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They say the first step in changing is admitting that you have a problem.
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Hello, my name is Aimee and I am addicted to Hay Day on my ipad.
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Hay Day
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I can’t stop playing it.
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I wasn’t ever going to be one of “those” people. You know who they are. They play farmville, castleville and other “ville” games on Facebook. They are always posting that they made it to this level or that level or that they need a upgraded gem or rock or something. Those people who seemingly have nothing better to do than play games on devices. I’ll admit it. I judged.
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Well, let he who is without sin cast the first stone.
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I am bracing to be judged.
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I can not stop playing Hay Day.
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If you don’t know the basics, let me fill you in. There is no skill involved in this game. You simply plant crops, harvest crops, sell crops and buy crops to keep your animals alive and to fill orders for your farm. You get coins and gems and get to build on to your farm as you increase levels. .
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I know, I know…you think it sounds stupid. Remember, I was you only 5 short days ago.
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I want more fields, more crops, more animals. At level 16 (only 420 more stars) I get to buy sheep. SHEEP! Then I can sheer them. SHEER THEM!
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My husband told me this morning that Max (my 7 year old son) used my last pumpkins. “WHAT? No one EVER sells pumpkins and even IF I could find them to buy IT TAKES 3 HOURS TO GROW PUMPKINS”. I’ll admit it. It wasn’t my finest hour. I did question my reaction as being a bit too extreme. But man I want these things…
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I want these things so badly that I almost linked my account to Facebook. Gasp. I was one finger touch away from letting everyone in on my little secret. It would have been so easy. If my friends on Facebook are also playing Hay Day maybe I could get more stuff faster? We could team up? But I stopped myself. I just couldn’t do it.
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I have been knitting too.
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I did finish June…
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June Sweater Done
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I did start July…
July Sweater Started
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Finished a little kid sweater (that is awesome by the way and on display at the shop)…
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Juniper Moon Farms Yearling
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I am not totally absorbed by Hay Day, right…right?
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Ummm, I have to go now, my eggs are ready.
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Eggs are ready
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psst…if you are playing Hay Day too, feel free to let me know. Maybe we could be farm friends and keep it on the down low:) Don’t tell anyone:)
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I totally don’t have a farm, or pause in writing this to harvest eggs. whistles.
I had a little problem with Tetris once and I was playing in my sleep, so I try to stay away from that stuff!!
I keep reading this and looking for the “love” button –
You have to listen/watch this Ted Talk on why you SHOULD play games! It adds to your life expectancy! Go to: http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_the_game_that_can_give_you_10_extra_years_of_life.html?utm_source=newsletter_weekly_2012-07-12&utm_campaign=newsletter_weekly&utm_medium=email
Actually, it’s one of the best Ted Talks I’ve ever heard about healing, relationships, and life! So enjoy it even if you still want to stop playing the game.
I started playing Angry Birds so I could play with my grandson, and it worked! He loves to come over and play Angry Birds with Grannie Pammie!
Ok… so I am totally addicted to Hay Day as well. ssshhh…. It started out as a fun game my 4 year old & I could do together. I thought I could possibly find something educational in it for him but now it’s become my obsession. I have to practice deep breathing exercises while he manages the farm because inevitably he sells my last crop or buys 4000 coins worth of pigs. Do I need so many pigs? I’m at the same crossroads regarding FB though. I was so excited to see that apple trees, cherry trees & raspberry bushes were available but after I harvested my first bushels of fruit, I was required to log onto FB in order to ask for help from others to keep my trees & bushes alive. I am just not sure I want the whole world (or at least my circle of close & not so close friends) to know that I spend my free time collecting eggs & trying to figure out how to increase barn storage (which I’m out of at the moment until I can get one more bolt). Does anyone know of a way around this small issue of FB? Btw….do you know about Dragonvale? Fun…
That is super funny! I laughed outloud at the deep breathing…I did the same thing this morning with max. “DON’T use the last soybeans!”
As far as the trees and fruit. I just cut them down…I don’t link to FB at all.
What is your name on gamecenter? I can link to you from my hayday and we can do some trading!
Hej!
I absolutely Love Hay Day, I’m in Level 10, and I cannot wait to plant these cute pumpkins!
I found your Blog by searching for Jordana Paige Rio Bag, and I like it.
Greetings from Germany
Gisela
I found Hay Day, currently level 38, while watching a video playing SongPop on the iphone.. After 3 years of farmville, pioneer trail, and mafia wars…etc.. i only play games on my phone.. but i do love the new buildings, crops, and friends on hay day…
Hi Aimee,
I just discovered your blog while searching Google for Hay Day “tips and tricks.” I confess, I too have recently become addicted to Hay Day (please note, that I’m not an iPad game player … plus I get up at 4am, which is far too early in the morning to be staying up so late at night “Tending To My Farm”).
I also have been struggling with the “Connect to Facebook” conundrum. You have no idea (or maybe you do), how many times my finger has lightly tapped on, but not pressed, the “get all your Facebook friends to follow you” button within the Hay Day game.
Late last night, while haphazardly collecting eggs, I realized that I had gone past the “on the verge of addiction” stage. My pulse started to race when I suddenly realized that I had over collected eggs and was short one bag of chicken feed.
I felt like such a hypocrite, as I’m always mumbling to myself (and to my dogs) about the heartless farmers who have pens filled with hungry livestock … and here I was, with a poor starving chicken, flopping around for the world to see.
I could not even wait the few minutes it would take for a new bag of chicken feed to be produced. Instead, in a panic, I ran to the paper, clicked on the first ad for chicken feed, buying several (overly priced) sacks. Now THAT is an addicted!
Thanks for sharing your Hay Day experience … it’s nice to know that I’m not alone!
Dee Marie
Author of the “Sons of Avalon” saga
Lol – I was exactly at the same place a month ago. I am now so addicted to hay day that my husband feels he has competition, and I finally posted to my Facebook to get extra friends so I could sell more stuff in my road side stall! I went completely ape when my 2 year old daughter decided to “use” my hard earned diamonds by increasing production lines when she also tried to “farm”. Lol
Hubby keeps threatening to uninstall my farm, but fortunately my little one is very protective over mommies farm! Would love a partner in Hay day. Everyone I know that plays is so competitive….. I’m on level 36. Invite me – freakystyle69
Totally agree – I never played any of the ‘ville’ games as friends said, “Don’t! They are so addictive!’ – so I didn’t…but found Hay Day and dang, I’m hooked. You are not alone! Found your blog after googling ‘using diamonds to increase production’ to see if it was a good idea or not. Love your knitting projects!!!
Omg…I am just like you. A friend got me hooked on hay day and I found your blog while looking for ways to get more field space. If you would like another game friend, add me…. Kitty9600. Happy farming!
Level 52, all buildings at max slots, most achievements done 54/61.. I made a excel spread sheet that shows max prices (1-10) on all items except the marker stakes for expansion trying to convert to a simple text format.. anyone interested and what format?
can someone please tell me where to get soybeans from??? or sell me some?
I am addicted also. I set up a small blog to share information…but I have little time for that as I am playing all the time. If you go to haydayaddiction.com and click on the GC Names Tab…there are over 500 GC names you can add. I have added all these to mine. I can now go to my Roadside Shop and go from friend to friend looking through their stands. I buy low and sell high, I also find building supplies…it sure beats the classifieds…..you know what I mean….Eggs, eggs and more eggs.
I’m so glad to hear everyone’s stories about being addicted to Hay Day. You’re not alone. I even set an alarm on my phone at work so I could run to the bathroom before my ship left!
I’m interested in that spreadsheet. I was thinking of making one, too.
Hello Aimee, nice to meet a fellow hayday player. I think I have serious issues because I have turned my garden into a real life hayday! It is only a small garden and now it is overcrowded with large pigs who are very hungry, I am thinking of cooking one of them and making some bacon rashers to feed all my animals. The biggest issue has been the boats, I have gone to the river thames and filled up my toy boats with my produce but they are not coming back, I think people are stealing them. Anyway back to the game… I have lost my job, my husband, my children and most importantly my life. Please do not turn out like me, I feel like I have nothing to live for anymore. It is fine when I am emersed in the game but the hours waiting for that boat to come back home seem to be endless.
Yours truly,
P. xxx
Hi Aimee, just had to say I was totally like you re people playing silly games etc, but now I too am a Hayday Addict!!! Even worse I didnt even want an I Pod, bought one for my husband and now he never has a chance to play on it!!! How many levels are there? Surely once all the machines , animals are bought I will stop playing it/
Hi Aimee,
This is so funny to read. I am not alone. Waking at night to put more items into production, going through every farm in the ads to find building material while waiting for crops to grow and production to finish, set alarms so that I can get max boat order production going for the night before it arrives, and so on. My real life almost ground to a halt! I say to myself – I’ll play just until I get my captain 3, just until I get the jam maker, just until I buy the horse, just until I get the coffee maker, but there is no end!
I eventually asked my husband to take the ipad to work with him and keep it there for some weeks to see if I can kick this habit. So far I am on day 3 of cold turkey, and have had 2 of the most productive days in a long while. Now I am trawling the internet to see if other have the same problem, hence finding your blog and all my fellow addicts 🙂
I really, really love playing and really, really, really don’t ever want to play again. I wish I could delete it permanently!
So addicted it’s ridiculous! So fun though AND creative…. I am totally into landscaping and designing my dream farm! Has to be value to that! And my management skills…. If I could only apply them to real life! It’s not so much the hours I can’t afford to waste which reveals my true addiction, it is the fact that I feel I have to hide it. Why can’t I get as much pleasure and sell some of this crap around my house on eBay for real money? I have photographs waiting to be listed but no, I am way to caught up in upgrading so my lobsters can experience all the fun this ‘game’ promises to provide them if I spend another 42HDK!
From a fellow addict, I wasted several weeks fulfilling orders, expanding the farm, clearing land, and designing my farm. Does anyone else think that their farm is the ‘BEST’ designed and most other farms are ridiculous and ugly?! Well after wasting days and days on the game, and realizing I was living in a STY full of dirty laundry, unwashed dishes, un-thrown trash, and knappy hair… I realized I was focusing WAYYYY too much energy and time on a make believe game in a make believe world. But it’s so much fun! And it really is neat and cute… And after plowing through my real life wasteland, I realized I had to quit.
My backlash was severe. I stopped feeding the cute little animals even though they were beckoning to me, lying fatigued, and shivering. I took every last item that had piled up in front of my machines and sold everything! I harvested all my fruit trees and bushes and sold it all. I was quitting! I had wasted too much time and energy on a game that contributes little to real life, and one that actually takes you away from it. There are many who say ‘kill your tv’ and I can understand this because i’ve tried it and there is so much you can accomplish when you’re not tuned in. And ‘Hay Day’ is like TV, but worse because it’s so interactive and fun! And even though I staged my ‘going out of business’ ‘i’m quitting’ Fire Sale… I still managed to keep my animal feed and some crops ‘just in case’…
Well, I admit after the expulsion phase, I went back every few hours or so just to check in… and eventually I weened myself away from the game. But after a week or so, I signed in and figured instead of trying to maintain all of the animals, all of the machines, and fill boat orders, truck orders, and neighbor requests… i decided that I’m just gonna pick a few products to make, harvest only what i need, and sell them in the roadside shop. That way, I wouldn’t be hooked into trying to fill boat orders, fill truck orders, waiting a few minutes just to start making the next item i needed, ‘oh wait, i only have to wait a few minutes and the corn will be grown’, and then ‘oh wait, only another minute and then i can milk the cows’, ‘oh wait, another 3 minutes and i can…’
I researched SuperCell, the company who created Hay Day, and they earn $2+ million dollars a day! A DAY! From addicts such as you and I on Hay Day and their other games, most notably ‘Clash of Clans’. After being hooked, and realizing I was hooked, and loving it!, and then realizing the endless cycle of building, harvesting, creating, selling, buying that they ensnare you in, i’m certain they have psychologists and ‘specialists’ that intentionally develop these games to hook you in and try to get you to fork over some cash. Obviously, it’s working. And if you explore other games, there are dozens and dozens of games with similar structures. There certainly is a ‘Reward System’ that they’ve developed and once you get wrapped up into it, instead of you playing a game, I feel as if it’s the GameMakers who are playing games with you! Offering their ‘You’ve been selected for a special deal’ ‘Limited Time Only’ Diamond purchases…
So after all of the stages of psychological addiction, I’ve finally learned to come to terms with Hay Day. I still play it. But I only play once every 3-5 hours and limit myself to an hour…max. And when I get wrapped into the, ‘oh wait, only another few minutes and then i can do this…’ trap, I remind myself that it could go on endlessly and I hit the quit button. Eventually, I plan to quit completely…some day…
RamblinRoyce
P.S. I’m gonna login now to check on my farm!, but only for an hour… I swear!