Showing posts with label Handheld. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Handheld. Show all posts

18.1.14

Adieu, Animal Crossing: New Leaf



It's been a while since I've been so engaged in someone as intimately as you, Animal Crossing: New Leaf. But the time has come to move on to a past lover.

I was first introduced to Animal Crossing for Game Cube - albeit on an emulator. I didn't like it too much. The main character's face looked too geometrical. While browsing Reddit about five years later, I began seeing a lot of screenshots from Animal Crossing pop up on /r/gaming. It released June 9, 2013.

In late September, I was browsing Best Buy with M. Picked it up with no fanfare. My first venture into Acnl was exactly opposite that.



Lots of wonderful time with other ACNL-ers from the Reddit community.
This is a giveaway I hosted.

Kitty's House
Main character's entrance room. Having lost my game once,
I decided to keep names simple.

Entrance room. Lucky, my first favorite villager.

Right wing room - the Street Pass room for in-real-life passerbys to order from.
Contains most orderable DLCs, Gulliver items and most campsite items.
Right ring room, continued.

Back room. Cherry Blossom room featuring the minimalist series, blossom-wedding theme.
Tribute to an affectionate pair from my first game (lost during travel).
Cherry Blossom back room. Had really enjoyed collecting all ten bonsai in the set in my first game.
My in-real-life interest is still there, but I realize I'd need a lot more space and equipment than before.

Left wing room, featuring the sleek series and jazzy music room.

Left wing room, my cello corner. I like snacks. All the time.

Upstairs, featuring the astro series and a future-ish something something theme.
This is my banking corner, complete with modified matryoshka and piggy banks.

Upstairs, some of my favorite villagers, from left: Doc, Lolly, Peck, Cranston.

Upstairs, I really liked this series. The set comes the same shade of orange as the floor,
but you can customize just about everything to one degree or another.

Basement, snowmen series and two other favorite villagers. I got Rosie (right)
from a visitor from Reddit.  Purrl (left) came from my alternate town, to my delight.

Ruby (the white bunny) was the other gift from the same Redditor.

Bunny's House
My other character on the same game. Bunny's entrance room featuring the complete 7-11 set.
Exclusive to Japanese games. There's a thread on Reddit dedicated to utilizing
 a duplicating glitch and sharing otherwise unobtainable items.

Bunny's right wing, Rococo room. Created my own Matisse-style "La Bunny Danse"

Rococo set comes default brownish. Pink was okay I guess, but probably should have
 tried out the other colors too, in full. Looks nice with carnation touch.

Bunny's house, left wing. This was supposed to be a restaurant-theme, in line with the 7-11
commercial zone. Bunny's house is also located next to Retail, near the station, adding to the
commercial zone idea.

Incomplete jazz cafe lounge upstairs, Bunny's house. Other rooms even less completed.


Last character on my main ACNL game is Puppy. Used mainly to feature seasonal
series pertaining to what a dog would see on walks / experience at home. Entrance room was
Autumn harvest themed.


Shopping Strip and Museum Exhibitions

For my record, I did unlock the T&T Emporium, three levels of shops,
including an especially snooty fashion giraffe I patronize for the sake of completing the catalog
 (having had almost every item in game in your inventory at one point in time).

Also unlocked Katrina the Fortune Teller, which means completely
opening every shop possible on the strip.

Personal museum exhibit. Supposed to feature one of every flower, including hybrids I bred.
I keep forgetting which I've brought up, so there are a few missing, including the
 final hybrid I cross-bred two weeks ago - the purple pansy.

Complete gyroid collection, Set 1/3.

Complete gyroid collection, Set 2/3.

Complete gyroid collection, Set 3/3.
In Closing

 So what do I take from all this? Believe it or not, Animal Crossing: New Leaf is probably one of the most educational games I've ever played -- applicable to real life.

Went to the Science Academy in San Francisco. Was surprised I recognized a handful of the fish because I'd fished them up numerous times in game. Dab. Olive flounder. Dace. You name it.

Went to a creature-parts fossil-y collector's boutique in New York City. Recognized the tiger and goliath beetles immediately. Could put a name to that vibrant blue emperor's butterfly, and more.

Item names too. Gulliver is a traveling seagull in game that flies to various countries, states and continents. Pick stuff up to. I learned those stacking Russian dolls are called matryoshka. I learned about the Bocca della Verità, the Mouth of Truth, in Rome, Italy. I saw an electronic game machine on a recent trip abroad and recognized it, thanks to ACNL.

New Leaf also got me real interested in coffee. I'm generally not a coffee person, but working at Roost Cafe got me exploring the streets of New York, trying out various types of coffees before establishing, a few months later, that coffee's still not my cup of tea.

Complete 13-piece series: 36 out of 37
Gyroid Collection: 131 out of 131 
ACNL street passers passed: 300+ (adding those from lost game)

Alright, so I'm not a total completionist. I can't bring myself to sit around and
fish / catch bugs endlessly. Twice. And more. But the buck stops here.
Map of my town. One guy moved out recently. I've filled the right side with
public works, which seems to do well deterring newcomers from making me
run across the map to make my rounds.


Coming up...

The Essential ACNL Flower Hybrid Guide.
As I impart my know-too-much-about-this-game wisdom.


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10.12.12

The Denpa Men: They Came by Wave

The Denpa Men: They Came by Wave ("denpa" in Japanese, "electric waves") is a 3D game you can download from the eShop on the 3DS.



The story:
Denpa men "live" in electronic waves around us. With your wireless turned on - you don't have to be connected to the Internet - you can catch Denpa men by aiming at any floating on your augmented reality screen. You'll find different Denpa around you depending on the electronic waves around you.

Denpa you catch live in a house, ready to venture into dungeons and have adventures. Ethics of catching guys and forcing them to fight for your pleasure aside, I've found this to be a nice casual game. It encourages me to go out more often to find Denpa guys everywhere and is a nice pastime for longer commutes or waiting in lines.



The catch: 
Any Denpa you catch can be shared with others. If you found a really awesome / cute Denpa you'd like to share, you can put it's QR code online, and anyone scanning the code will be able to download a copy of the Denpa. As such, there are communities floating around with people sharing everything from QR codes for all sorts of special abilities to 'hacking' QR codes (basically changing the bits around manually).

I personally want to try catching more on my own first, since I think that's a big highlight of the game.

Anyway, for those interested, here's a forum with a list of every Antenna type in the game (don't worry about this if you haven't already started to game yet!)

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30.11.12

Harvest Moon Grand Bazaar - Girl Heart Events Schedule

Stalker snowmen everywhere.


I've made a spreadsheet for HM - Grand Bazaar. It includes:

a) Weekly heart event calendar - See what days and times you should visit which locations, keep track of your heart events with each candidate (cross out each event as you encounter them)!
b) Searchable recipes list - Search which fish you can cook, what recipes use strawberries, etc! If you do not see a complete list here, filters may have been applied - check this post to learn how to use filters to narrow down your search. :)
c) Crop tracker - Keep track of when you can expect to harvest your crop with a pre-made table.


 CSV file text if you wish to import the data yourself.
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14.11.12

Pocket Clothier Cheats, Tips, Tricks


Extended Idea Room Research Time

Strategy A)

Have only one register at the top floor (or whichever floor is least convenient for your poor shoppers). This will result in less "style" points for each shopper because most will have to wait longer to be checked out, but it will greatly increase the amount of time your employees work overtime.

(This is so conceptually evil TT.)

Unlike Cafeteria Nipponica, where customers automatically leave at the close of business, time in Pocket Clothier will freeze at 22:00 until the last customer leaves.

Strategy B)

Have two registers in your store. At 22:00, when there are still customers in your store about to check out, delete one of the registers after one of the customers holding a green basket enters the elevator.

When the customer(s) exits the elevator, they will keep walking in place in front of the elevator for a long long time. This allows your employees to keep researching well past when the last customer should have left.

Strategy B is best used when there are almost no customers left to check out, since I don't think those customers ever get checked out. 

 (Don't do this if you work retail in real life please! D: )

Drastically Increase Revenue



 After unlocking the Large Register, place the register and two employees with speed over 900 (not 9000) on a sparsely furnished floor to ensure the two employees will be the only two to constantly work the register (as to spending more of their time restocking etc).

After some time, you will get a notice saying customers really like the employees working behind the large cash register and are paying much more! You should then see customers paying, surprise, many times (not sure how to verify an exact increase) for their purchases.

Keep Employee Salaries Low

Early on, when an employee asks for a raise, you can turn that offer down at the cost of a loyalty point. You can earn that loyalty back using A) a loyalty manual you get from the Idea Room or B) agreeing to a raise later when the employee asks for a raise.

This means if you're at 10/10 hearts, you can reject a raise, lose a heart, and earn it back later. If you agree to the raise, you won't gain over 10 hearts anyway.

(This is such a terrible guide for real life managers-to-be. :sniffle: )

Elevator

In my opinion, the purchase of an elevator, if you don't care for using strategy B above, actually slows customers down, rather than make it faster. I've seen crowds stand in front of elevators for game-hours while the elevator ferries people to and from other floors.

 More to come as I discover...


Other Tips

I'm not going to reinvent the wheel -- namely, I'm not going to write a guide for this when others have already done so, so I am going to redirect this section to Happy Enna's blog.

Sneak preview of Happy Enna's pocket clothier posts!

 "Those are all the useful links related to Pocket Clothier on Happy Enna's blog.
Compatibility Guide - A spreadsheet and an image to help you match the clothes

Fixtures - Some fixtures unlock special items, some give good boost.
Shelves and Racks - The requirement and best position for shelves and racks.

Job List - You get some bonus if a matching outfit is recommended to your customer for their job interview.
Carry Over - Always good to know what gets carried over to your next playthrough so you can plan ahead.

Trophy List - Have you got all of them?
12 Month Sales Record - It's easy to make a profit but it requires a bit of planning to increase your profit every month for a year.

How to Earn Heaps - If you have trouble keeping up with the tax, then you want to read this. It's not about avoiding tax. It tells you the tricks to make lots of money easily.  :)

Enna's Thoughts - Auto Stock is Not Perfect - I just had to complain a bit when I had trouble dealing with tax. But, it's true, it doesn't make sense.  :p"  - Enna



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25.10.12

Harvest Moon: A New Beginning

Having been tracked from Cali to east coast, My Harvest Moon: A New Beginning 15th Anniversary edition game finally arrived yesterday!  Natsume announced a soft release, so they began shipping games out Oct 19th, instead of sometime Nov.

I like some of the changes they did make. Namely, picking up items automatically bags them, and (though I'm not able to yet), being able to change the placement of everything on your farm and customize your person's appearance, clothing aside. The giant crops are fun to grow, and you can get animals early again in the game.


Perhaps I'm spoiled by World of Warcraft level customer service and developer response (admit it - it's pretty top of the line stellar compared to any other developer-customer relationship out there of that scale).


In short, the tutorial / intros are sooo slow! I'd much rather explore on my own than spend 30 minutes being lead around (that wouldn't be so bad if the scenes shifted more quickly / people walked faster!). I also sort of don't like how streamlined the paths are. In Tree of Tranquility, you could walk on the grass on the other side of the fence and grab mushies and stuff, but here, you're only allowed on the path you're given, even if you're so sure your guy can definitely fit between that tree and rock. ~_~ Just a little frustrating. The 3D also seems to drain power rather quickly, so I play my 3DS docked.


Anyway, my greatest satisfaction comes from the plushie cow.

Enjoying new toys.

Although I realize I'm too impatient to play HM straight up, I love it anyway, and make do with what tools I have.
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Harvest Moon: Tale of Two Cities - Action Replay Item Code


Haven't used these for my game yet, but item hex codes for Harvest Moon Tale of Two Cities.

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Harvest Moon: Grand Bazaar - Action Replay Item Code


Was searching for the items list forever. Item hex for HM Grand Bazaar. This is for the mod code below. THIS WILL REPLACE THE ITEM IN THE FIRST SLOT, so make sure it's not valuable.

Inventory Slot 1 Mod Code

94000130 FFFB0000
1215B180 00000XXX <-- Item Value
2215B18A 000000XX <-- Amount (For the max of 99 items, hex code is 63.)
D2000000 00000000

Here's one I modified myself - this gives you 66 of the first item in your bag. Edit the hex '42' to adjust the number of items (if you just want fewer items).

94000130 FFFB0000
2215B18A 00000042
D2000000 00000000

For both, press Select to activate the effect.
Action Replay Item Numbers:

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10.10.12

Adventure Bar Story Recipes List

Adventure Bar Story Recipes List

Just started playing this game. Seems okay. Still prefer Kairosoft games and certain other mmorpgs that I may have gotten back into... TT But taking a peek after my curiosity was piqued via Happy Enna's blog.

Credit to Fade to Slack for compiling this list. I simply put it into a searchable spreadsheet for my, and other players', own use.
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16.8.12

Cafeteria Nipponica Cheats, Tips, Tricks, Recipes

Using Filters


Using filters can help you easily find the highest-stat-yielding ingredient/combos to help you max out dishes most efficiently. Using filters also easily allows you to sort by recipes based on dish, ingredients used, price and stats -- all on one page! You can use filters on this spreadsheet.

How to use filters: To sort by highest price or highest total stat,
select the dropdown arrow under the category and "Sort Z --> A"
How to use filters: To see dishes created only from Curry n' Rice,
"Clear" the selections and check Curry n' Rice, or sort alphabetically.

"Instantly" Max out Floor Employee Job


Change the target's job to a level 5 Chef of any kind and wait for two or three months to pass. Then, change the target's job to Performer. Within the next month, the target will rapidly max out the Performer job.

To make the most of this, switch the person's profession back to the same level 5 Chef position, and repeat to achieve your target job (for instance, Popular Staff or Kairo Staff).

Example of optimal employee rotation:

Rookie Chef Lv5
Trainee (Instant Lv5)
Chinese Chef Lv5
Manager (Instant Lv5)
Japanese Chef Lv5
Service Master (Instant Lv5)
Western Chef Lv5
Performer (Instant Lv5)
Expert Chef Lv5
Recipe Master, Popular Staff, Roller Skater, Musician or Ninja (Instant Lv5)
5-Star Chef Lv5
Recipe Master, Popular Staff, Roller Skater, Musician or Ninja (Instant Lv5)
5-Star Chef Lv5
Possibly ~ Kairo Staff Lv5

If you want to keep your costs down, and don't care to promote the employee past Performer, simply alternate only between your level 5 Rookie Chef and the Floor job.

This works because kitchen employees level up a lot more quickly than Floor employees.

Perfect or Near-Perfect Dishes


First, to understand how ingredients affect dishes, read Happy Enna's well-written post. In a nutshell, dish quality are determined two ways.

1) Price, Taste, Appeal  -- Depending on the dish, these usually have a cap, meaning some dishes cannot be better than grade A, B, C .. etc.

2) Health, Brain (Brilliance), Texture, Aroma, Appearance, Volume, Rarity, Charisma -- Increasing these generally increases Taste and Appeal EXCEPT when the ingredients used are incompatible with the dish.

A good way to max all stats is to go to this Ingredient Effects page where I've summed the totals, and use ingredients with the greatest total stat gain to boost up the lowest stats. Be sure not to leave Aroma and Appearance for last, as these are the most difficult to raise! When everything is mostly in or around the 90s, use Aged Cheese to top off the dish.



Starting the Second Game with High Income


Since dish stats and prices carry over, near mid to end-game, it may be a good idea to level up one of the starting dishes in prep for the next game -- if you think you might play a second game.

Price of Dishes
65 Chicken Bowl
65 Karaage
62 Veggie Stir Fry
55 Fried Rice
55 Shumai
52 Omelette
45Toast
42 Spaghetti
35 Seafood Soup
35 Udon
30 Salad
25 Rice

All dishes and their max price/scores can be found on this page highlighted in blue. Leveling a starting dish up to high price ensures that you can quickly start a new game with a lot of money coming in, provided you select the theme with the dish you leveled up.

Lower Stocking Costs Each Month


If you're going for a high score or just love making money, serve just one high-quality, high-priced dish, the monthly stocking cost of the dish is usually negligible so long as you're making more money per serving than the dish with a lower stocking cost. Customers do not care if you serve just one dish and will buy just as much food.

Conclusion

Kairosoft has not offered official "cheats", but I'm not sure these were intended to work the way they do - so tricks or cheats, whatever you want to call them.

If you don't mind registering for yet another website, a good beginner's guide is this one by Arcfox.
If you do mind registering, visit Enna's blog for more regarding Cafeteria Nipponica.

Questions? Other tips / tricks? Let me know!



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