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?!

Farmville 2: It's Like A Circus!

Bread & Circuses, Actually

 

After powering through the quest wasteland that was level 15 in Farmville 2, I finally got some new quests, which revolved around preparing for a circus (I think - I'm not one for back-story in FV2, when there's precious crops and animals at stake). Anyways...these quest were pretty straightforward, until I got to the the 3rd in the "Circus" series. It required 3 Cheddar Loafs. Sounds pretty simple, eh? Well, there's 2 problems with said Loaf:

1. You need Salt (which you can't make)
2. You need need Cheese (which you might be out of)

If you're playing FV2 via Zynga.com, it should be relatively easy to obtain Salt via requests. Cheese, however, is another matter. It's a rare drop from Cows/Goats, and since you had to last purchase said livestock, they might have evolved into "Prized" animals, which no longer drop any produce, aside from XP and coins. So, it's Baby Bottle and Feed time once again to raise them into productive members of the farming community. So, take it with a grain of Salt, but if you stock up on your cheese-dropping barnyard critters, and you can (Cheez) wiz through this quest quickly. See what I did there? Funny stuff.

Farmville 2: Power Leveling

Bad Pun Alert!

Plowing Through Levels in FV2

I recently had an odd situation occur in Farmville 2; I hit Level 15, and suddenly ran out of quests. I (correctly) assumed quests were given to player based on certain levels i.e. I'd finished levels that the level designers at Zynga had assumed would take me until at least Level 16 to complete. So with no quests to occupy me in Level 15, I wanted to level up as quickly as possible. In the end, it took me about 36 hours to get to Level 17. Here are some tips to turbocharge your leveling:

• Play at Zynga.com. I cannot emphasize enough how much more efficient it is if you play the game through the Zynga portal.  You can get literally dozens of neighbors in the space of a few hours who can supply you with XP when you visit their farm, or provide you with quest items when you request them. Again, Zynga.com is a godsend when it comes to accelerating the leveling process.

• Crafting. Every step of the crafting process rewards you with some amount of XP. Cumulatively, each step in creating an item gives you a few XP; put them all together and you can get 20 to 30+ XP per item.

• Plant items with quick grow times and higher XP rewards. For example, Radishes, which thankfully unlocked at Level 15, have a grow time of 2 Minutes and reward 3 XP per plant. 

• Fertilize as much as possible. For every prize winning plant you grow, you are rewarded XP equal to the number of pounds (lbs) of the vegetable or fruit. In other words a 12 lbs. Pumpkin will give you 12 XP.

• Prized animals reward higher XP than animals that produce resources, like eggs, milk, or cheese. I usually keep a half dozen Prized livestock stored away in my inventory, and break them out into the barnyard when I need my livestock to produce just XP, not resources.

I am sure there are other strategies other players use to level up quickly, so I'd love to hear any other tips you have. Happy leveling!

Gizmonauts - Snax Attacks

Update: New Food Types & Amounts

Looks like my earliest list of Gizmonauts Snax farming stats is now a bit outdated. Backflip revised some Snax in-game numbers about 2 weeks ago across several categories, which I wasn't aware of, and there was third type of Snax farm I didn't even realize existed. D'oh/Facepalm/Apologies x 2. Below are the latest and greatest Snax:

Food		Farm		Cost		Time (in Mins)		Amt Made		Amt Made/Hour
Micro Chips		Shack		50		0.5		5		600
Spring Salad		Shack		250		5		20		240
Bolt Burger		Shack		1,000		30		75		150
Blueberry Boltmeal		Joint		5,000		120		300		150
Carbon Cola		Joint		15,000		360		800		133.3
Battery Bites		Joint		75,000		1,440		3,000		125.0
Coolant Cone		Shop		150,000		1		3,000		180,000
Pizza		Shop		250,000		10		5,000		30,000
Astro Oil		Shop		500,000		60		10,000		10,000

I'm not 100% sure why they made Battery Bites and Coolant Cones so similar, at least with regard to "Amt Made". By the time you get to the level that unlocks the Snax Shop, the difference between spending 75,000 and 150,000 coins to make them is not that big of a deal, as you're making a fairly large amount of coins. But hey, I'm not complaining. Bon appetit!

Farmville 2 - Pecan-apalooza!

Strategies for "Bake Sale" and "No Horsing Around" Quests.

Hint: It Involves A Lot Of Pecans

Around Level 14, you will encounter the aforementioned quests in Farmville 2. Like most quests in FV2, they aren't difficult, but rather time-consuming, if you are not prepared. Both quests revolve around Pecans, which unlock at Level 13, so you in all likelihood, you might not have planted any Pecan Trees yet, which will put you behind the curve when it comes to completing these quests. In a nutshell (ha!), you'll need to craft/make 5 Pecan Muffins for the "Ho No Horsing Around" quest, and sell 10 Pecan Muffins for the "Bake Sale" quest. Luckily, this means the effort you put into 1 quest will apply to the other quest, which makes things a bit easier.  If you do the Crafting math, that means you'll need 50 Pecans to complete the pecan portion of both quests. The logistics of getting 50 Pecans are as follows:

1 Pecan Tree Harvest  =      2.5 Pecans Nuts (on average)

Pecan Tree Harvest Time =  12 Hours

Therefore, 1 Pecan Tree will = 5 Pecan Nuts per Day. 

So, it will take 10 days to get enough Pecan Nuts from 1 tree to complete the crafting for these quests. Or 5 days with 2 Pecan trees. And so on...So plant ahead, and save some time.

 

Dragon Story Review

"The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?" 

- Joshua, WarGames (1983)

Such is also the case of Dragon Story by Team Lava. Team Lava seems to specialize in making odious free-to-play games that limit just about every aspect of gameplay, from money earned, to cost to create, and time to create, to say nothing of the number of missions that require you to download another one of their games, or make In App Purchases (IAP) to actually complete a mission. I get it's a free game, and they are trying to make money, but such over the top practices such feel like a visit to a user-car salesman convention.

Anyway, back to Dragon Story. The game itself is standard fare - breed dragons, feed them, they grow, you cross-breed them, yada yada yada. There's nothing original here, aside from the arm-twisting to make IAPs in order to make the tedium of waiting to collect enough coins, or for your minuscule crop yields to ripen, or for structures to get built. At it's core, Dragon Story is trying to monetize off of your boredom waiting for something interesting to happen in the game.

I put together a little chart on the plant farm yields in the game, in case anyone is interested. I know I wasn't.

Food		Farm Size		Cost		Time (Mins)		Harvest
Impruberries		Small		30		1		6
Buffbeets		Small		120		3		20
Firapples		Small		650		60		50
Pumpwings		Large		3,200		300		225
Eliteleeks		Large		5,500		480		325
Scalypears		Large		13,000		1,200		700

Home Sweet Home

Maximixe Your 'Bot Home Zone Cash in Gizmonauts

"Time for my money bath!"

Without a doubt, making money in Gizmonauts is one of the easiest jobs in the galaxy. Aside from the Large and Small Builder Zones, every other Zone is a cash cow. However, if you want to make a pile of cash quickly, the best way is to get the maximum number of high level 'bots in either Performance (Small & Large) or Nature (Large) Zones (see below). At the moment I have more money than I know what to do with - I am literally waiting for various breeding combos to produce new 'bots, while the money keeps rolling in. I'm about ready to start stuffing money under the mattress of a robo Sleep Number® bed at this point.

Zone		Size		Max # of Bots		Max Coins
Builder		Small		2		250
Mining		Small		1		10,000
Performance		Small		2		7,500
Nature		Small		1		15,000
Builder		Large		4		750
Performance		Large		3		50,000
Nature		Large		3		50,000
Astro		N/A		1		1,000,000

Gizmonauts

You'll Go Nuts For These Buckets of 'Bots Made of Bolts

You may have a heard of a little 'ole iPhone game called Dragonvale aka free-to-play app crack. Well, Backflip Studios, the team behind that game, are back with a new title - Gizmonauts. And much like Dragonvale, Gizmonauts contains every bit of the same addictive fun, except this time around, it's all about robots. You are tasked with raising (upgrading?), feeding (fueling?) and breeding (building? constructing? assembling?) various 'bots, but this time around, you can also upgrade individual robots with specialized tools to increase specific stats, as well as take them into combat.

I've already started to put together some numbers on optimal robot Snax to farm, so here's some initial stats for production amounts vs. time:

Food		Farm		Cost		Time (in Mins)		Amt Made		Amt Made/Hour
Micro Chips		Small		50		0.5		5		120
Spring Salad		Small		250		5		20		240
Bolt Burger		Small		1,000		30		75		150
Carbon Cola		Large		5,000		180		425		141.7
Battery Bites		Large		15,000		540		1,200		133.3
Coolant Cone		Large		75,000		1,440		3,000		125.0

As you can see, Spring Salad is your most efficient choice. So go nuts (no pun intended - this time).