Andrew Joseph Kane’s “Farmsteadburg” propels us through a virtual life cycle that will be familiar to anybody who has played a farming sim. More than a satire, the story immerses itself in the gulf between the economic logic underpinning these popular video games and the very real and violent ramifications of resource accumulation and exhaustion that this logic upholds. In Kane’s village, capitalism can never devour itself—that’s what makes it idyllic. Instead, as the narrative breaks down, what emerges is a vision not of capitalism in stasis but of ongoing perpetuation, giving us a glimpse of alienation without even the ruse of progress.—The Editors and the Fiction Staff
Farmsteadburg
Welcome to Farmsteadburg! Here you may spend your Credits. Take over the decrepit farm north of town. It was willed to you by old Uncle Alfred. He left instructions in his journal: Get this place in shape! Fix the broken timbers, unclog the well, clear the south pasture. But first you need better tools. Lift stones to shape, gather branches to bend. Craft them at the Work Bench. Or go to town and buy them in Smithy’s Shop (if you have the Credits!). Use Work Points to hoe, plant, and cultivate. Advance the Farmer skill tree. Soon your pantry will fill with radishes, lettuce, carrots, and more. Eat them for Health Points, or sell them for Credits. Recover Work Points by sleeping at night. Do you hear a voice beneath your bed? Go to the earthen cellar and listen. Then start digging!
Season shift: Spring Carnival. Fish for fish in the river. Try different rods and lures. Win medals for fish records! Talk to suitable paramours: Polly, Lilly, Layla. Learn what they like, and buy them gifts (flowers, ribbons, lockets). But also: boy paramours (Charlie, Hector, Dax). Everyone is welcome! If courting takes up all farming time, collect green apples in the woods. Cook recipes in your Kitchen (built with blueprints from Paul the Master Builder). During night, tunnel deeper into the cellar. Find the voice! Is it the ghost of Uncle Alfred? Burn his journal in your Blacksmith Furnace. Then use the ore you mined while digging to refine your tools!
Season shift: Summer Festival. Apprentice with renowned entomologist Sir Zeke and catch butterflies for Insect Display. Then: Butterfly Pinning Mini-Game! Hold thorax until wings separate, pin thorax to spreading board, find veins of forewing and hindwing, and pin, pin, pin! Show Display Case to Dax. See Heart Points rise! Take quick nap at Campsite Bedroll to recover Work Points. Then spend them on Basket Weaving with Lilly. Assure her that Dax is just a woodcutting companion. Attend religious celebrations at Church with Charlie. Get to know congregation and learn new recipes as Trust Points rise. Raise livestock to collect milk, butter, eggs. Brush them, feed them, give your animals custom names! Bake muffins, biscuits, Bundt cakes. Give apple pie to Layla because it will raise more Heart Points than Shop-bought gifts. But: Exhaustion. Health Points low. Work Points low. Never enough Credits for top-shelf inventory. In bed, the voice keeps you awake. No time to sleep. There’s too much to do!
Season shift: Harvest Feast. Not enough time on the Time Wheel? Hire others to tend stock, till field. Not enough Credits? Sell thistle, morels, root of burdock. Out of Work Points? Brew a potion! Befriend Karl the Glassmith and install a Chemist Bench with Cauldron. Craft potions for rain, luck, and love. Give ultra-heart potion to Hector, then take underwater breathing potion to hide from Polly when she confronts you about it on the bridge. While waiting for her Anger Points to diminish, discover a secret cave where Sycorax the Snakewitch lives. Is Sycorax the voice? All she will trade is moldy tomes. Not enough Credits. Take another work potion. Go to cellar.
Season shift: Winter Rites. Melt snow to fill canteen. Patch varmint pelts to craft heavy coat. Low Heart Point effect with paramours, but it keeps you warm! No Credits to buy altar candles at Church (purple, crimson, yellow). Harvest tallow from rabbit snares, craft rustic candles with yarn. Line the cellar tunnels. They lead to the Quarry, the Sewer, Dolph the Vintner’s Wine Cellar, and Abandoned Shack Basement. No crops. No roughage in your rucksack. So, capture beetles (if you can find them), bats with your butterfly net. Enough Health Points to keep searching. Save up the rarest ingredients (blue slime, moon grit, godweed) and craft flash-instant travel potion. Use it! But in each separate darkness, the voice is there all at once.
Time Wheel turns. No time for plow, no time for barn, no time for congregants, paramours, fish. No sewing circle, no maypole dance, no Engraving Mini-Game in Silversmith Forge. Your cow Pook has died of hunger. Your chicken Smarty was eaten by fox. Your fields are barren. Your house is in disrepair. Polly is all Anger Points. Charlie attacks you with stone hammer when you enter his map. Defend yourself with steel sword and take his body to river. Gift for Sycorax. Trade for moldy tome? Maybe tome has answers? Visit cave to check, but she is gone. Lean over Charlie’s body and notice harvestable action: man flesh. Consume to Recover Work Points, Heart Points, Health Points, all?
Think of all that’s left to do: raise minks and learn Furrier skill tree, craft rusty musket and shoot jelly jars off back porch, marry paramour and birth (or adopt) child, teach him to run, swim, fly kite, win Mini-Games for singing odes, keeping bees, making wreaths, play the piccolo solemnly in the woods at twilight, attend son’s marriage, build Annex so that full family can live on Uncle Alfred’s land, rock on rocking chair and watch Farmsteadburg grow and change, new cottages in the west hills, a Super-Shop where Smithy’s Shop used to be, less trees, then more trees, then less again. How can you manage with no Health Points, no Heart Points, no Credits? Listen to voice.
Voice is not in cellar. Voice is not faster than potions can flash. Voice is not Heard. Voice is Felt. Voice Action. Voice tell Cutie Cartoony body to axe to dig to make And Cutie bod do. Even if Poor Charlie Oh how But you need them How skill tree jingles when filled up with stars Sound when Credits tinkle in Tin of coins And Heart Points rise like Bubbly pop Listen it says Listen when it tells you Take it out Touch it Light and color Tap the icon Like gemmary Like candy Keep playing Keep Keep playing What’s around corner? It’s fun It’s a game What’s next? Keep playing Oh please