Virtual Halloween

I had promised you another post about FarmVille, and my analysis (such as it is) about why it is so wildly popular, especially among...well, women over 40.  Which I am.

I'm sorry, but I've been too busy decorating and playing over at FarmVille.

I've been playing a bit over a year now, so this is my second Halloween.  This one has been so much fun.  Besides building my Haunted House (you have to ask your FarmVille neighbors, fellow Facebook friends who play FarmVille, for building materials) and harvesting candy from it, I've been getting candy from other neighbors and filling up my pumpkin.  The Haunted House is really cool looking, with bats flying around it and ghosts oozing out of the building.

Each night when I visit neighbors to help with their farms I get a chance to put spider webs on five of their fences or trees. (Virtual teepeeing, sort of.)  I've also decorated my farm with a tombstone and pumpkin fences, and have purchased a Halloween costume for my avatar.  (Right now I'm dressed as a pirate but am thinking strongly of buying the dinosaur costume.)  Trust me, this is "nothing" compared to what some people do. (Oh yes, I grow virtual pumpkins now and then.)

I had some maple trees (yellow and red) from last year, and put them around my Haunted House, along with some mounds of leaves.

I've been trying to grow black roses.  You can only get 20 seeds (for 20 plots) at a time, and if you don't want to pay for them, you have to get from your friends.  It's challenging, but I hope to be able to master them.

Finally, I've been growing candy corn:  and if you never knew candy corn was a crop, well, it is on FarmVille.

The decorating aspect is important to a lot of FarmVille players.  Many of them spend real live cash on virtual decorations-I don't, personally.  The interacting with neighbors is the real attraction.  Most of my FarmVille neighbors are people I know, although one (living out in Arizona) I've only seen 3 or 4 times in my life.  She ended up "introducing" me to her best friend and now her friend is a valued FarmVille neighbor, too.

After Halloween is over, the Thanksgiving season will begin on FarmVille.  I have some turkeys from last year and rumor is FarmVille will be giving farmers turkey coops to build with a "little help from their friends."

So, about that analysis?  I'll get around to it....