I know what you're wondering. You're wondering, "How great is it that you can play this Sims game for free?" Pretty great! For a little while. Then you run out of energy points, and EA's diabolical plan is revealed to you.

 

Not all actions require an energy point. Just the interesting ones, and the ones that have benefit. When you click on something to bring up the actions menu, the actions requiring an energy point will have a little cartoon lightning bolt icon in the corner. Luckily, this makes it easy to budget your energy points if you need to. However, it also makes it obvious how crippled your gameplay will be, once you run out of energy points.

 

Your energy points are tracked at the top of your screen. You can click on it at any time to get more. How do you get more? Well, by begging them from your friends. Or you can buy them, with actual money. 

 

Did you just gasp in horror? If not, then you must already be inured to the fiendish ways of Facebook game developers. 

 

You get more energy points just by existing. So if you stick around for five minutes, the game will dispense a few more energy points. Of course by that time it may already be too late for those strawberries that you planted, which have to be harvested one at a time. 

 

Remember how yesterday I mentioned that planting, watering, and harvesting takes a separate action for each plot? Yep: now you can see the sense of it. Each of those actions also requires an energy point. Therefore, if you want to plant, water once, and harvest plants on your four default garden plots, that's a grand total of twelve energy points. (Three actions X four plots.)

 

Thus, the long-term strategy for the game is obviously going to revolve around budgeting your energy points. For example, I have a feeling that your energy points are better spent doing something that suits your Sim's inclinations. 

 

If you have a Sim with the Gardening trait (is there one? I have to confess, I don't really know) then gardening is great. But I gave my Sim the Artistic trait, so her time is probably better spent in painting. 

 

It takes four actions (thus four energy points) to complete a single painting. Also, at one point the easel "broke" and she had to repair it before she could continue painting (another energy point). But soon enough, I would expect her to earn a lot more by painting than by gardening. And painting gives her a mood boost, too.