll adapt to the differences quickly. Unfortunately, multiplayer is basically useless because of bugs and too few players. Single player against the AI works fine, however (occasionally a glitch at the start, but you can quit and restart). The AI isn’t very good (especially at placing farmers), but it’s actually pretty fun if you take the challenge as aiming for the highest score you can get instead of winning. I suspect there’s only a tiny target niche for a game that’s almost but not quite Carcassonne and that can’t actually be played as intended but is fun when played in unexpected way, but if you might be part of that niche, definitely give it a try.Update: the new version (1.6) doesn’t deliver on its promises. The new game variations are only available for online play, not solo or local. The fix to the post-game score tallying is impossible to tell, because the final score pops up over it (and the ad, after you dismiss it—that didn’t used to be there) so you can’t see what it’s doing, so the net effect is even worse than before (although at least it takes less time). Most of the annoying minor bugs have been fixed, which is nice. And they do seem to have gotten more online players—and you can apparently now fill out an online game with AI players—so I’ll have to try that later. Meanwhile, the game seems to waste more screen real estate, but I guess it looks a bit more clean and modern, and we’ve all got screen space to spare. It seems to have longer delays in the animation, so a game takes longer without being any more fun. It still doesn’t remember settings between games, so you have to turn off music every single time. All in all, still very flawed but still enjoyable enough despite that to be worth 4 stars—anyone who thinks they might like this probably will.

Could be a fun game however the “against computer” option is not challenging and has different scoring rules than the online option. The online option has repetitive error where points are not awarded, holding your farmer hostage until the end of the game, and keeping you from earning more points. The chat function during the online games could be nice but instead results in an opportunity for your opponent to call you names if you do something they don’t approve of.

This is a fun adeptation of Carcassone. I agree with other reviewers that it would be even better if the computer player were harder to beat. That said, this game lets me hone my skills and improve play. I'd also like to play against other real people, but there are not enough of us paying the game, apparently, since I rarely see multi-player games going on.