Hay Day

Hay Day is a farming game by Supercell, the developer of Clash of Clans. Hay Day is another hit of comparable power, offering you your own virtual farm with fields and corrals, birds and cows, bakery and dairy, and so on. Download Hay Day for Android or iOS, and you’ll always have the sweetest place to escape to every day!

Graphics 5/5

Of course, it’s not a true simulator. It’s rather pastoral heaven, with cartoonish graphics and calming colors. Yet it’s a decent pseudo-3D farm, with very convincing fields and mills, chicken and cow yards, customers coming on their lorries up the road, and even a scarecrow as your assistant. The simplified gameplay and the picture fit perfectly.

Gameplay 5/5

Hay Day is one of the best farming simulators available now. It follows all the traditions: you suddenly discover you own a farm now. It needs to be repaired first, and then you start growing wheat and corn, growing chickens and cows, baking bread, and so on.

Of course, cows and chickens need to be fed, and wheat, corn and soybeans need to be sown before harvested. All the products need to be stored somewhere or sold immediately, and demand isn’t always predictable. So be ready for anything, expand your farm and upgrade it to the next levels!

Communication also plays a big role. First, you get acquainted with your virtual neighbors and customers buying your products or ready to lend some tools. Then you unlock Facebook-based encounters, so you can communicate with your friends playing Hay Day too.

All the operations take time. But if you want your seeds to grow faster, or hens to lay eggs more often, or builders to build objects quicker, you can foster it with crystals. They are bought, of course, for real money; it’s not necessary, but the free mode is rather slow-paced.

Controls 5/5

To select the object, you need to just tap on it, no matter if it’s a field, an animal or bird, a dairy or bakery, and so on. Then the menu of possible actions pops up to the left from it. To select the action, you need to drag its icon onto the object. For example, if you want to harvest your wheat, you need to tap the field, then select the sickle from options, and drag it upon the field. To sow the wheat again, repeat the procedure: tap on the field and drag the seeds you want to sow.

Replay Value 4/5

Not that it’s strictly “replay”: when your farm is rather advanced, hardly will you want it all over again. But you don’t have to lose your progress, and all it takes is connecting your Facebook account. It gets even more fun when you can connect to your friends and show off your farm with roads, buildings, fields, cattle, and some decorations.

The Bottom Line

Hay Day is one of the best virtual farms, with farming and economy elements perfectly combined. Its visuals are fine though a bit cartoonish, and its gameplay is slow-paced (but you can accelerate it if you buy yourself crystals and gold).

• Graphics 5
• Gameplay 5
• Controls 5
• Replay Value 4

Pros

Various plants, animals, and facilities;
A slow, meditative pace you can accelerate if you wish;
Facebook integrated, with social features;
Relaxed music;
Compatible with most devices.

Cons

The further you go, the slower is the pace.