If a farm girl marries a mad scientist, you might just get Zombie Farm, a “free” iPhone and iPod Touch app that is addictive and fun to play. We review it and give you tips and strategies to win!

Zombie Farm

Eating brains has never been so cute, or addictive. Have you ever wanted to play a farming game that isn’t childish? Then Zombie Farm is for you. It involves harvesting the dead, eating farmers and lawyers, and using brains as game money.

Zombie Farm is more cute than creepy so don’t worry about having nightmares.

Zombie Farm is a world where humans, plants and zombies co-exsist under your rule.

Of course, you’ll have to farm normal crops, like carrots and corn, but you use them to create mutations in your zombies. If this sounds deliciously creepy to you, read on!

The Reason You NEED Zombies

Zombie Farm combines the simple life of a farming game with the wit of a monster game. Zombies are treated as crops and can be planted and harvested. They are used for invasions that you lead. An Invasion is a quick jackpot that earns you about 500 Gold when you first start out and quickly progresses to 1000 Gold and 2000 Gold.

Spend Your Gold, Save Your Cents

The currency of this game is virtual gold (“Gold”) as well as real dollars and cents. To purchase stuff, you need virtual gold. A Carrot costs 5 Gold, a Cypress tree costs 5oo Gold, a Hedge costs 1000 Gold, and so on.

Players beware, a few items can be purchased with real dollars and cents — as in you need real money to buy them. So, if you want a totally free app, be careful to differentiate between virtual gold and real dollars and cents. If you start buying with real money, the “free” app starts quickly adding up to more than it is worth.

It is true that some of the special features of the game are not free and must be paid with real money out of your wallet, but we find that the game is still a very enjoyable experience without having to pay a cent.

For example, instead of buying a brain for $0.99 (10 for a discount of $6.99), brains are sometimes given out free as a daily surprise and after invasions and, if saved, can be used to buy expensive Monoliths (Easter Island Heads), which are some of the the best items in the game. You also won’t need the Blue Zombies if you have a strong enough team of normal green ones.

TIP: We recommend that you spend your Gold and save your cents! If you could pay $0.99 to unlock all the features, it would be worth it. As it stands, your “free” app will quickly add up to tens of dollars.

The Blue Grave Trap

After reaching level 10, a long and somewhat heart-warming advertisement will pop up on the screen asking you to buy brains and a Blue Grave so you can get Blue Zombies which are stronger than your regular green ones.

TIP: Brain Fragments are given out freely through free apps downloads.

TIP: The Onionhead Mutation is unnecessary. The Onionhead Mutation only gives +1 defense, while others, such as the Potatohead, gives +2 defense. Besides, the Potatohead cannot combine with the Onionhead since they both mutate the head. There can be no two headed zombies or half-headed ( though it would be cool if there was).

The Invasion

OK, so the invasion basically goes like this:

1. When you have 8 or more zombies at your disposal, click the Invade button located at the bottom left corner of the screen.
2. Click the name of the enemy you want to invade. Some of the enemies will not be available until you’ve reached a later level.
3. On the next screen tap the green check mark to proceed.
4. On the next screen, tap it to start the invasion.
5. One zombie will step forward and start thinking, and you’ll see a “Thought Meter” appears above its head.
6. Different pictures will pop up above the meter and your job is to click them all. As you click each, the meter gets filled up. That’s all you have to do to get your zombie ready to attack!
7. Once its Thought Meter is full, your charged up zombie will automatically move towards the enemy to attack him.
8. Repeat steps 5 to 7 for every zombie until you bring your foe down — or die ignominiously.

Tip: If ever you lose all your zombies to any foe, quickly press the button on the iPod to return to the main menu and reload the game. Though you will have to wait another 2 hours to begin the next invasion, all your zombies (who died during that battle) will have come back to life as if nothing happened.

A Weak Team

The easy way to form a zombie team would be to plant sixteen mini zombies, wait ten measely minutes, then send them out to old MacDonald’s Farm and click the screen like mad. At first, that might seem like a good and cheap way to go about it. But after a while the MacDonald will start to get meaner, his farmhands will start to get stronger, and your army will easily be overwhelmed. Trust me, this way has been tried and has proven to be a total failure. Do not make the same mistake as other gamers (um, yours truly) have.

Another Fail would be to make most or all of your team ZomBumkins and beat your opponent with pure brute force. Again, this might work at the beginning but, as you level up and the farmer gets stronger, you will find your zombies losing their heads before reinforcements can arrive.

If, by any chance, you have tried one of these strategies (even by accident), you can always sell your zombies and plant new ones. Just click the icon at the bottom right corner of the screen. If clicked successfully, a mini menu will open up showing icons. Click the red icon with the garbage can and dollar sign. Then click anything you want to sell.

Note: if you sell patches of dirt, you will not get any money ($0.00).

A Strong Team

The best team is a full 16/16 and balanced team composed of many different types of zombies.

The Heavy Artillery

Headless zombies are tough fighters, have a good defense but get easily distracted and are slower then the average zombie (in both thought and speed).

Zombupkins are strong fighters, are good at attack but are slow thinkers and walk at a snail’s pace.

The Fast But Weak

Girl zombies rarely get distracted if they’re hungry and are fast thinkers but not good fighters.

Mini zombies have the same attributes as Girl zombies but take only ten minutes to grow and are weaker fighters.

The Balanced Fighters

The Fertilizing zombies (like the Flower zombie and the Garden zombie) are bad at everything having to do with fighting; however, they are needed to fertilize your crops and unborn zombies in between battles.

Your basic Zombie is the most affordable fighter and Jack of all trades, but you wouldn’t want them to be in a fight without other zombie types to help out, otherwise you’ll get clobbered.

The reason you would want zombies who are not good at fighting, but are fast, is because the strong ones take a long time to think and walk across the field and by the time they get there, the zombie fighting the farmhands might already be dead. Fast zombies like the Girl and Mini zombies are used to back up and support the stronger ones until the heavy artillery arrives.

In my opinion, this is how many zombies you should have in your team:

• 1-2 Zombies (balanced)
• 1-2 Headless (tough)
• 3-4 Girl Zombies (nimble)
• 2-3 Minis (fast)
• 3-5 ZomBumpkins (strong)
• <2 Garden or Flower Zombies (for after battle)

If you’ve saved enough Gold, these are the number of mutations you should have on your team:

• 0 Onion (+1 defense) – must pay $0.99 cause it comes with Blue Gravestone
• 1-2 Tomatoes (+1 attack)
• 15-16 Carrots (+1 attack) – basically the only eye mutation so you can afford a lot of them
• 10-16 Turnips (+2 attack) – until you get the celery mutation, this is your ownly arm mutation
• 5-6 Potato (+2 defense)
• 5-8 Coffee (+2 speed) -because sometimes speed is better than defense

Note: you can mutate all Zombies, not just the normal ones, from Minis to Girls to Bumpkins.

Examples of Mutations

Blushing Girl Zombie with Coffeehead Mutation

A glimpse of a Double Mutated ZomBumkin with Potatohead and turnip-arms (hiding behind a regular ZomBumkin)

and a Triple Mutation Mini Zombie (bottom right hand corner beside Totem Pole)with Potatohead, Turnip-Arms and Carrot-eye.

Of course, once you level up, you will be able to unlock more zombies like the Zombruiser (a stronger version of  the Zombumpkin) and the Kindlehead (a tougher version of the headless zombie), but they are basically the same as their predesesors with only higher stats.

Good things

• Farming actions look good.
• Original enough idea.
• Not creepy at all. The Zombies, though gruesome they may be, are actually likeable.
• A wide variety of veggies, zombies and items.
• Everything on the farm has a cheerful personality that’s not creepy at all.
• Invasions are simple yet addictive.
• Each type of zombie has it’s own unique way of saying the word “brains”.
• Invasions have just enough amount of violence to satisfy anyone.
• Like real portable farming games should be, you can play it anywhere you go, and you don’t need the internet to play.

Improvement Suggestions

• It’s creepy when two of them utter “brains” at the exact same time.
• You can move trees and decorations but it would be much nicer if you could also move other stuff like patches of soil.
• Sometimes I would accidentally click the wrong patch of soil and my farm would look deformed. It would be nice to have the double click feature.
• Not like the ad: the commercial shows hundreds of trees along the sides of each farm when really, it would take 2-5 invasions just to buy one of them.
• Sometimes, when I try to click zombies or items, the game farms the patch of dirt underneath it instead.
• Not enough free brains in game. [They want you to spend real $$$.]
• There isn’t any town to go to like farm games on consoles

MORE TIPS:

• Don’t worry about planting slow crops (onions, potatos) because, at the end of the day, the reward you reap is bountiful.
• If you are going on a long trip (i.e. you won’t have time to harvest your crops), make sure to plant slow crops because if you miss any harvest, it rots.
• While it’s good to save your Gold, don’t worry about going bankrupt because you’ll receive a daily surprise of 50 Gold or one brain. Even if you’re not bankrupt, you’ll receive it.
• The best time to start an invasion is after 4-5 hours when your zombies are “very hungry.” To know if a zombie is very hungry, tap it and a black text box will apear on the bottom of the screen stating if the zombie is: not hungry, a little hungry, hungry or very hungry. The hungrier your zombies, the faster they will rush into battle.
• Don’t worry about getting a lot of decors and trees for Life Force; having about 9-10 is enough to give you 100% Life Force.
• Carrots: do not be fooled by how cheap they cost and how quick they grow. It takes 10 Gold to harvest the ground and 5 Gold  to buy the carrot, for a total of  (10+5=) 15 Gold. They sell for only 16 gold. Since 16-15=1, the profit you make is only 1 Gold. Remember, carrots are only half decent for mutations, so it’s not really worth harvesting them. Just buy them.
• In the Items section of the market, under the name of each item there is a discription of how much Life Force and xp you receive when you buy the item. For example: Red Tent gives you +16 Life Force and +50 xp (expereince points). While Totem Pole gives you +4 Life Force and + 5oo xp.
• Remember that crops take 3 times longer to wither than they do to grow, so crops like tomatoes will last half the day.

Over all, Zombie Farm is one of the best games on the Ipod Touch and Ipad. It is a fun, relaxing — and addictive — game that gave me some of my most memorable moments with my iPod Touch. Highly recommended.

Zombie Farm was created by The Playforge and is compatible with iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. Requires iOS 3.0 or later.

Editor: 4.5 of 5  

Tags: brains, farm game, iphone, ipod touch, mutation, old macdonald, plants vs. zombies, zombie, zombie farm