Player Reviews

As a courtesy to the reader I wish to emphasise that Pokefarm is certainly a game I enjoy and consider to be a very loving timesink of mine; to the point where I have cashed in for Hypermode, I have considered this game valuable enough to my entertainment to have spent real money on it. I appreciate it for what it is—an indie petsite derivative of its source material in a very fun manner with its own unique mechanics and ideas. It is a game I would recommend to a friend who enjoys Pokemon and petsite formats, however I strongly believe that to ignore what negatively impacts the experience would be a great disservice to both the subject of my recommendation and the game itself. To play a petsite with extensive mechanics and features regarding the obtaining of the desired virtual animal is to take upon yourself a certain level of grinding, whether for currency or to reach the specified requirements needed to unlock a reward. Depending on what a player is looking for, coming into this game and seeing the Everest that is the PokeDex and Arceus rank will either make or break them. At its core this game does have an end goal, to reach the top rank by filling out their PokeDex which is constantly expanding due to frequent updates in adding new Pokemon or forms. Along the way, completing PokeDex entries will unlock other rewards such as gaining the ability to obtain Legendary Pokemon, which in of itself unlocks more PokeDex entries. You have to find out what part of this you enjoy, what your niche inevitably is. Some people will strive for rare variants of Pokemon to sell through this long process, it spurs a sense of satisfaction. There are periods of stagnation. This game is not an MMORPG experience, do not go in looking for that experience. As with all things, there are negatives. I do not need to be a particularly experienced programmer to understand that what I frequently come across on here are counterintuitive design implementations. There are numerous issues that range from "Inconvenient yet workable" to "This is not excusable for a game that has been up for this long". At the time of review this game is maybe 8 years old. There are issues with features on here that make me wonder just what exactly the code must look like. There are optimisation issues that need addressing whether or not you can have another coder on the staff team. I am willing to cash out on the opinion that there are likely people on here who would volunteer—not even ask for money—to help streamline what I'm beginning to visualise as spaghetti code. Please understand that if there is a plug-in by a random user that many people, myself included, consider essential for making this game playable, there is a problem. This site does not even consider blocking to be a core feature. Even with the argument that it impacts the inherent gameplay of clicking, I strongly disagree! People will skip over the blockable user and deprive them of their clicks regardless, this forbidden fruit of a generally essential and widely-used feature is happening whether or not it is officially coded. The site banner claims this game is still in Beta. For 8 years? This is... not a good thing. This is worrying, and evidence that something is not being done as it should be. I apologise if I sound overly pedantic, but this is a frustrating and poorly-addressed issue, it calls into question what the future of your games looks like. I have to emphasise that, as people are already optimising the website for free as plug-ins, there are definitely people who would happily look over the inner workings of this site as volunteers. I genuinely, genuinely believe in the possibility that this site can be optimised, and I am not someone to lightly take on the agony of having expectations. Overall, it is a game that is fun. It is a Pokemon petsite and it works, I enjoy it. It has a dedicated community of regulars who have dug their heels in for the long haul and these are the people who want to help this site grow. This site is lovely and people are willing to help each other and I am happy to spend my time and money here, because ultimately, I get great satisfaction out of seeing the funny currency numbers go up and helping other people, especially the new players who would like to spend time on here. I hope this site is around for a long time. 4/5 stars.

Thank you for your insightful and eloquent review. I would just like to mention that yes, the code is indeed that bad. It is so bad that I would not be willing to subject others to it, especially not for free. This is one of the main motivations behind the "PFNew" project and that part is going well. The new codebase is in fact a pleasure to work with, not something I dread doing every time something breaks. On a personal level, I've been dealing with some serious motivational issues. I am very grateful to the community for their patience while I work through this. I understand how frustrating it can be when "the devs" (or in this case, the single dev) aren't living up to expectations, so I consider myself very fortunate to have such a generally understanding community backing me. With regard to the QoL plugin, its features are things that are useful, but not necessarily intended. For example, fields were "intended" to have Pokémon laid out so they're visible. In original concepts they even had collision boxes! But this was scrapped, and players discovered that the META was to stack and sort them, but not everyone does that, so QoL offers the option to do it - even though it wasn't, and still isn't, "intended". But that's okay, that's exactly what "plug-ins" *should* be able to do: provide an alternative, some would say "better" but that's subjective, way to play. I actually have plans for PFNew to have some kind of "plug-in workshop" where you can develop and share your own. Rather than having to copy snippets of Custom CSS into your skin, just toggle on a plug-in. Sounds nice, right? Anyway, thanks again. Your feedback is much appreciated <3