We made the Macadamia Nut Balls from Food Theory!

It’s been a long while since our last food-related post, hasn’t it? There’s a lot of reasons for that, but I’m doing my best to get back in the baking/cooking swing of things.

We had bought all* the ingredients after watching the episode back in September, hoping to make them that week for a trip, but various circumstances both before and after said trip ended up delaying things quite a bit. We weren’t able to find Macadamia Nut Butter so we ended up using Peanut Butter instead, but hopefully we can eventually try the recipe with the proper nut butter.

The recipe is fairly simple and the idea of it was for a quick, easy, and healthy snack (though, not necessarily the cheapest– macadamia nuts are the most expensive nuts in the world after all, well, unless you live in Hawaii). I’m not much of a snack person usually, but sometimes I can be and I always enjoy the sweet/salty combo and the flavors were up both my husband’s and my alleys, so we figured, why not give it a try?

I think our biggest worries were:
-How long it could take the ingredients to combine, especially mixing manually.
-How much would stick to the bowl/how annoying would the bowl to be clean
-How the dough would feel as we rolled it by hands

And every single worry was actually alleviated. Mixing went very well– it didn’t take long at all and barely anything stuck to the bowl (and what did was very easy to remove with our hands).

There was nothing sticky left in the bowl and even the dough itself was actually fine to touch? It didn’t stick to our hands, it rolled perfectly, and it didn’t give me that usually iffy feeling I tend to have when mixing anything by hand. As someone who can be kind of sensitive to certain hand sensations, I was really worried and my husband thankfully offered to take up the rolling job, but it was actually fine for both of us, much to our surprise.

It didn’t take long at all to roll them out and we ended up with quite a bit.

And with how easily everything mixed together, we were able to clean it in no time as well after we finished. With the Macadamia Nut Balls placed in the fridge, it was now just time to wait for them to cool.

Finally, time had passed and they were all set:

I would say they definitely taste good, but are a bit salty and dense (I suppose that’s part of keeping it filling) which is likely due to needing to use peanut butter. It makes me want to try and make this again with macadamia nut butter even more. I think if we make these again, other adjustments I may do is add a few more macadamia nuts (or at least chopping them up or cutting them in half so they’re spread more) and maybe also add some dark chocolate chips which I think could balance the flavor really well.

Either way, pretty tasty and genuinely super easy to make. Really happy we tried them out!

Fashion Dreamer – In which the grind really hits (~40+ Hours of playthrough so far)

So, this post is written over the last couple of days or so as I really wanted to talk about things as I’ve played further since my first post. I will say the things that I think have me most frustrated with the game at this point can be summarized as the RNG, Grind, and lack of filters.

The RNG and Grind are kind of a combination thing where having to deal with one would likely be less frustrating than having to deal with both, but I’m going to start on the filters first.

Unfortunately, the closest you can get to more specific category filters, out of the official filters, is just organizing by categories altogether. It’s still not great. There’s no way to categorize items by color or type or look or anything which as someone who is not particularly fashionable, it makes some challenges quite a struggle.

There’s also an issue with having so many colors where some shades will not qualify even if maybe they should, such as certain pink shades I use not counting as pink, but red or purple. I still haven’t even figured out what colors count as neon– if it is palette related, I haven’t unlocked it yet.

And that’s where my issue with the RNG comes in. Getting additional colors, such as eye colors for example, are randomly given when making outfits for characters. You have 8 eye colors to start with unordered numbers. There are apparently dozens of eye colors and who knows when you’ll unlock them because you just need to hope you’ll unlock it after creating an outfit. I’ve only unlocked two so far and I’m at the point where so many requests just… keep repeating. There isn’t enough different dialogue and even dressing up other players’ muses can only do so much as they don’t change out too often and I don’t want to like… clog up someone’s mailbox as you can only have 100 at a time. And while this is absolutely a me thing, I stress a lot more when putting together a design for another player than for an NPC which also means suffering through the lack of filters even longer.

At this point, I’ve more or less given up on the idea of even getting any new physical customization options I want. If I could, I’d love darker brown eyes and/or a nicer ponytail (mainly for nicer bangs but I wouldn’t mind a ponytail version of some of the nicer wavy hairstyles). Bonus would be a darker brown hair color that isn’t the pure black that has more cool tones than warm tones, but I’m mostly okay with the hair color I have at the moment. I wonder if any characters even have a nice ponytail…

At the very least, sometime after you get a character to follow you, they may show up in your Showroom and request an outfit around one of your brand pieces which is pretty neat.

But the actual rough grind has nothing really do with influence or follows. That isn’t to say there aren’t rewards for that still– I did end up hitting Diamond Rank at 100K Likes which unlocked some new patterns (still need to use keys to unlock them though) which was a surprise, but I’d be even more surprised to see any rank above diamond. I guess we’ll see though. Supposedly there’s Purple at 1 million?? So there is still some long haul for me, but at least it’s something I feel I have more control over.

Regardless, the real grind is all about your Brand Level which goes up to 200. And it just gets slower and slower. It’s times like these where it makes sense that this game lets you go online even without having Nintendo Online.

It takes more experience to level up, item costs are higher to make (Rarity 10 items cost 500K to make– you’ll be needing to spend around 700K or so for those last sets of levels), and just going around making outfits just… doesn’t do enough. You’re essentially really hoping tons of people like your stuff or to get lucky with Bingo and/or the Gachapon.

Bingo should be pretty obvious as to why as some of those multipliers are crazy, but the chance of you actually getting a multiplier is pretty low. I’m like 90% sure a person I saw at 160+ must have gotten one as they only had about 40K likes so I’d be surprised if they earned enough points otherwise unless I’m missing something obvious. Even a level 200 person I saw had just 140K Likes (while I currently had over 200K at this point– as I get closer to finishing this post, I’m at over 400K) so whether it’s them getting very lucky or me missing something, I don’t know.

As for the Gachapon, that’s how you don’t have to pay e-Points for patterns as long as you have some you earned from those. In this case, you’re hoping for high rarity items which would give more experience without paying, but I have yet to get a single super rare item. I’ve gotten Silver only a handful of times? Which… is a really low rate and many of the items aren’t even in the gachapon anyway.

And that’s what I mean when the RNG and Grind is rough because this is the part of the game I’m stuck at as I desperately try to earn more so I can unlock the Dresses I want to at some level I’m not even sure of. The repetitiveness gets tiring and the only real bright spot is when I get a cute mail notification of someone wanting to make an outfit for me. Some of my favorite outfits some people have sent:

I ended up making two more muses– one based off my site mascot and one based off my husband:

I don’t really have any plans to use either, but I had fun making them.

Going back to what I was saying before though, each of the issues kind of aggravates the others. I wouldn’t find the grind so tiring at this point if the filters were better and there was an undo button, but right now I have to spend so much time scrolling (even with the Filters) and reading each name to figure out what kind of fabric something is or guessing at what may count and thus, miss out on a heart or two because I just don’t know and there’s too many items for me to memorize everything that works and doesn’t and I don’t really want to waste my personal filters with that.

Similarly, I don’t think there is any good reason to lock physical customization behind character gift RNG. Animations? Fine. Those along with Keys, Tickets, and new characters seem fair to me. Patterns are kind of frustrating, but considering all the RNG and grind with them, I’m not surprised. But eye/hair/skin colors? Different make-up types? That’s a lot more frustrating.

As it is, I recently realized you can only have up to 5,000 Items saved. And I don’t even know where to start in cutting some out, but it’s made me want to be a lot pickier with what I like. (Since taking thing screenshot, I’m past 4,000 now. Really going to have to get that all organized soon enough)

I think the rough part is, like with the Style Savvy games, it’ll become an issue of having items for helping characters vs items you actually want, but it still feels rather small after how big Styling Star’s inventory space was. I understand that is a different game, even if Syn Sophia is behind both series, but you’d think the Switch version would be able to have more than a 3DS game. Besides the fact that part of the entire point of the game is liking each other’s stuff which is the best way to help people earn Points, you need to constantly be making items to get your brand points up, so you’ll be making a lot of the same thing in different colors at times and it just… feels like a bit of an oversight. Speaking of oversights, I also feel like the game has been more laggy the more I’ve played/collected things which uh, also isn’t great.

I’ve seen people say how at least you can always remake your own items, but it just gets so expensive and I really wouldn’t want to do that personally.

More than anything though, I feel like the word I’d use to best describe how I feel playing the game right now is “discouraged” which… isn’t really great, especially for something that’s only been out for a few days. The cost jumps up so quickly and I’m not entirely sure if I progressed too quickly or it just was considered to be a slow burn, but it’s really unfun to suddenly need to spend 500K to make certain items. Not all items have patterns you can earn otherwise and don’t even get me started about the amount of items I still have locked. I’m trying to just get items I really really like since I’m not sure if I’m supposed to unlock them someway or not and as you get items that cost 60 Keys to unlock, they really do become a rare commodity. I really wish I would get more keys instead of Lucky Coins I won’t even use because I rarely take photos, let alone any with the vending machine items to need more than like… 1-2 of each item.

Despite my discouragement and some of the more negative focus of this post, t’s not like I’m not enjoying the game. I still am and I really like it a lot– I think the biggest problem I’m facing is the grind is mostly out of my control. What I can do personally earns very little and the main ways are up to other people and RNG and that’s not fun. Especially when you get the exact same request multiple times in a row.

I know some people are disappointed with the lack of areas and not having a proper store and while I wouldn’t mind if the Showcase was bigger to BE a proper store, I do enjoy the more relaxed pace of not necessarily needing to buy up items and manage an inventory. That was always my least favorite part of the Style Savvy games and I enjoyed dressing up everyone and customizing stuff more.

As for the areas, we have a lot more room to roam in each of the areas we have so I can’t really be too surprised, but I do wish there was more to do in each area. There’s very little character interactivity outside of the Camera poses which I’m just not really interested in. Maybe more could be added in the future, but other than talking to characters/making them outfits, liking items, and taking photos at little spots in each Cocoon (or the Photo Egg), that’s… really it.

But as I said before, the game is very much focused on the dress-up portion and there isn’t really much for people who preferred the management side.

On a positive note, I did finally figure out how to look up players so here is my friend ID!:

The font color is… certainly a choice. If you’re having trouble reading it, it’s: jwn37pAXmp

I ALSO FINALLY GOT A PHOTO WITH THE CUTE BEAR:

And I’ve been hoping to try and work on my own categories to help with the filter issues, but the problem is that I still don’t always know what will and won’t count for certain requests which is why more official filters are so needed. You can also set only 32 items to each personal categorized list which… I wish there wasn’t a limit for your lists. I know there are 10 pages so it’s 320 total, but I guess I just wish I could scroll certain lists so I could have a bunch of different things because I can’t think of any good way to split up items in the first place.

Regardless, Updates are planned for the game and while I have mixed feelings on it (I’ve long since been tired of drip feed updates– New Horizons and Splatoon pretty much broke my patience with that kind of thing), I’m hoping that means better filters and increased inventory limits will come as I can’t really enjoy more clothing being added until some things are adjusted.

Anyway, after too many days, I finally unlocked the Witch dress at level 172. I also managed to get the eyecolor I wanted from one of the salon people. I still don’t have it technically, but since I rarely change physical stuff, hopefully I won’t accidentally remove it.

I think at this point, the only things that will be keeping me from playing more is the limited space of Showrooms (The room is so big and I get they want space for NPCs to come in, but there’s no reason just the front can’t be reserved for that and there is still al ot of space) and lack of filters. I’ll likely be playing in Offline mode now that I’ve hit level 200 to try and level up NPCs and get my Likes up until I hit 1 million. (I’ll probably just edit this post once I do unless I feel like I have a lot more to say).

The small showroom size still drives me crazy between the fact that items can be blocked, you can’t go under hanging items, and how big some items are (plus the amount of variety when you can place so little). I’ve done my best to make sure all items can be reached, though, some need to be reached from behind.

Anyway, to celebrate hitting level 200 (and getting this post up), I did this template I found on Tumblr by alinatron-mewtube.

Of course, right after I put that together I updated my Showroom again so uh, oops:

Anyway, onward towards 1,000,000! And whatever the Max NPC levels are because at this point I have over at 30+ and I’m scared. (Edit: There does not seem to be a maximum, but NPCs cap out at level 13 so I’ll just be getting them all to that now).

Fashion Dreamer is finally here!! (First Impressions after ~11 Hours of Gameplay)

As always, if you prefer videos, you can check out my playthrough here.

While it’s still technically a couple of days for the USA, with the power of timezones, it is officially out in Japan!

So, first thoughts shortly into the game:
-I knew the Gachapon would be coming, but it’s still kind of annoying.
-It’s disappointing that body type is tied to height. I feel like 6 is closer to my character’s body type but it’s a bit too tall :/ No where close to the tallest, but still taller than a lot of the characters where I feel a bit awkward as someone who is not tall.

-It’s also disappointing that some items are body type-specific– essentially only accessories and a few other things can be worn by both Body types.
-Eye colors are super limited?? I think you may unlock more colors but it’s just a really odd choice considering?
-Nearly every hairstyle has some kind of variation except the ponytail :|

At this point, I’ve played over 11 hours of the game and in all honesty, I am itching to get back to it. I think there’s something definitely addictive and fun with it, but I don’t think it’ll necessarily appeal to all fans of the Style Savvy series.

The game itself is very simplistic which I think some people may enjoy while others will find off-putting. Your own character’s story is mainly about connecting with NPCs and expanding your influence. That said, the top score needed is 10K and then the Credits will roll.





Sir, that is a very impassioned speech, but the game hadn’t even been out for 12 hours yet…

I had over 20K by the time I finished stream and ended up hitting 10K before I even saw the last Cocoon or finished a single character’s story. I feel like I barely made a dent.

The bigger part of the game comes from the crafting/pattern system and growing your brand which has its own level system and seems to possibly go up to nearly 150 going by furniture unlocks. That said, this gets fairly grindy as you level and if you are not able to play online, it is ludicrously slow. There is going to be a certain point though, even online, where if there isn’t enough new players the amount of currency you get will just be too slow.

Essentially, outside of people liking your outfit or clothes at your showroom (and visiting it in general), the only way to get points yourself is from making outfits for characters and the Bingo game where you earn 12K for one Bingo (unless you get Bingo like immediately and then it’ll be doubled) and can earn more based on multipliers for slow (Which based off how fast is, I can only assume it’s for being so unlucky, your next pull can only be Bingo) or getting more than one Bingo at a time with getting 4 Bingos at once being 100x. I have yet to get a single multiplier.

The points are used to make patterns of items if you do not actually have the pattern onhand. You earn the patterns themselves from the Gachapon and you earn Gachapon tickets from helping NPCs (Non-unique stuff also earned from helping NPCs: Color Palettes, Bingo Tickets, some points, Keys which are used to unlock certain patterns, Coins you use to unlock new stuff in the photo mode that seem to be one use?). You are not guaranteed to get Gachapon tickets from them. I’m not entirely sure how it all works honestly, but the better you do, the more you get. Regardless, I think I maybe got like… 60 Gachapon tickets total in my 11 hours of playing and I received tons of repeats and not many unlocks so I’m grateful that you can unlock things from leveling up your Brand too because the gachapon kind of sucks.

But that also means you’ll generally be using that currency to make more variations of outfits. This is also important because NPCs will sometimes ask for things that, sure, you might find, but may be easier to make such as a “unique” outfit in different colors (Usually things made by player brand) or “vivid” items which refer to items make with the Vivid Color Palette (Hope you unlocked it) or “Rare”/”Super Rare” items that have to do with what level you unlocked things or Gachapon rarity or something– so far it seems to be whatever the highest number is on Stars (Blue Stars are items by other people, Red Stars are items by you).

Speaking of unexplained situations, the filter is incredibly basic and I can’t tell if I’m missing something or if it’s an awkward translation issue, but it SOUNDS like I should be able to filter more? Like it’ll tell me to look into the “Sandals” or “Shorts” category and I sure can’t find those so I’m stuck going through every Shoes and Bottoms because I can’t find a way to narrow down sooner. This only gets worse by the encouragement to like everything (as it could help with NPC Tasks and it helps others get points) because you’re trawling through items with no way to categorize more than what part of the body they go on.

I would love to sort by color, by fabric pattern/type, style type (Cool/Cute/Elegant, I genuinely don’t know), by specific types of shoes– even half the kind of search we get from Style Savvy and if there IS a way to do so, I have no clue how and as someone with not tons of fashion knowledge, it’s killing me, but it’s also not fun to have to spend 10+ minutes scrolling through hundreds of items reading each name to see if it mentions if it’s the thing you need for a task.

The NPCs, however, are very forgiving. I’m not entirely sure it’s possible to fail a task. I usually get at least 2/3 hearts for most tasks. Every 3 hearts you get, the next time you meet an NPC, you’ll get a level-up event. These vary in the task, but can be anything from: Matching something for the character (whether an outfit piece or like… their hair color), them copying your outfit (or complimenting it if they can’t), them styling you an outfit, them bringing a new NPC into the fold that you can meet (No cutscenes though– just… Hey, my friend will be coming now), or them giving you a new item/pattern/color/character customization option (I’ve gotten poses and lips so far).

The storylines are somewhat basic, though, are there tied to a character’s personality. I’m not sure what the maximum level is (I think the highest I have an NPC right now is 7 or 8?), but essentially there are three things you need to hit for all three hearts:
-Their Wishlist Want (Could be anywhere from a coat to super rare beige loafers)
-Colors (Do they fit the character? Do they go well together?)
-Making a lookit in the first place

Other factors are trends (There is a trend board that updates in real time. Despite it saying ‘tomorrow’, I saw it update multiple times as I played) and matching those can also add to your score and how much the NPC likes them.

I generally just do my best and it seems to work out, but you could probably min-max it to unlock things faster as you do need to hit three hearts to level them up so if you get less than three, it’ll take at least one more Lookit before you can level them up.

The Cocoons unlock as your Influencer rating grows, but beyond taking pictures (The Photo Egg templates also change per area) and changes in what items are available in the Gachapon, there’s not really anything to do at any of them.

Each has an area where you can check the trends and top items though plus a unique person who can suggest a look for you (Mainly just make-up and hair color), but I would just pick whichever you like the aesthetic best and hang out there. That said, the music does get repetitive after a while.

I feel like some NPCs may be more likely to show in certain ones, but that might just be me or even because I played in Online Mode for the majority of my playtime which mixed in players alongside the NPCs. Considering the NPCs are still there and you can grow your influencer rating and earn more Likes to earn more to use on Patterns, it feels there’s little reason to not play in online mode. This costs really do get expensive– right now, I have patterns that cost 160K to make. I can only imagine how much higher that cost can get.

Speaking of repetitiveness and NPCs, the voices are… interesting? It’s not even so much the delivery (I think the Voice Actors did fine), but the voices feel randomly attributed and who may be speaking it may not fit the character at all. Similarly, you have no input on your own character’s voice so uh, hopefully it sounds okay? The voice lines are also super random and very short to the point where they feel jammed in rather than cohesive.

I would say my personal favorite parts of the game have been getting Lookits from other Players (I’m still too shy to style anyone myself though) and the Showroom.

I’m not sure if there is a limit to how many Lookits you can receive. I kind of hope not, but I wouldn’t be surprised if so. I always liked interior Decorating on a more simplistic scale, so I really love the Showroom a lot, but:
-You’re limited to 25 Clothing items that can be shown off in total in your Showroom. You will hit this very quickly.
-You can only have two mannequins.
-The space is genuinely just really small in general and you can’t put items under hanging items.

I still managed to make something I like and am happy with, but I am already struggling when it comes to deciding what I should put out as I earn more clothing items I really like.

That said, there’s little reason to do the Showroom beyond earning some points when you update it and helping other players. There’s no way to view all items a player created. If they didn’t put them in the Showroom and/or aren’t wearing them, you’re unlikely to see them unless you catch an NPC with their styled outfit on and even then, it may not be anything that NPC is wearing.

The game loop more or less boils down to:
-Walk around current Cocoon room you’re in and style any NPCs you see while also making sure to like their outfits to get new items (If playing online, also like Player’s outfits to earn more items).
-Go to wherever the Trending stuff is and like any items that you haven’t liked before that are on any of the Boards (Whether it be the popular items, current recommended, new, or Lucky Color stuff). Also still keep an eye out for NPCs for the above.
-Maybe make some items if you feel up to it and have enough currency or have a NPC Wishlist request you know you can make.
-Repeat.
-You could also visit some random Showrooms to change things up though and see what others may have put out… to like more items.

It’s very simple and as mentioned, the storylines themselves are rather basic. Despite that, I still enjoyed playing (I streamed for 9+ hours on what was supposed to be a ‘short stream’ particularly because I had noticed the gameplay loop was rather small from my playthrough earlier that day, but I still didn’t want to stop. I felt inclined to keep going) and am looking forward to getting back to it. I’m not sure how long I’ll be super excited to play (As it is, I am worried the cost of pattern items as I level up more may eventually burn me out– it feels like a lot to earn), but I’m at least enjoying it for the moment and I see a lot of promise even if things feel a bit basic.

That said, if you played the Style Savvy series more for the Store Management than the Dress-up feature, this game won’t really be for you. There’s still the puzzle aspect of requests, but that’s really it. This is very much it’s own game despite the similar style.

Anyway, if you have any questions, let me know!

And to finish this off, some of the outfits I had as I played through:



There’s a few dresses I’ve gotten that I REALLY hope I can get the pattern unlocked for so I can make them pink… Fingers crossed.

Disney Dreamlight Valley – Showcase Overview and Thoughts

I initially planned to write something under my last post, but I figured I’d just make a new post to fully talk about each thing. There’s still some time before it starts today (I’ll be writing as I watch) so before that, I want to talk about some of the things that got announced leading up to this.

I know I did talk about the initial announcement so I’ll mainly be talking about things after that and before the showcase.

The first thing that was announced were the hosts– I kind of expected it’d be the community managers of the game so I was surprised to see it’d be Kit and Krysta who you may remember from hosting Nintendo Minute. They’ve since gone on to have their own Youtube channel and Consulting Company. I didn’t know they played Dreamlight Valley, but honestly, it’ll be nice to see them hosting something again. I do watch their new videos from time to time, but still surprised Nintendo ended Nintendo Minute (though, Kit and Krysta left Nintendo anyway but).

Second, there will be codes given for three new items: A Balloon Arch, 2 Balloon Pillars, and Mickey Ears. These are mainly just color variations, but based off the Backpack (we’ll get to that), I’m guessing this is the ‘Celebration’ set.

Third, they confirmed what would be included in the ‘A Rift in Time’ expansion:

  • New Friends
  • New Biomes
  • A Whole new adventure

This does confirm there will be characters exclusive to the Biome, though, it still doesn’t necessarily confirm which ones just yet. I don’t want to assume that the characters shown in the key art are linked to this (Despite ‘A Rift in Time’ literally being on it), but the wording does make me wonder if maybe the Expansion won’t be as optional after all story-wise.

That said, the main game’s story IS complete. It had the credits roll. The Forgotten storyline was resolved for the most part (There’s still the Treehouse looking the way it is and Skull Rock which has been being led up to…). The main things missing are some of the Milestone gifts such as the Partner Statue and Community Designed Animal Companion.

But the cliffhanger says there is more to the story. Both with Skull Rock as hinted through the Forgotten’s Questline after finishing the main story and the Jafar teaser after the credits. Even outside that, there’s a lot of loose ends with all the Atlantean stuff and the Sunlit Plateau Mines. I’m also really wondering what will be included and if any will end up part of this Expansion after all.

It’s not like I haven’t paid for expansions before– that’s not really the issue, it’s more teasing something directly in the main game and then saying it’s an optional expansion puts a bad taste in my mouth. That said, we still don’t know if this will be the case and well, we should find out more details soon enough.

It was confirmed that the 2024 Roadmap will be shared during this (and hopefully more on what to expect for the rest of this year beyond the full release) and alongside various statistics, we received a new code: DDVBPACK which gives us the Celebration Backpack:


(As an aside, there was also a Halloween code released before all these announcements: HALLOWEENBUNDLE. I still add new codes as they release on my helpful tips page)

The final reason/announcement we received before Showcase day was a confirmation that we would be learning about the next free update as well which seems to include Jack Skellington at the least. I’m curious if it’ll be a new Realm or if he’ll just have his own way of showing up. There’s also the ice skating rink. Both were shown in the initial trailer about the showcase, but still nice for the confirmation they will be free. Of course, that lends even more to Rapunzel, Eve, and Gaston being part of the Expansion after all.

Regardless, it is officially Showcase Day and it’s finally starting, so here we go.

The stream was kicked off with the initial teaser trailer plus out first code: DDVBALLOON – Balloon Arch and Pillars.

We got a preview of Jack Skellington, though, no other Nightmare Before Christmas characters were shown or hinted to, plus confirmation that the next Star Path would be “Winter-themed” with some of the items available being Belle’s Winter outfit and an Ice skating rink. My Frosted Heights is pretty packed at this point, but I’ll definitely try and make some room. Belle’s Winter outfit is also one of my favorites of hers so it may be the first time there’s a costume I’m genuinely excited about. I do wish the hood was down instead of up though.

We then got to see the Road Map:

Essentially, with the full game launch out of early access, we’ll be getting Jack Skellington and Multiplayer (So, December 5th)
Late Winter: Monsters Inc. Realm. Mike and Sulley were confirmed even though only Mike was shown. I wonder if we’ll see Boo too.
Early Spring 2024: “vibrant new Villager”– maybe Daisy considering the picture?
Late Spring 2024: Mulan realm.
Summer 2024: Tiana + new recipes
Every new update will bring a new Star Path which isn’t really surprising as that’s kind of how it’s worked anyway.

Multiplayer:
Besides touring around each other’s valleys, you can:
-Give/exchange materials
-Visit each other’s Scrooge’s shop.

Hopefully this can help me knock out the items I’m missing. It does mean you can’t give items though which stinks as I would love to give people copies of older items they may have missed out on. I’m also looking forward to helping friends out with my material hoards.

We then got to hear more about the DLC– Eternity Isle is made up of three biomes: Ancient’s Landing (where you’ll meet Eve), Glittering Dunes (where you’ll meet Gaston), and Wild Tangle (where you’ll meet Rapunzel). The map is similar in size to the original Valley map, you can decorate the biomes the same way you would in the main valley (and the island has an entirely separate point counter).

The Biomes will contain new plants and ingredients (which we can take back to our valley to place as well). The biome Critters will be Capybaras, Monkeys, and Cobra Snakes. Some of the new ingredients are Strawberries, Cinnamon, and Fantasy Figs.

I don’t really have a complaint with the Biome sizes or anything. That’s honestly a lot (and I was expecting $10-$15 for one new biome). I am still kind of bothered with the characters they’re tying to this due to one being teased very early on, and another being heavily tied to a character in the main game, but Realms are still free and plenty of great characters are still coming to the main game for free as well. I’m assuming they are tied heavily to the story and it’s why it needed to be these characters, but I really hope we’ll get Flynn/Eugene much sooner than it took us to finally get Rapunzel.

Eternity Isle will apparently be made of three chapters with the first (Welcome to Eternity Isle) launching December 5th. The second part will be launched in Spring 2024 (The Spark of Imagination), with the final part (Treasure of Time) launching in Summer 2024.

This is definitely a minority opinion, but I would’ve preferred the expansion not happen until Summer 2024 then have things split up like this. I really don’t care for the split-up situation and considering this isn’t even going to be in Early Access anymore, it doesn’t feel like there is a good reason to do this either beyond drawing out the story and playtime.

The other kind of off-putting part for me is that Jafar and the new tool were already hinted at before the Expansion announcement and it just feels weird to have Jafar tied to an expansion then instead of part of the main game story. I’m in no way saying the Expansion doesn’t look like it’s worth the price or anything, but just that the content itself being tied to it feels a bit questionable to me I guess. The tool, for those who may have forgotten, was teased on one of the early roadmaps as well so this has clearly been in the works for some time, but it just… shouldn’t have been there if it’d be a paid DLC thing I guess.

The tool looks really neat and I’m excited to see all the ways it can work with puzzles and am already wondering how it ties into places in our existing valley (which again, makes it being a paid expansion still feel kind of surprising to me) such as the interesting door in the Forgotten’s Castle…

We’ll also be getting special machines we can craft that can automate stuff such as Watering and Cooking and, kind of like with Ursula’s transformation in her dream bundle, really feel like stuff that shouldn’t be tied to a paid DLC concept.

Other miscellaneous new features were the confirmation of more cooking recipes (finally) with some confirmed to be Poutine, Latkes, Biryani, and Arepas. Also, a Strategy board game you can play with villagers? Player with the most coins wins. I’m pretty terrible with these, but at least it seems like it’ll just be for fun.

Plus, the other code: DDVHEADBAND. It wasn’t working until like… several minutes after the Stream ended, but seems to be working now at least.

Finally, the game is coming to Apple Arcade, which I guess is as close to ‘free-to-play’ as you can get considering it’s just thrown into the Apple Arcade subscription. It’ll apparently include both the base game and the new expansion– A Rift in Time. No Star Paths or Premium Shop will be in the game (so will you just have the items in Scrooge’s Shop?).

And can I just say how much I hate that they can do versions like that for Apple Arcade, but still have to do microtransaction-y stuff for everything else? Apple Arcade is not that much and even in the long run, they will likely finish the game and be able to get everything for much cheaper than those stuck with the microtransaction-mess that games are lately and it just… why.

I think right now the big thing is that there’s not really a good excuse for the Premium Shop and/or the Star Path when we’ll be having more full expansions (thus in the $30 range) and the game will continue to cost money. The Premium Shop is still awful with the rotation system (just make everything always show up…) and the Star Path brings way too many limited items into the fold.

Personally, I’d rather see both gone and Moonstones just be able to be used for old Star Path/Founder’s Pack/Event items and stuff. Including like… the 1-week Crocodile and other code stuff too. Other options are just the ability to get certain things sooner, but still being able to earn them in-game.

Despite my concerns, I really do think the Expansion looks great. I just wish everything felt more balanced.

Happy Halloween! Let’s talk about the Ghost Town Pumpkin Festival

For those who have not heard of it before, it’s a free to play game where you can carve Pumpkins and roam around as a Ghost. It’s been going for a few years now and this version even brought along a Supporter’s Version which you can pay $2 to also have cute hats to put on your Ghost.

I’ve been participating every year, but this is the first year I’ve gotten to play with friends in addition to my usual solo adventures and it was a lot of fun.

This year also added in new activities such as the Haunted Hayride and a Maze and it was just genuinely a lot of fun. It’s still going for about a week, but since today is Halloween there is a Skeleton Dance Party.

Honestly though, every year it’s just such a blast and it’s so cool seeing how creative everyone is. I’d highly recommend checking it out and I can’t wait until next year. Below you can find some of my other photos through the years (and some pictures of my pumpkins!). Most of the group photos were taken by Diggeh or other random players in the game.

At some point, maybe I’ll set up a general overview page with the photos and all the Pumpkins I’ve done over the years :)

The Achievement Situation is still a Problem

I last wrote about the Achievement situation over 8 years ago and while I’d love to say I’m surprised it’s still as bad as it is, I’m unfortunately not. Just disappointed.

The short version of this is that Gameplay shouldn’t be locked by Achievement progress. If you have a mode that is unattainable or near impossible without getting all the things, it’s especially frustrating. Similarly, if a large part of your content is a customization-related thing (whether it be a wearable or decorative cosmetic), then those also shouldn’t be link to achievements. Most people who want to do these things do so for the difficulty/sense of achievement itself or score-based reasons– I just want to be able to access all the main gameplay for a game I paid for in the first place.

Achievements can exist on a page or be a little title or whatever, but I’m… so tired of getting so close and falling short because of things being locked and not even getting a chance to try.

I was really excited when it seemed like Super Mario Bros. Wonder had made it so the coins and flag poles this time were just tied to the stage pages and a little medal number next to your name. Only to find out there are two levels locked to getting all those done. Again.

I don’t care about all the score-based collectibles– I’m much more a trinket person, but I really wanted to get all the badges, Wonder Seeds, and do all the levels and it sucks to end up hitting a hard stop on that goal because it’s something I know I won’t be able to do.

It took me so long to complete certain levels, just trying over and over in hopes that maybe one time I’d finally get the timing right, but my hands are too small to easily hit all the buttons I need and I ended up really hurting my hand by the time I finally got it with just one second left. It’s not a fun or satisfying feeling, all I felt was pain and relief it was over, but I didn’t feel successful or good about it because I don’t get any joy out of playing solely for a challenge. I just want to experience all parts of a game/story, but stuff that feels really hard for no reason doesn’t really do it for me.

And they add in things like the ghosts to help you or Yoshi and Nabbit who can be invincible (unless it’s poison/lava/etc. because too bad then otherwise it’d sure help a lot), yet still end up cutting game content off to silly arbitrary trophies.

It just sucks to have put so much time and many attempts in, even to the point of pain, and be told “No, you still don’t get to try all the courses because you didn’t get this extra coin” or “You fell too short on the pole, too bad”. I’m not sure if I’ll try again, but it ended up making a game I had been enjoying a lot, despite some frustrating levels, finish with a bitter taste in my mouth. Like why I even bothered if it was just going to mean I once again fell short.

This kind of thing just constantly blows my mind because there seems to be such a disconnect on casual vs hardcore games and it’s not that black & white. I love collecting all the things, I love doing all the levels and stuff, but I don’t care about a lot of the ‘extra’ stuff like bonus coins or hitting certain timers at the end. But I also want to have fun and not have to practically break my hand smashing buttons to get the exact height and speed I need to complete these things.

To full completionists, I’d be a casual gamer. To casual games, I’d be a completionist/hardcore gamer. I don’t fit into either box really. But more and more, I miss when achievements were just a silly little pop-up or an extra bonus to your score and didn’t really matter in the grand scheme of thing. They were for those players who wanted more of a challenge without sacrificing/locking gameplay for those who maybe struggle a bit more.

And I hate that not only does it keep happening, but that people rarely see the problem in the first place.

Disney Dreamlight Valley – Interlude and Recent News Thoughts

So… quite a lot of news dropped today. I think most people are happy from what I’ve seen thus far, but I definitely can see some people being upset too.

For those who haven’t read the article yet, the short version is:

  • Game leaves early access December 5th. Free-to-Play will not be happening just yet despite the leave of Early Access.
  • A full expansion happening. Costs $30.
  • When Early Access ends, so will Founder’s Packs. Replaced with the Standard Version of the game + 5K Moonstones ($40), the Cozy Edition (only physical option, $50, comes with some exclusive pets and taunts me so), Gold Edition ($70)– Comes with 15,000 Moonstones, 3 Exclusive items (A Capybara pet, special house, and some outfits), and includes the DLC, and the expansion pass itself is $30 (So if you’re new and want the game and expansion pass in one, it’s essentially the price of each + bonuses).
    • Anyone who owns a Founder’s Pack will receive the Gold Edition exclusives for free in addition to 2,500 Moonstones. This applies to anyone who buys one by December 4th as well– essentially whether you already have one or buy it before December 5th, you will get these.
  • Special Livestream going into more detail about the Expansion and what is to come on November 1st, 1PM Eastern Time.

I think the biggest bit of discussion is the fact that Free-to-Play is being pushed back to who knows when. The game will be remaining a paid game for the “foreseeable future”. In all honesty though, I don’t actually think that’s necessarily a bad thing. I do feel bad for people who had been holding off on the game for it to be Free-to-Play and now knowing this may never even happen (or at least not for a very long time), but the number of games I’ve seen go Free-to-Play and take a turn for the worse is immense at this point and considering how much better Moonstones have been to earn since the edition of Dream Snaps, I can understand why this choice may have been made. Personally though, I’d love to see the Star Path or Premium Shop go away if they are going to keep it a pay for game and have the expansions.

I know some people are upset because there is still the Premium Shop and everything, but microtransactions have long since stopped being exclusive to Free-to-Play games and they are still purely cosmetic. There are MMOs that require money to buy the game, have full-priced expansions, and microtransactions paired with a subscription and for me, I’m just thankful Dreamlight Valley does not have a subscription tied to it. I would say the worst stand out to me is the Star Path/Mission Pass more-so than anything else.

As for the Expansions, they said from the start that there would eventually be paid for expansions that added biomes. Again, this isn’t new and while maybe people felt better about those if the game was free-to-play, paid for expansions for a game you bought is certainly not new in any way so… again, doesn’t feel too odd. Of course, whether it’s worth the price tag will depend on what we learn from the livestream.

I do have mixed feelings on story content being locked to expansions though (even the smaller ones and as I brought up before, I still think Ursula’s is especially bad as you have to buy this Moonstone Expansion/Dream Bundle in order to turn her into a fully usable character which DOES have an effect on gameplay). New biomes is one thing, but even if it’s not the main story, I feel like story and quest content is part of what makes Dreamlight Valley so unique in the first place.

I would say my biggest concern though is with the characters shown on the Key Art.

Rapunzel has been teased since the start and initial trailers. Eve has been constantly brought up by WALL-E. Neither one of them should be stuck to a optional Biome Expansion in my opinion. Gaston, fine, but in general, I don’t really care for characters being tied to expansions. But I guess it’d be a hard sell just for new biomes. I’m hoping I don’t get too tempted by a new biome because moving everything out of the meadow may kill me, but so many waterfalls.

There’s a lot of familiar things in the key art and one stand-out is Agrabah. While I do not think it’ll necessarily be tied to the expansion due to the teaser at the end of the main story and the fact that main story content is supposed to always be free/included in the main game, but it does mean that not everything in the Key Art may necessarily be tied to the Expansions.

I’m also excited for new Critters– it seems Snakes, Monkeys, and Capybaras will be options for the new biomes. Along with various other stuff too.

Moving on, as mentioned above in my short summary, Global Launch will have new versions of the game available to buy and Founder’s Packs will be retired (I still think the items should stick around as DLC bundles, personally). I really wish we could buy the Cozy Edition Exclusives as well. I just have no reason really to buy the game again. And I’m so paranoid of screwing up the Cloud Save or something. But I really want the Raccoon Companions :(

That said, I’ve seen people upset that new players can buy a bundle that includes the Expansion that costs the same price as the Ultimate Edition. And I mean, we got… a lot more items in edition to 20,000 Moonstones. And it still technically costs them more for the game itself which will now be priced at $40 versus the $30 it currently is (The extra $40 we spent was essentially the Moonstones and then all the cosmetics and furniture from the other two Founder’s Sets in addition to more cosmetics just for the Ultimate bundle that were really just extra bonuses as the value was all int he Moonstones).

And we are getting those Cosmetics from the Gold Edition along with some Moonstones just for having a Founder’s Pack, so… And the expansion itself also comes with 5,000 Moonstones.

Anyway, the livestream is November 1st and I’ll wait to say much more until we see all the details. I’ll likely edit this post and put my thoughts at the bottom unless I feel I have tons more to say.

Overall though, I would say right now it sounds okay. I just want to be able to get the Cozy Edition Cosmetics too and I hope not too much of what was advertised previously is exclusive to an expansion.

Moving on, what I’ve been up to in DDLV in the meantime. In all honesty, not much… Mainly it’s been back to just checking Scrooge’s Shop each day and taking care of Dream Snap stuff every Wednesday.

My latest Dream Snap entries:

I also managed to get some new items I’ve been pretty excited about and have been doing my best to decorate with. I’ve also been excited for the new HALLOWEENBUNDLE code as it let me get the Pumpkin assortment I was still missing too.


Anyway, I don’t expect much to really be happening until we get the next content update which I’m guessing we’ll hear news on during the livestream. Just 5 days to go…

Disney Dreamlight Valley – Continuing to help the Forgotten and Decorating

I had initially planned to just add onto my last post, but with all the hints to Skull Rock and continuing storyline, I decided to keep the rest of it together for a new post.

Before we get to it, I will say once again, I really just do not care much for intentionally dragging things out by walling :( One part per week isn’t much fun and considering it’s exact hours, knowing my progression is also pushed back due to the bugginess of the whole giving flowers to Mickey means my entire progress is pushed back until the evening and it just… really stinks.

To start, we had the Forgotten wanting to make up for not fulfilling Mickey’s and Goofy’s favors originally. I didn’t really screenshot much of this for various reasons, but I’m glad we finally made up for that because that scene made me feel awful playing through the memories.

Unfortunately, the quest can get a bit buggy where the Forgotten can go MIA when they need to give the flowers to Mickey. It took me ages to get it to finally work and then things got even more frustrating when blue bubbles, which are the main way to get Shrimp (they can show up in white bubbles randomly, but blue bubbles are their usual spawn), would not spawn for me at all :|

This meant I ended up finishing the quest fairly late in the day which also meant I essentially have the entire questline pushed back to evening now and it’s just… I hate walling so much. Just let me do it all!! All the Skull Rock hints especially are taunting me so much. I know some people get bored if they don’t have things to check in, but I personally like getting things out of the way and then being able to just relax and/or save up for future stuff.

Regardless, another week passed and as I waited for the Forgotten to prompt the next quest, I decided to work on some other things. First, I got this new item and I’m really happy that I’ve been finally seeing new items in Scrooge’s Shop in general.

Second, I ended up finally decorating the Forgotten Lands. I’m honestly pretty happy with it, despite going into it with little idea of what I wanted to do.


I think this officially makes the Glade of Trust the least decorated now, but I just have no real ideas for what to put there just yet. The area itself is an odd mishmash of fantasy, swamp, and Atlantean and so I can’t think of much that really meshes too well.

That evening, the Forgotten’s questline finally popped and so I was able to continue. The goal this time was helping them with a new poem that required us to ask the Villains for help and give the final line ourselves.

The Forgotten then asked for us to make a poetry corner for them to share their poem and I’m assuming because Ursula’s transformation is DLC (and… doesn’t register even if you have it for this I guess), Merlin is here instead for some reason.

This was honestly kind of cute so I’m debating trying to remake it to some extent to put back here. I wish we had the Bundle of Scrolls…

With that done, I ended up continuing to work on getting new items from Scrooge and also ended up doing a few more adjustments to the Forgotten Lands. Now there is a path to where you can head down to Sunlit Plateau.


And then we finally got to another week passing, but it seems there was no more Forgotten quests. I guess the build-up to Skull Rock is for whatever the next update is then.

I did end up doing one thing with Wednesday’s update though and I picked up the Frosty Fortress. I knew the change to place houses separately would end up getting me. I might pick up Prince Eric’s boat the next time it shows up now too…

It really fits into Frosted Heights perfectly, but I’m super bummed you can’t actually go up the stairs.

Besides decorating and everything with the Forgotten, I have been continuing to enter the Dreamsnaps. It’s genuinely the best way to try and make any Moonstones, especially as I am awful at finding my daily chest even if I’m checking every day.

Tokyo Game Show VR returns for 2023!

You may remember me talking about TGS VR 2021 and 2022 in my post from last year. When they mentioned that TGSVR would be returning for 2023 with “Sky Islands” along with quest and magic systems, I was thrilled. I had tons of fun in 2021 and 2022 was such a huge upgrade in so many ways, even if it was also a bit overwhelming. There was a story and a boss fight and just… it was genuinely really cool.

Unfortunately, while I am still happy TGS VR happened this year (I’d prefer that over it no longer happening at all), it did end up feeling like a bit of a downgrade to say the least.

The customization didn’t feel as fun or unique (maybe if we got to create an avatar like last year and got to pick hats/new hairstyles/outfits/magic type separately), there’s a lot less to do, everything is smaller in general (though, still very pretty), and the end area for finishing everything felt small.

There are no rides, no quizzes (at best, one quest per area requires you to take a photo of the right answer for one of the NPCs), the only interactive thing, besides obviously the magic and some quests, is some NPCs in areas and watching a bike race. You can’t ride along. You can’t actually race yourself. The magic is also linked to whatever costume you’re wearing and only so many even have anything unique.

There are 24 total quests which is down from the 84 Fragments of 2021 and 72 Quests from 2022 (Plus… no cutscenes or rides).

It’s still very pretty and I did enjoy the quest system versus just clicking random objects– I just wish there was more to it, better customization, and more things to interact with. I’ve always really loved the rides.

Anyway, you can check out my playthrough here:

And here are the many photos I took from around the areas, including the Theater which isn’t in the video above.


Edit: September 23rd, my friend Diggeh streamed going through it and I was part of it. Here are some more fun photos from playing together! I’ll also be uploading my PoV soon…

Disney Dreamlight Valley – Ursula’s Daily Deals and the Forgotten

It’s officially been a week now since my last DDLV post which means the Forgotten Questline can be continued! But before we do that, I’ll talk a bit more about Ursula’s Dream Bundle. As I mentioned in my last post, it had felt a bit short, but apparently there were daily quests which are… fine I guess. I feel like WALL-E’s was still more interesting, but maybe because I like the character and what you got from it more.

For the most part, the quests were very simple. Goofy’s was the most involved (needing to gather up some seaweed and red algae which I’ve been hoarding materials so wasn’t really any issue for me) while Moana’s required just gathering some coconuts to take to WALL-E, and Donald’s was mostly just chatting and going to a couple of different places and interacting with some things. Anna’s was also another simple one, though, required you to go at some new ice blocks with a pickaxe for ice shards in addition to snowballs.

We also got some nice character development for Ursula which again makes this feel like it shouldn’t be an extra DLC. Silly side stuff is fine, but the whole making her function like the other characters and character development just doesn’t feel optional to me.

The final quest with Olaf was probably my favorite one. The item reward is neat too.

Besides taking care of Ursula’s new quest and checking the shop, I haven’t really been doing much. There were new memories to grab in Donald’s and Elsa’s houses though.

I also finished the Star Path. I may put some items in the Forgotten Lands, but I’m still kind of undecided on how I want to decorate there. Maybe going through the Forgotten’s Quest will help or if we can do more with the treehouse at some point. I did use some of the pirate items near Donald’s Boat though:

And as you can probably guess by this post going up, a week finally passed which meant we had the Forgotten’s Quest! Which… didn’t take particularly long. I don’t know if there is a follow-up to it. There is more brought up about the Skull Cave, but whether we’ll have anything this update or not, I’m not entirely sure. I’m leaning towards no due to how it’s worded, but maybe there will be more to this questline. I guess we’ll just have to see next week (and I’ll edit this if so).

The quest essentially had you helping the Forgotten still find beauty in ‘ordinary’ things. They ask to see “one yellow flower in the Forgotten Lands”, a “really neat bird with dark feathers”, and the “giant skull near Dazzle Beach”. Simple enough– for anyone having issues with the first two, the only yellow flower that grows in the Forgotten Lands is the Yellow Nastrutium and the bird is specifically the Classic Raven which is the completely black one– no other Raven will count.

The Classic Raven is only available Monday, Thursday, and Saturday so if you don’t have it befriended, you may need to wait until a different day to take a photo of it.

Once that’s done, the Forgotten asks for us to make a room for them inside of our house which is… surprising. I really expected the Treehouse to get fixed up or something, but okay. I did my best to make a nice space at least. I have no idea what other rooms to put on the 3rd floor though… I’ll have to see if I get inspired.

Of course, the Forgotten’s Quest didn’t end up being the only thing waiting today. Olaf also had a follow-up quest about the 100 Sticks he asked for from the Fairy Godmother. It was… Something. I kind of wish it was a unique item over 10 Sturdy Chairs, but oh well.

Finally, I ended up working on the latest DreamSnaps. I actually really liked the outfit I made for it so I ended up adding another mannequin to the Sewing Room.

I also ended up getting one of the new bundles in the Premium shop since I like exploration-esque stuff (maybe that could be one of the rooms?) and if I see the word “fountain”, I kind of need it, but… the Fountain is kind of disappointing. You can’t use the stairs on the item so you can barely see beyond the dripping without playing around with the camera.

It’s also huge. I don’t know if I’ll keep it there, but it works for now.