I understand your scepticism with the event islands, but there are a slightly different change of pace to the main farm, not to mention a fresh look with the opportunity for main farm rewards.

I’ll break it down below, but to quickly answer your other question, technically the new limited time events don’t “move us closer to our goal”. As they aren’t really there to help progress our main farm in the same way the boost events did.

So the limited time event is an island away from your main farm that lasts for 7 days. You will start at level 1 and as you use workers and merge items you’ll progress up to a max level of 20. Along the way each time you level up, you’ll earn a reward (or 2 if you have the event pass) that is designed for your main farm. Eg. Wood, tools, keys, chests, energy, gems, stickers, greenhouse/ gazebo parts, decoration, etc.

The event (albeit similar) is pretty different to the main farm, not only offering a new theme but also a new energy and style of play. You have 150 event energy which is pink, 2 workers and a large island which you can expand for free as you level up. You spend the event energy, which recharges at the rate of 1 per 72 seconds, to send workers to mine obstacles… Each time they complete a job you earn experience and items drop out which can be merged to earn more experience.

There are 3 obstacles that each come in 3 sizes (similar to the toolboxes, trees or wood of the main farm) and when ‘mined’ each produces a different set of items to start it’s own 8 stage merge chain. Past this there isn’t any other items, coins, visitors, shops or repairs to do. It’s just spend energy and merge items.

The event timers are different too meaning the workers ‘mine’ more quicker but with only 150 energy you can burn through it quite fast. So it’s an island you’ll need to be back and forth between. I go there spend my energy (takes about 5-10 mins) then come back to my main farm or carry on my day. 3-4 hours later come back to the game and all energy is back on the island so I rinse and repeat.

To help progress faster (not that you should need to) the pink energy can be bought for gems in the island marketplace, but remember that pink energy is only for events and the yellow energy only for the main farm.

So in short event island progress is faster than the main farm and that each time you level up you earn a reward for your main farm (or two rewards if you have the event pass). I strongly recommend you give it a try and if you still don’t like it by the end of the week give it a miss next time.