Hay Day

It has been two years since I have been on Hay Day and some things never change. It’s very addictive and keeps me busy! I had really been enjoying first Puzzle Craft and then Puzzle Craft 2 to the extent I was 142 on the leaderboard. That’s a real achievement for me.

There came a day where I kept getting an interfering game message every time I did anything on Puzzle Craft 2 . I wanted to get into the top 100. Chillingo responded pretty quickly when I contacted them and fixed the game ad interference which had broken all enjoyment of the game for me for two days. By than time I was on Hay Day again .

Hay Day has some good changes. I love being able to decorate the market stall, truck and house. I love the game boosters you can get now. They have listened and allowed some very effective ground expansions which come with some nice decorations. There is an animal sanctuary in the town but it takes forever to get the puzzle pieces. They have expanded the crops, trees and plants. All of that was lovely to discover because graphically it is a very good game and most of it is set up to work well.

Now the ad paper is full of tofu dogs, rustic bouquets and cloche hats. It’s silly. Somehow I manage to sell mine but you get sick of looking at them. You also get sick of running out of tomatoes, chillis, cream, butter and cheese. The dairy is impossible to keep up with. That part of the game is not quite right. I get rid of or ignore requests to hand over large quantities of things like sugar, butter, honey. Another storey on the honey tree would be lovely. It is those shortages which make it hard to move forward with a sense of satisfaction.

Unlike Puzzle Craft, the diamonds (runes equivalent) are very hard to come by and the pressure is to buy more. Puzzle Craft 2 had a good balance with those sorts of things. Hay Day works on a deficit model and then suddenly comes up trumps and it’s great. Needs to be more often.

The community is mostly very positive and collaborative but there are still the people who swarm in like locusts, grab what they want and offer no help.

I try and help those on levels under 20. I remember finding it really hard on Hay Day until I got to around level 14.

I am doing well and finding my place in the scheme of things. There are people on some very impressive numbers. I aim to just enjoy what is a mostly well thought out game which is still going strongly.

Puzzle Craft 2

It was a massive achievement to finish the Imperial Castle and I certainly felt the love from the game! It all then seemed to go nowhere and I thought I was up for looking for a new game. I couldn’t see anything I liked so I went back to Puzzle craft 2 to have a look. There were still awards to be completed. There was still the networking I hadn’t done and , to my surprise, I was on the leaderboard! I get on leaderboards for anagram and word games, and I jolly well ought to, but with “normal” games I sink into oblivion. There were the challenges for me. I could finish awards and I could move myself up the leader board. I have since made a lot more money, collected more influence and gems and am up to level 206. I networked on Facebook but gave no permission to access friends list at this stage. Why? In the past networking has meant I have had things stolen from games which is just as alarming as having things stolen in real life. Theft is theft. I also do not want messages sent from the game under my name when I haven’t sent them. That is rude. I don’t know if Puzzle Craft 2 is like that or not but I am not risking it at this stage. Meanwhile I can still do the Royal Challenges and that puts a whole new look on the game. You have limited moves to complete moves which is why you really need friends to help you. Sometimes the challenges have tried to force me to use friends but I just cancel them. Bullying is not encouragement. My game, my life, my device and my list of friends. I have now completed 2% of the challenges but don’t understand why whatever else you do on the board after you have met the challenge goes nowhere. You are making moves for no reason because you are not collecting the resources. Sometimes you can turn them into coins or maybe into gems but not often. Why am I collecting wheat or whatever into fresh air? That does not make sense to me. With challenges you have to keep your tools well stocked and invest in magic tools which is easy because you get plenty of Influence with the challenges. You then have to work on the village boards to keep the tools going. I am actually enjoying this part of the game. I can more or less do as I please. I am not hampered by lack of resources which are being saved for the castle building and I can invest in workers which makes it all easier. I can use all the villages if I want to and I can vary it with Royal Challenges. I am not only enjoying myself, I am moving up the leaderboard too. That’s a bit random , though, because I don’t know what the game is counting as points to move me up the board and so I don’t know what to focus on. Googling hasn’t informed me either. This game can be a bit light on help sometimes but  that forces you to think for yourself so it’s not all bad. I’ll be with the game for a while longer now, so good, I can just have fun and keep my brain working. Puzzle Craft 2 constantly changes and challenges you to think in different ways. I like that.

Puzzle Craft 2

Last time I blogged about Puzzle Craft 2 was 5th May and I said then it would take me the rest of the year to collect all the thousands of resources to achieve the next castle upgrade. 6000 of this, 8000 of that. Drudgery at its finest and a massive challenge. I’ve done it , though. I collected all those countless thousands of salt and water and who knows what. I was so over it. I got my castle upgrade and the game was kind enough to give me an easy upgrade for which I already had all the resources and now I am on a reasonable upgrade which I have nearly finished. On the other side of that huge amount of resource collection I am wiser, I do not like the game any less and I have been able to complete those next upgrades comfortably. I had to keep myself going through all that drudgery. Collecting coins and runes became important. I had to use coins to buy resources to bulk up my own collections which were pretty paltry. I had to use the runes to initially buy more coins to then buy more resources but about half way through I started buying more workers to increase the resource and assets output of the game. I have since celebrated my big achievement by paying cash to get 10 workers to invest in the game.

The game is very fair in that sense. It is not a game which bullies you for money. It is not a game which bullies you into a certain way of playing. It is not a game which will stop your progress because you don’t have cash to invest in it. It’s not a game which limits you. It pushes you into situations which force you to think your way out. You have to concentrate on strategy and deployment of game technique. There are no easy outs and no artificial ways of playing. You have to do your homework on  the game and work out how to best manage any given situation. It is important to change game play to suit what you are trying to achieve. Sometimes I was playing all the villages to get what I needed. Other times I am playing the last three villages to get the best returns. Currently I am back to playing all the villages to get access to the treasure chests. I have run down coins, runes and experience points with the castle upgrades. I need to build those up as well as collect what I need for the next castle upgrade.

Then there is the first seaboard village with the unattainable mandrake. As I blogged before , the official site tells you the mandrake is not available. So why have it? You can never use that village to get experience points is what it means. You can use it , though, to get resources and built up runes and coins. For me , it’s always been a good village to go to as well when I just want to play and be left alone and away from the frustration of the game. Everything can be done in an uncomplicated, satisfying way and then when I have had a break I go back into the thick of it. There is a lot to think about, to manage and then there are all sorts of boards to play. They all play out differently and that’s one of the reasons I don’t tire of the game.  Besides, I want to see where this all ends up…

Puzzle Craft 2

I am probably going to be there for the rest of the year trying to get the Royal Dock upgrade to my castle. Lessons in patience and tolerance. Trying to get thousands of these resources is hard work, time consuming, low reward and drudgery. It is a holding pattern which forces you to do things and then get some of the  awards in the game. I work all the villages. I have invested a lot more in tools from the magic portal. I have to build up my game coins to buy resources because you cannot easily make them. I have to focus on collecting gems to buy coins to buy resources. One top gamer I know tells me the worst thing a game can do to you is force you into a holding pattern. He says it sometimes happens when they are working on new additions to the game. Maybe. I am supposed to be getting 100 mandrake on one of my farms. Not going to happen. There is no mandrake in the game according to official information. I have to build another 91 buildings to gain the final building banner but there are no buildings to build. They are in the villages and there is no sign I am going to a new village any time soon. Meanwhile I have to play all the boards to manage resources so I have enough to make tools and then add to my Royal Dock progress. It may be a ploy to get people to abandon the game and go onto something else. Pity , if that is the case, and it would be a disappointing way for what has been a really rewarding game to finish. Most of the challenges on the boards are good but some just keep coming up over and over again. It really is time to get some new ones with all the new animals and plants. Being stuck in Royal Dock mode has added to my animal and plant knowledge. Some challenges make you learn these things and other times you have to get your research right in order to complete the challenges effectively. I am still liking the game or I wouldn’t be playing it. Bit over tapping endlessly to by the hundreds of items I can afford for the Royal Dock when I get enough spare coins. Tap , tap, tap, tap…yawn…can’t I buy 10 or 100 at a time? In perspective, nothing I have complained  about along the way in the game  is particularly relevant when you get to mind numbing mega collection of hay or dirt or wood. Can’t wait for the salt and water collection. It  will take so much longer because they are expensive to buy and you cannot make a lot from the boards to sustain thousands for the Royal Dock and then enough to make tools. There I was thinking I’d be lolling in my castle eating strawberries. 🍓🍓🍓

Puzzle Craft 2

I am easily amused. I love exploding rats with beetroots! Saves on tools and it’s just funny. Mostly I collect rats other ways but there are times where I just let the beetroots do the work for me. The game does have a sense of humour. I just about have all the animals, plants and birds. Four to go. Looking forward to the mammoth. The Entelodon was good value because I get more mounts and that increases horseshoes which then increases income. In some of the villages I just get game coins. Not a problem. The Entelodon is worth getting. Other things not so much. So why did I get a dodo? The game forces me to focus on the same animals and plants most of the time. The challenges tend to come up with the same animals and plants.  I then work out it’s easier to use certain animals, plants and birds because that is how you progress faster. It is not all bad. I really needed to use the strawberries on one board because it meant I could collect fruit in one tap and that meant I could still capitalise on that board which was proving to be quite a test of my thinking. I can set a board up for when the swamp is there and yes, for the rats. Sometimes the game intervenes and forces me to deal with it differently.

Right now I am more or less in a holding pattern just collecting things. I have 800 spice and 800 fish and 1200 iron to collect for the next castle upgrade. I got the other hundreds of things. That is just long and drawn out. You can’t get that many fish, spice and iron. I badly need the iron for tools. So on and on and on we go. Buying is too expensive so I just have to wait and collect these things slowly. Very slowly. It is not a reasonable ask. Getting 1200 bread or eggs was not hard. This is too slow. I am collecting runes for the new animals and plants too because  I can only pay for them in runes. That is not unreasonable because I have to work at it and the game helps me and then I have to help myself.

The image is from the first village. I always use that. I can build up resources, points and rewards with that village. It’s quick and straight forward but not without its challenges. Often I learn something in the game and the next minute I have to unlearn it and relearn a different way of doing something. Let’s hear it for neuroplasticity. The first village can build up some good skills without the big sacrifices of trying it out on another board in another village. Would love to be able to grow that village a bit more now I’ve progressed so far in the game.

I worked out I had to do a lot of decorating to complete one of the cups but I have no idea how I am going to get 50 weeds on one of the boards when not enough come in onto the board and then there is no way of collecting them other than using the magic wand but I’d be paying out runes or real money and still no guarantee of 50 weeds in one session. The advantage of that board , as it stands, though, is I get lots of practice in skills and I build up lots of resources. It does actually play a positive role in the game even though it’s a bit odd.

The game continues to challenge and divert but all this collecting is driving me a bit bonkers! Thank heavens for exploding rats and the other fun things in the game… like the alpacas which jump like Tigger. So cute.