About 10 p.m. each day, Hadley Kombrink heads to her farm.

She harvests fields of peas and tomatoes, milks cows and collects eggs. She walks through neatly lined orchards, picking fruit from more than 10 different types of trees. Next she plows, replants her crops, and rakes the leaves off her neighbor’s farm.

The work doesn’t make her back ache or mar her hands with calluses, but her right pointer finger might become a little tired. The chores take hundreds of clicks on the computer mouse to complete.

“I spend about an hour a day on Farmville,” Kombrink said. “I need it. It helps break up the monotony of my day.”

Kombrink, Overland Park senior and level 35 “Skilled Farmer,” is one of more than 63 million monthly players of the online game “Farmville.” The game can become an addictive distraction for students who have scheduled it into their daily routines. The game’s developers say Farmville has become the most popular online game of all time; they plan to expand the application beyond the Facebook platform and allow users to play on Farmville.com next week.

The game’s platform is simple: Players receive a 12 x 12 acre plot of land and 100 gold coins. To earn more money and experience, players can plant and sell crops, raise cattle, help on neighbors’ farms, among other farming activities. As they gain experience through time and farm production, players get a greater selection of things to buy, including new crops, animals, or simple decorations for their farm.

And residents of Farmville don’t worry about government subsidies or the current dairy surplus. In Farmville the weather is always sunny and crop prices never fluctuate.

Bill Mooney, Farmville vice president and general manager, said farming was a genre that attracted all ages.

“This genre has been around for some years,” Mooney said. “It’s happy. It’s healthy. Everybody likes it and everybody gets it.”

Peter Espinosa, Wichita senior and level 36 “Green Ribbon Farmer,” has watched the game’s popularity increase since its June debut. He started playing after he and his friends stumbled upon the game in mid-July. Back then his only neighbors on Farmville were his two friends, but now, Espinosa is asked several times a day to be someone’s neighbor.

Farmville allows players to become “neighbors” with their Facebook friends. Neighbors can help out on each other’s farms and give each other gifts.

“People I hardly know ask me to be their neighbors,” Espinosa said. “I’ve got a well-established farm, which probably has something to do with it.”

Mooney said Farmville had more than 63 million active monthly users in the last month. According to AllFacebook.com, a Web site that compiles Facebook statistics, the number nearly doubles the 35 million monthly users of the second-ranked application, “Causes.”

But the No. 1 rankings go beyond Facebook. Mooney said Farmville was the most popular online game of all time.

“We expected it to be a big hit, but we didn’t expect this,” Mooney said. “‘World of Warcraft’ is at around 11 or 12 million users a month. Farmville had 63 this month.”

The game is one of several popular Facebook applications created by Zynga, an Internet gaming powerhouse that began in 2007. Of the 10 most popular Facebook applications, Zynga owns half.

This year the company will make millions from the success of games such as Farmville. One feature of the game allows players to spend real money in exchange for Farmville currency. Players can use this money to expand and improve their farms and while consequently rising in the ranks.

Mooney said Zynga’s profits had skyrocketed this year.

“I can tell you that $100 million is a conservative estimate,” Mooney said.

The game’s popularity is even attracting some real farmers.

Emily Tuel, Bayard, Iowa, senior, was raised on a farm that harvested crops and raised cattle. She had resisted the Farmville craze, but said the game had become a subject of family conversation. Tuel said her two brothers, both agriculture students at Iowa Lakes Community College, played Farmville.

“It’s kind of a joke, but they definitely enjoy it,” Tuel said. “In the end, I know they would rather go out and do the real thing than just fake it.”

Though the University does not have an agriculture department, the craze has affected agricultural students in other Big 12 institutions.

Ryan Shroder, Iowa State freshman and agriculture major, farms both in real life and on Farmville. He said he knew several farmers who had been enticed by the pretend version. Shroder said his classmates mostly made fun of the game’s lack of realism.

“Real farming doesn’t have set time limits on how long it will take a crop to grow,” Shroder said. “If they would throw a weather aspect in, I think it would be a better game.”

But Mooney said the user-friendly environment and ease of play was part of the game’s appeal. He said the company was considering including some real-life elements for the more dedicated users.

“One of the big goals is that we want the game to be fun early on,” Mooney said. “We don’t want to punish you too much for things out of your control. We’ve talked about extending the game for people who play a lot.”

Amidst the obsession, real farmers both laugh and take turns in the virtual farming sensation.

Mike Emrie, Naperville, Ill. senior, said hestopped playing mid-October because the game required too much time. He said boredom with the game had allowed him to successfully cut the habit.

“It ends up with you having to click hundreds of times just to do your daily up-keep,” Emrie said. “All you are doing is the exact thing over and over again.”

Regardless of some players’ retirement from virtual farming, Zynga is allowing users to play on Farmville.com next week. Mooney said the Web site would allow for additional items, expanded game play and new ways for player interaction.

— Edited by Anna Kathagnarath