The gameplay for the games is fairly simple, mostly purchasing animals, feeding them by watering grass, collecting their goods, processing them, and selling them to the market. Bears and other predators will regularly drop and will fling away animals and destroy goods and must be captured to keep the animals safe. Starting with Farm Frenzy 3, the series introduces the protagonist, Scarlett, as she helps farmers from around the world.
List of games:
- Farm Frenzy
- Farm Frenzy 2
- Farm Frenzy: Pizza Party
- Farm Frenzy 3
- Farm Frenzy: American Pie
- Farm Frenzy: Ice Age (also known as Farm Frenzy: Ice Domain)
- Farm Frenzy: Russian Roulette
- Farm Frenzy: Madagascar
- Farm Frenzy: Gone Fishing
- Farm Frenzy: Ancient Rome
- Crop Busters (a Match-Three Game spin-off where you help Scarlett rebuild her farm)
- Farm Frenzy: Viking Heroes
- Farm Frenzy 4
- Farm Frenzy: Hurricane Season
- Farm Frenzy: Heave Ho
- Farm Frenzy: Refreshed
This game series provides examples of:
- All Animals Are Domesticated: Zig zagged. Some wild animals such as penguins, elephants, and dolphins can be raised on your farm, but predators, such as bears and lions, not so much.
- Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: The second game features ostriches with green plumage. Averted with Farm Frenzy 3 which features ostriches in mostly more realistic black plumage. Ironically, in the same game, it features blue guineafowl.
- Bears Are Bad News: Bears are the main enemies in the game, as they can cause havoc on your farm by tossing away animals and destroying goods.
- Cartoon Cheese: Averted, the cheese is solid orange with yellow on the inside, resembling Gouda cheese. This is not the case in Refreshed though, where it shows a yellow wedge of cheese with holes.
- Constantly Lactating Cow: Every few seconds cows will drop a jug of milk when fed.
- Covers Always Lie: Farm Frenzy: Animal Country, the DS port for the second game, features the animals (save for the pig) and buildings from the first game rather than the second one.
- Domesticated Dinosaurs: Woolly mammoths can be farmed in Farm Frenzy: Ice Age, and provide you with snowballs to make into ice cream.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: The first game is filled with these.
- It is the only game of the mainline series that lacks a country-inspired soundtrack, rather having a calming title theme, as well as ingame music more upbeat than later installments.
- Dogs and cats can't be upgraded to be stronger and smarter, respectively, which would become a stable in later games.
- The map is a side-scrolling neighborhood where the player would need to use the cursor to move further in the map. Later games show a full map with no scrolling.
- Animals do not make any sounds once bought, and only make noise when they are hungry or is tossed by a bear.
- This is the only game in the series where the player never has to destroy buildings in place of another one, as there are only 6 production buildings in the game.
- None of the products in production buildings of this game require another product that can only be obtained through a plane or helicopter, and is made straight from farm materials.
- Forced Tutorial: You are not able to disable the tutorial in any of the games, with the exception of Pizza Party, as it allows you to skip all of the tutorial levels, though the player won't get a gold medal on said levels until they play them.
- Informed Species:
- Royal penguins appear in Farm Frenzy 3 and Ice Age, though they don't resemble them much.
- The ducks in Refreshed, resemble more like geese than ducks. It does not help they recycle sound effects from the geese in the third game.
- Killer Gorilla: Farm Frenzy: Madagascar, has orangutans that acts identical to bears.
- Later-Installment Weirdness:
- Hurricane Season has bonuses that makes levels easier by using a slot machine. The animals are also shown to be capable of talking, unlike previous entries.
- Refreshed features a ranch where players can upgrade warehouses before starting a level, as opposed to the map from the previous games.
- Misplaced Wildlife: Madagascar, features orangutans in mainland Africa.
- No Plot? No Problem!: The first 2 games and Pizza Party are this. You just feed the animals, collect goods, and sell them to the market.
- No Such Thing as Dehydration: The animals only need grass to survive and produce goods.
- Nearly Normal Animal: The animals generally act like normal farm animals. However, as of Farm Frenzy 2, they would sometimes do what is referred as "gags", such as a cow jump roping or a pig playing the violin.
- Polar Bears and Penguins: In Happy's farm which takes place in Antarctica, you can raise penguins alongside walruses, with polar bears being the main threat here. In Ice Age, it now takes place on the Arctic, and adds woolly mammoths in the mix.
- Ridiculously Fast Construction: You can buy buildings that are instantly built once constructed, and upgrades to these buildings are also instant. This also applies to your storehouse, vehicles, and well.
- Threatening Shark: Inverted, sharks serve as a replacement for dogs in Gone Fishing and will protect your animals from bears.
- Wicked Weasel: In Hurricane Season, ferrets will try to steal your goods if left on the field. The player catches ferrets in the same manner as bears.
