When Products Grow on Trees: Rethinking Farm Game Design with AI and Surrealism

Introduction

As a new visual designer for the Taobao interactive game Baba Farm, the author observed “usage fatigue” in the long‑running farm game and questioned why users would stay with a highly homogeneous genre.

Surreal “Everything‑Tree” Concept

Inspired by a school‑enterprise collaboration, the team explored a surreal “everything‑tree” where the target product itself becomes the tree trunk, merging the fruit and the tree into a single visual entity. The structure consists of three parts: the product body as the canopy, the tree‑like trunk, and a packaging “box” that preserves recognizability while emphasizing the product.

AI‑Assisted Production Pipeline

The AI workflow is divided into three steps:

Sketch definition: Designers hand‑draw the growth logic and product outline, establishing a baseline for the AI.

Rapid AI rendering: Sketches are fed to an AI model with relevant keywords; the AI generates multiple images for selection.

Detail refinement: Designers perform aesthetic quality checks, ensuring each tree meets a “high‑end collectible” standard.

Phase‑Based Visual Evolution

Analysis of the previous visual upgrades showed only minor changes per level. The redesign locks visual jumps at the three most impactful stages of the 15‑level growth curve:

Stage 1 – Tree Formation: Focus on the basic tree growth, reducing art resources.

Stage 2 – Product Emergence: AI‑driven surrealism introduces the product, breaking biological constraints.

Stage 3 – Harvest Stimulus: The product is packaged and presented as ready‑to‑take, creating a strong purchase impulse.

Home‑Page UI Reconstruction

The original home page suffered from feature clutter. The new UI hierarchy reduces visual noise, places the “planting” action at the visual core, and introduces graphic state semantics linked to fertilizing actions, turning sub‑features into interactive feedback.

Graphic state semantics: Fertilizing actions trigger visual feedback that reflects labor granularity.

Composition ratio optimization: Enlarging the tree display establishes a clearer visual pyramid, strengthening the “plant‑anything” sensation.

Narrative‑Driven Visual Feedback

Fertilizer distribution is reimagined as a lively character (“Fertilizer Kid”) that jumps and stacks across scenes, turning numeric gains into a narrative experience. Visual feedback is staged in tiers, with increasing animation intensity to offset user fatigue during long cultivation paths.

Visual pre‑positioning of benefits: Opening animations emphasize core rewards.

Tiered visual feedback: Progressive animation intensity provides immediate positive reinforcement.

Conclusion

The visual upgrade of Baba Farm is positioned as a dialogue with users, aiming to make the game more enjoyable and memorable by integrating AI‑generated surreal assets, a unified “product‑as‑tree” metaphor, and narrative‑driven feedback loops.