"I'm gonna get your wallet, sucka!"

Clash of Clans

Long-Term Review

By now if you a smartphone, and like games, you probably know about a little freemium game called Clash of Clans. Like that the developer, Helsinki-based Supercell, pretty much makes so much money off of in-app purchases (IAP) over CoC, that they can take money baths every day. 

I first started playing Clash around 6 months ago. Despite my best intents, I am  now very guilty of contributing to their IAP bottom line. I've bought many, many in-game virtual items for hard currency. The very nature of the compelling and addictive gameplay makes it almost a requirement. As in World of Warcraft addictive. But the game does pretty much almost force you to buy stuff after a certain level. Your fort becomes your avatar, and if you have played the game a while, you start to feel very protective of it. Other players can attack you, and steal your hard-won resources. You obviously have military defenses to protect yourself, but sometimes they aren't enough, and gold and elixir you've been hoarding for days gets stolen from your coffers.

So what is a player to do? Build stronger, and increasingly more expensive, defenses. Which can take days to upgrade. And when your defenses are upgrading for days, that don't work. The only protection, is a Shield. If you get really badly mauled in an attack, the Shield will protect your fort for up to 16 hours to give you time to repair and rebuild. But a reasonably strong defensive cannon takes days to upgrade, and costs and atrocious amount of gold. Gold that takes days and days to gather. But once the 16 hour Shield expires, other players can attack, steal your gold, and prevent you from getting enough resources to strengthen your fort. 

So what's a player to do. And this is where the real world, hard currency comes in handy. You can buy a

Shield from the App Store, that will last for up to a week, gather resources and upgrade. Beyond, say, Level 40 in the game, making an IAP is not a luxury, but a requirement if you want to advance. 

But Clans is such a fun game, I don't begrudge or resent the money I've paid over the past months. I've spent much more on PC or console games that were terrible. I've played freemium games that were beyond obnoxious in time-gating the most trivial things for an egregious amount of real money. Clash of Clans is a happy addiction worth the cash. 

Skylanders: Lost Islands

Making Money With Your Skylanders For Fun & Profit!

Strategies and tips for beating skyrocketing Skylanders costs. 

The economy in Skylanders: Lost Islands can be best describes as a bit like a dog chasing it's tail. To make money (gold coins) you need to send Skylanders on missions; missions require energy, which you can get by paying gold coins to grow energy plants. Gold is the primary resource you need in the game, as it's required to build structures, and to unlock additional elemental islands. Early on in the game, it's not that big of deal - the first islands you have to unlock cost around (and I'm going on memory here) 30,000 gold coins. However, at later stages in the game, say around level 20, the costs skyrocket. I'm currently at level 25, and to unlock the next island requires 750,000 gold! Given you're essentially on a fixed income, as the maximum amount you can receive on a mission is 15,500 gold coins, and 18,000 for a Sanctuary trip, it takes a lot of days and patience to amass that much gold.

So, lets look at a reasonable plan to maximize gold production in a 24 hour period. I did some number crunching in Excel, which I won't bore you with here (although e-mail me if you want to see the spreadsheet) to come up with a fairly easy way to bank around 40,000 gold a day, without having log into the game every waking minute.

Energy Production:

1) Have 15 Plant Fields

2) Grow Grave Diggers = they take 2 hours and produce 425 Energy

3)  Do this 6 times a day

4) Total Energy in 24 hours = 38,250

Gold Coin Production:

1) Have 6 Adventure Balloons

2) Go to Dark Water Cove (a 7 hour mission) twice a day - once in the morning, and once before bed

3) After the morning Dark Water Cove is completed, do 2 Cadaverous Crypt missions (this will leave some flexibility to deal with Trolls, Sheep, and the occasional Treasure Chest)

4) Do 3 Sanctuary trips.

Now Show Me The Money!

Total Gold in 24 hours = Net 37,200 (Subtracting Gold required to grow Energy Plants)

Obviously Sheep etc. will add the additional 2,800+ gold coins to get you to 40K a day. With a bit of coffee,  ADD, focus, and diligence, I've easily made 80K in 24 hours, but you have to log into the game an atrocious amount of time to get that much. The above methodology presumes a degree of having a normal life. Enjoy!

Clash of Clans: Update(s)

Version 3.25 Released

and a small confession...

Looks like our good friends at Supercell in Finland have released an update for Clash of Clans. I won't take up (not) valuable space to list all the changes, but you can find the particulars here.  New unit upgrades, traps, hero improvements, and leaderboards, to name a few. Again, if you are not playing this game, you are sorely missing out on one of the best Free-To-Play titles out there. Combat, base-building, compelling player vs. player - you name it, it has your flavor of gaming crack.

And now, my confession. I actually broke down and made an IAP (In App Purchase) in Clash of Clans. 500 Crystals, to be exact, which cost me $4.99 USD. But the game made me do it - seriously. I was hovering around Level 30, and needed to upgrade my Town Hall to Level 7. A Level 7 TH unlocks a slew of additional buildings, as well some much needed upgrades. Unfortunately, a Level 7 Town Hall requires 1,200,000 gold. Unfortunately times two, I would amass around 400,000 gold, and someone would attack me, and steal 100,000+, I'd get a 12 hour or 16 hour Shield, regain the 100K gold, be attacked again, and lose said gold. Lather, rinse, repeat, Sisyphus.  And so, I buckled, and got a 7-day Shield. To me, this is was a shocking discovery, as there seemed to be no legitimate way to gather the necessary resources without paying for the additional Shield time protection. And to date, Supercell have made IAP a 'want', not a 'need', in order to progress in the game. Not sure what the solution is - increased Shield time based on your level perhaps?

But in the end, I can't say I felt all that cheated - for a game that's given me more fun than many a  $60 retail console title, $4.99 for some crystals for CoC seems like a bargain.

Gesundheit!

A Touching Tale of a Little Piggy With a Runny Nose Who's on a Mission

Mini Review

First things first - Gesundeheit!, by Revolutionary Concepts, is free for only a short time, so grab it pronto.

Gesundheit is one of those rare games that appeals to just about every age group - it's your classic 'save-the-princess (pig)' set in a crayon-drawn world. You play as a little pig with a cold? allergies? who uses the power of his boogers to battle enemies and interact with the world.  The gameplay is essentially top-down, and plays much like Mario Brothers or Zelda, with a bit of stealth elements thrown in. Controls could not be simpler or easier, which is critical, as much of the game revolves around your ability to sneeze boogers at a distance to lure enemies and activate switches or traps.

Skylanders: Lost Islands

What Do Skylanders And The Island of Dominica Have In Common?

Part I

Perhaps you've heard of a little 'ole game franchise called "Skylanders"? You know, the one that made $500 million dollars in the US in 2012? To put that number in perspective, the island of Dominica, located in the Caribbean, has a GDP of $490MM USD. That's a lot of Skylanders for 1 little island. Eric Kain over at Forbes called Skylanders "Diablo for Kids..." That is an honorific that is not lightly bestowed.

Anyhow...onto the latest incarnation in freemium app crack: Skylanders: Lost Islands. On the surface, there's nothing about this game that is that much different than your average monster breeding and farming game, like say, Dragonvale. But the Skylanders personalities, perceived attributes, and the rich environments, while mostly just window dressing, serve to enhance and vary the game experience. Skylanders come in different elemental forms (Fire, Air, etc), sizes (Regular and Giant), Experience levels, which is sufficient to mix up the missions, quests and the tasks that can be performed under these constraints such that the game never feels repetitive. New Skylanders are gained every 5 levels, which is probably the most tedious part of the game, if you're not willing to part with real world cash to buy Skylanders, which is a real temptation. With 55 possible Skylanders that can be acquired, that's 275 levels at a minimum you'd need to acquire them all.

There are two primary resources in Skylanders: Gold Coins (from Missions), and Energy (from Farms). It costs Coins to grow Energy plants, and Energy plants to go on missions to acquire Gold Coins. Sort of a perpetual motion Ponzi scheme of in-game economics. So let's start off by looking at maximizing Farm output:

CROP		TIME		COST		ENERGY		COST PER NRG		NRG PER MIN
Floats		1		10		4		2.50		4.00
Ambrosia		3		30		11		2.73		3.67
Cloudlings		10		105		37		2.84		3.70
Luminaries		30		320		110		2.91		3.67
Eufirbia		60		650		215		3.02		3.58
Grave Diggers		120		1,300		425		3.06		3.54
Moss Stash		240		2,700		840		3.21		3.50
Domedelion		420		4,800		1,450		3.31		3.45

 Obviously, you get the highest per-minute return on Energy for 1-minute Floats, but that that would take forever to amass enough Energy to take on the big 5,000 Energy Sanctuary missions, so Cloudlings seem to be the best choice. They provide a livable time-frame and balance for maximizing production while minimizing cost. I still like to mix it up with Luminaries and Eufirbia as well sometimes, or perhaps Domedelion right before I go to bed, just for a big instant Energy inventory boost upon harvest.

So that's it for Part I. In Part II, we'll take a look at maximizing mission return on Gold Coins. Can you feel the excitement?!