Gaming: Wild West Town - Tips and Tricks

Wild West Town is a hidden gem of a social game that is available through Facebook. It is set in the old west of American history complete with cowboys, Indians, and the Pony Express. It will keep you occupied for hours with its witty narrative and amusing quest lines. Every game has its tips and tricks and Wild West Town is no different. Listed below are some that will help you get the most out of your in-game time.

Crops:
• If you want to level up quickly, plant as much cotton as you can afford. Increase the number of plots after each harvest and you’ll soon be raking in the gold, supplies, and experience points.
• If you don’t have enough oil to level up using cotton then an alternative is to plant squash instead.
 • If you’re going to be away for a while cook a Big Lunch in the cookhouse. For two mutton chops, one pork chop, and one prize winning pepper your crops will become wither-proof. This meal also restores any withered crops to full health.
• Water your crops! It doesn't use any energy and it gives you experience points. Sometimes it will even give you some oil.
• Plant lemon trees in your orchard. They give supplies, oil, gold, and experience points!

Collectibles:
• Always collect water from your well. Having it in your inventory will speed up quests that call for it. You also won’t have to wait for the collection timer to reset in order to cook some recipes that require it.
• Remember to collect bank notes daily from the bank. If you do, you will soon have a nice pile of notes that will come in handy when you need to bypass tricky quest requirements.
• Oil is necessary to complete many tasks around town so don’t forget to build your Oil Derrick. You can collect oil from it every 3 hours. You can also get oil by planting certain crops and digging with the shovel. 

Livestock:
• Buy the maximum number of buffalo (10) as you can. They are expensive but are worth it. They give out 80 supplies when fed. This will allow you to quickly fulfill quest requirements that ask you to earn a certain number of supplies.
• Buy as many cows as you can. They give out 110 gold when fed. This will allow you to quickly meet quest requirements that call for you to earn a certain amount of gold.
• If you need gold, buy livestock! Most animals like the pig, sheep, and dog will sell for twice their purchase price once they have grown to adult.
 • If you need energy, buy horses! You can have a maximum of 10 in your town. Each time you feed one you will get two energy in return.

Gameplay:
• Don’t accept a neighbor’s help if you need to do the action to fulfill a quest requirement. If a neighbor does it for you it will not count for the quest!
• Don’t sell decorations! If you need room in your town then store them in your inventory. Quests will often ask for the same items repeatedly. If you have one in your inventory then pulling it out and placing it in your town will often satisfy the requirement.
• Don’t clear away all of the debris that shows up in your town. Set aside a small area for it to collect in. This will be helpful when quests ask you to clear a certain number of debris. You won’t have to wait for more to appear!
• If you have active quests do not collect from your town’s buildings until a quest calls for it. That way you won’t lose valuable game time waiting for a building to reset in order to satisfy a quest requirement.

These tips and tricks are by no means the only ones. If you have a tip or stumbled on a trick that will enhance gameplay, please share it! See you in the Wild West!

Gaming: Another Pet Peeve

Let me get this straight, Clipwire...

You put a new building in the game and associate it with a quest. That's cool. New things are always fun and shiny. What's not fun and shiny is the fact that you require the players to "hire" friends to work in the new building. Why is that not fun and shiny? Because of how the requirement works. If I have 20 friends and they're already working in another one of my many buildings then they cannot accept a job in the NEW building. The game doesn't allow it. So, that means to complete the building I have to persuade enough friends to start playing the game that I will be able to complete the hiring portion of the building quest and be able to complete the building.

How utterly ridiculous. Your game isn't that popular. I'm lucky to have 20 friends that have accepted my invitation to play. Out of those 20 perhaps 5 play daily. Maybe. And I can't hire them to work in my new building because they've already accepted a job request from me for a different building.

Change the requirement, Clipwire. It's great that you're adding new content. It's great that you're trying to get new players engaged in your game but this isn't the way to do it. Hidden, forced recruiting is a huge turn-off. If I want to invite a friend, I will (and have). It's a fun game and has a lot to offer. Emphasize those areas instead of trying to trick your players into recruiting. You'll find your daily and monthly active user numbers soar.

Gaming: A Pet Peeve

Don't make your player buy a duplicate of an item if they already own it. If the player owns an object and it is in storage allow the player to pull it out and place it in the game to fulfill all relevant portions of a quest, not just one portion. Once the item is placed in the game update the quest so that the requirement to buy one from the shop is fulfilled. If it's not the player has no choice but to waste gold buying a duplicate to fulfill it. If the intent of requiring the player to buy a duplicate of an object is as a money sink then mark the original object as broken. It will introduce a new object state in the game but this could be used to an advantage to soak up all the extra gold floating around.

Gaming: Déjà Vu and Social Games

Where is the innovative and cutting-edge gameplay and design? It seems like everything is a rehash/remake/sequel of something else. I understand that there are no new, original ideas any longer, but gameplay should not evoke a serious feeling of déjà vu. Yet that's exactly what I've been experiencing lately while playing various social games.
Paradise Life by Ice Break Games is FrontierVille wrapped in a tropical island setting. The gameplay is identical. Granted, there are small differences but they're not large or unique enough to differentiate the gameplay.
Now, EA is developing The Sims Social for Facebook. Based on screenshots posted to the game's Facebook page it looks like The Sims 1 has simply been ported. In fact, I believe I had some of the furniture shown in the screenshots in my Sims 1 game. I will reserve complete judgement until I've actually played the game, but the screenshots evoked a serious feeling of déjà vu. I'm now less excited for the game than I had been.

(Note: The links in this post are broken as of January, 2023.) 

FSU: Reaction to Industry News - LEGO Universe Developer, "I Will Never Make an MMO Again."

The first thing that popped into my head when I read this was, "How in the world did this guy get as far as he did in the gaming industry?" The second thing was to wish him luck in his latest endeavor because he’ll probably never get a job with an IP as big or as popular as Lego again thanks to what he stated in this article. It’s one thing to be dissatisfied and disgruntled but it’s quite another to splash it all over a gaming industry news site.