Honkai: Star Rail – First Impressions

For reference purposes, this comes from someone who has not seen any of the Beta footage, has not played the other Honkai game, and has just finished the full Snowy Planet story. While I will try to not be super specific, there may still be some spoilers.

To be honest, I hadn’t actually planned to check the game out. I’m not really into turn-based combat, with Pokemon generally being the one exception for reasons we’ll get to later, and generally find most games that involve them I prefer watching over actually playing. I think Paper Mario would be the only one where I DID play to some extent over solely watching, but it was still more enjoyable in the latter category any time I actually had to fight.

If it wasn’t for the game’s Auto Mode, I probably still wouldn’t fully manage to tough it out. And of course, the auto mode can’t always be used– big story bosses have it disabled which I have mixed feelings on because honestly, the Auto plays better than I ever would. I would say the only time I felt Auto was a detriment was against one specific enemy we’ve ended up having to deal with that spawns two or more robots that will detonate on your team in two turns if you don’t defeat them first. While I’m pretty sure what the best strategy is here (kill the enemies first to explode on the enemy side), actually managing to do so is rough when:
1. I do not currently have/use characters that they are weak against
2. The big enemy has a “Taunt” attack that makes it so characters will only focus on him so unless you have an AOE attack, you will not be able to attack them (and depending on where the little Detonation bots are placed, you may only be able to hit one of them, if any). While it doesn’t always affect your entire team, I’ve found it usually ends up affecting the majority of them more often than not.

And thus, I’m usually just doing my best to keep my team alive during the blasts instead. It’s not a fun boss and, not really being a “unique” type of character, also one I don’t see us being able to just… never see again. It’s kind of how I feel every time I run into a Cryo Abyss Mage or Cryo Slimes because my team is built on Freezing enemies and both of those are immune (well, the former only while its shield is up, but). I don’t have a Pyro character I really enjoy playing as so switching isn’t fun, but it also just takes… way too long otherwise, especially when it’s mostly just me trying to not do my usual strategies with Ayaka to keep her damage physical instead of Cryo as she’s my strongest character, even with the downgrade of having to go with a different damage.

I bring this up because I feel the main difference, and I suppose what leads to my biggest worry with Star Rail, is that outside of time trials, I generally feel like I can get through a fight eventually in Genshin. It may not be fun. It may take way too long. But it’s not necessarily impossible and past AR 16, I can have someone come help with most situations.

Meanwhile, in Star Rail, I don’t feel that same comfort. A turn-based system puts you partially at the liberty of what attack(s) the enemy decides to do, what buffs and debuffs it may get off, and adds an element to luck at times on top of it feeling like it matters a lot more who you’re using. Fighting Cryo stuff as Ayaka may suck, but it doesn’t feel impossible, versus how some of the fights I had here where getting through them just felt like I was very lucky over any kind of actual skill. I’m not saying there isn’t a level of strategy involved, but I am saying that luck always feels a part of it.

My reflex to these types of situations is to overlevel as much as possible, a feeling that started back when I played Pokemon Blue and had Charmander and had to fight Brock. It was a tough fight. Unfortunately, overleveling is not an option here. For those who have not played Genshin or Star Rail, they essentially have a system that makes it so enemies will generally stay pretty close to your level. You do “ascension”-type quests which allow you to up your overall level (World Level in Genshin, Equilibrium in Star Rail) which causes enemies to increase in level.

Personally, I’d probably never do these (or keep my overall level as low as possible), but the problem is that many things are locked behind those levels. Story Quests, Side Quests, your Character’s maximum level and skill growth, levels of anything else you can level, etc. For example, your character’s max out at 30– you can get them to 40 after unlocking the next ascension tier. And then 50, which will be what I unlock next in Star Rail once I do the second Equilibrium quest.

But this specific issue is what makes the fact that this is another Gachapon game kind of off-putting. That isn’t to say I’m surprised it is or think it doesn’t have a lot of merit, but I feel like having a strong team matters a lot more here while in Genshin, I think you can get through a lot with either persistence or help from a friend. And if worse comes to worse, I suppose there’s turning your world level down (I don’t know if that is an option here for Star Rail, but honestly, I’m not completely sure it’d always be helpful either een if there is). Here, I genuinely feel like there will be a point where I may just not have the right characters to get through a fight and may just… be stuck until I pull someone better.

Yes, Star Rail has a Support System where you can call in a Friend’s Support character to help out. This replaces your 4th team member (which is my healer spot no less), but only a small selection of modes actually currently use the Support system and so it feels a lot less flexible. The other situation is, which anyone who may be familiar with how I play, I actually hate switching out characters. I really like to have one Team and that’s it.

With Pokemon, I would usually circumvent any kind of typing issue by using my Pokemon’s moves to help cover as many types as possible. Most of the time, this works really well and usually helps me cover almost everything. I think the only time I had a problem was in Sword/Shield where a lot of the new Pokemon just had some of the worst possible movesets and it was… rough to say the least. Obviously, Star Rail has one set of Moves and well, you got to work with them, so when I’m going into a Battle currently with three characters of the exact same “element” so to speak, it’s… not great. While you do seem to unlock other options for your MC later on, similar to how you get new Element options for your character in Genshin, the skill sets do change.

I’ve been using the new one my MC has now because the Fire element choice has helped a lot (and the skillset does help with the awful Robot I mentioned earlier), but I don’t know how long it’ll fully work with the Team. Pretty much my constant saving grace though has been Clara, who I was luckily enough to pull as my Discounted guaranteed 5* and also happened to be the character I wanted most in the first place after briefly looking everyone up. I know Seele is apparently pretty good, but I find her attacks actually kind of painful so I don’t plan to try for her. Based off the Characters themselves, even if I don’t know if I’d use them, I’d maybe like to get Gepard and/or Bronya. Team Building-wise, supposedly Baizhu is quite good and a 5* Healer so I guess one of those three are who I’m hoping to pull yet.

Regardless, my general point here is that I do have some concerns of this came possibly hitting more of a “Pay to Win/Complete” feeling than Genshin (where its main issue is that they keep putting big story and character lore in limited time events v-v; ) and it’s something I’ll be keeping an eye on and hope maybe gets addressed in some way in the future (or maybe it works okay and I’m stressing for no reason).

What I think really grabs people though is the story and writing thus far. There’s a lot of silly weird moments, but also clearly a lot of heart. That said, the game has a tendency to just… randomly slip in extra devastating trivia out of nowhere. It feels like things either get very weird and silly or very sad and depressing with very little inbetween. One moment I’m just minding my own business investigating every Trash Can until I somehow am rewarded an avatar to turn myself into Trash and the next I’m talking to an NPC who tells me how they lost everyone they love. It’s very much a whiplash of emotions.

I also think, if anyone has played any of Hoyoverse’s previous games, it’s clearly evident that they took a lot of feedback to heart as this game features many systems from some of their other games and elevates them.

One example, which I did not expect at all, is a phone system where each day, you’ll get a Daily Call from a Character. Characters can also give you quests through this system or it can even be Quest/Story important. I actually really adore this feature a lot and love interacting with Characters like this.

In Tears of Themis, the phone feature is a lot simpler, only really being used if:
-An Event story requires it
-For special holiday/event stuff (usually a message left by one of the LIs or a short conversation prelude)
-An ending conversation to a card story

It’s not a daily moment of interaction. But one thing where I feel that Tears of Themis does better with this system is it lets you preview what will be sent before you send it. Like in ToT, the choices shown are often just a part of what will be said/a summary of what could be said and aren’t always the best at accurately portraying what your MC will write after picking. Unfortunately, once you pick, it’s submitted which really stinks. I feel like this could be an easy thing to adjust so I hope that happens in the future or they just… make the actual choices more clear in the first place.

Meanwhile, from Genshin, the game makes grinding a lot less of a slog. The Auto mode is such a blessing, you can speed up battle time, and even alchemize most items into other items of the same grade. No hunting down the same enemies and searching for the same items over and over again.

It’s definitely not perfect, and the way materials from Weekly Bosses works is more or less the same (but it’s at least just ONE type and not three), but it feels a lot less taxing. Apparently, you can even personally customize your 5* Relics (this game’s version of the Artifact system) at a later point, though, I haven’t personally gotten to that so I’m not sure how it all works.

This really makes me hope we could see adjustments for Genshin in the future. Another adjustment I’m really hoping for is more dialogue for Lumine and Aether. Stelle and Caelus, the official names of the Star Rail MCs, have multiple moments where their inner dialogue is actually voiced which is really nice. That said, I don’t feel I can often relate as much to Stelle who feels a lot more sarcastic regardless of choices.

Dailies are also faily more contained with just the one daily being a general story quest and not a “hey, defeat 5 enemies in area” thing. I’m not sure how this may change in the future, but for once, I actually look forward to each one and haven’t had anything repeat. Even ones of the same name are generally continuations and not a repeat of the quest I did originally.

What would be closest to Commissions is now its own little daily task thing that I can usually knock out 3-4/5 pretty easily just playing normally. It’s a nice feeling for once versus going out of my way to do something super annoying.

Exploring also feels a lot more relaxing as things are more contained even if each map is still pretty large. I also love that we can see how many chests are on a map? But I kind of wish it only showed how many were accessible initially and then went up as you can earn more as often some will be connected to a quest you need to unlock and there isn’t any kind of notification on that.

So, I would say, while I do have concerns, I’m already pretty taken in with the story and even have some theories on things. I like how much easier it is to get some of the more tedious things out of the way. Also, if an official Junjun plush is not made (preferably of the same material the official Guoba plush is), I will be very sad. .

Disney Dreamlight Valley: Finishing up Update 4

I initially considered putting this at the end of my last DDLV post, but it has gotten pretty long and I feel like that, paired with the ~115 Hours of Video Content from all the streams and videos during this initial update week even if a lot was “Relaxing Dreamlight ASMR”, it’s not really surprising it got to that point.

Update 4 was packed when it honestly didn’t really need to be to such an extent. I feel like the next update will already be pretty packed too, especially as that will finish up the Biome Storylines (and maybe the main story as a whole? Who knows). Regardless, with this post, I can finally say I feel “done” with Update 4, assuming there aren’t any other surprises. I’ll still be playing every day, if only to check Scrooge’s store and I guess to do WALL-E’s Daily Quests incase he suggests a new flower basket because I have no idea how many he can ask for even if I no longer need any eggs at this point. I feel like I should refresh on some of my materials too– they’ve been through the winger this update.

Regardless, let’s talk about things I’ve done over the last few days. For one, I moved the Fountains I made forward slightly so I could fit a bonus set of Waterfalls behind them beause I just… think that looks nicer than just sleets of blocky black.

Next up, you may already know if you follow me on Twitter, but the Premium Shop’s update this week completely eviscerated my Moonstone supply. I’m really bummed! While I do think the prices continue to be better, it still has so much room for improvement, and the recent survey implying the Bundled items are already discounted blows my mind, because it doesn’t feel that way.

I do think if you look solely at the items in the sense of the price for Moonstones to the price in the Premium shop and ONLY that, it’s not terrible. But if you consider:

  • A Premium Shop system shouldn’t feel like the only way to get things is by paying for them.
  • Customization is a huge part of these types of games.
  • What you get for the Star Path’s value vs what you get from the shop for the same price.

It just doesn’t look as good.

And I’m not saying a game shouldn’t make money, especially when the game is going to be going Free to Play once it officially releases/is out of Early Access, but they already said there would be multiple Expansions and I kind of wish it either stuck to that OR if they still needed the Premium Shop, at minimum even ignoring the prices, there’s still no excuse for the rotation and making them limited.

It’s probably the one thing that kind of worries me about the poll too because it asks in what ways have you spent money in other games and like, just because someone has spent a certain way in a game doesn’t mean they always want to– sometimes maybe the FOMO got too bad or their hand was eventually pushed, but I don’t think those feelings should be preyed on. Part of why I eventually stopped playing Pocket Camp for the most part is because of their Fortune Cookie/Loot Box system. When you have a game that highlights a Collection feature, putting a lot of those things behind a monetization system stands out in the worst way.

So, what did I end up getting? Well, for one, these Fountains.

I do wish it was flowing, though I suppose it makes sense that it doesn’t… It just feels a little ironic that this one doesn’t while the other Frozen Fountain does which looks more like it should be frozen over than this one. I think it still looks really nice here though. I put one in Frosted Heights too.

Next, unsurprisingly, of course I bought all the Pets. I love pets. I even had to place another of the Pet Houses. These will always be my kryptonite and honestly, a good 75% of the reason I quit a game is I missed out on a Pet.



I do wish I liked the designs more, however. I just… don’t really like the glowing pink overlay? I think I would’ve preferred the pink color with actual shading and just a glowing outline or something. I just wish they felt a bit more detailed.

The last one I ended up getting was the next Corona Set, which is also one of the Bundles I got last week as well. Ignoring that Tangled is one of my favorite Disney Movies and Rapunzel is one of my favorite Princesses, I adore the furniture style and colors so much. I ended up switching out the Pillars in the Bedroom and I think these go a lot nicer. Plus, some new furniture in the Side Room and Dining Room as well.


Maybe Scrooge pitied me for using all my Moonstones because the next day, I FINALLY got the Gamer Chair!


Still need the desk though.

And that brings us to today where I got the final quest from Buzz. Thankfully, no more finding Aliens and this just involved us making a place for them to hang out.

In all honesty, I don’t really like what I put together. The first idea that came to mind was like an old-school Arcade, but the problem with that is:

  • I’m still missing tons of Arcade-themed furniture.
  • I honestly don’t really LIKE the idea of an outdoors Arcade

I’m leaving it there for now, but I wish I could think of something better. Maybe eventually. I did end up getting some extra Aliens from Scrooge though to put near Buzz’s RV and at the Meadow.

I was kind of sad it wasn’t like… a set of three that would follow you around like how some of the Critters would. I suppose that would maybe be out of character, but hey, here’s Woody and Buzz walking around okay despite people being around so clearly there is some leeway here.

And that finishes up everything I really wanted to do in Update 4! I’m not expecting anything new through WALL-E’s Daily/Weekly quests, but I suppose if another surprise happens, I’ll include it here (or a new entry if it feels warranted enough).

Part of me did want to try and do more for Dreamlight Park Community Challenge, but I just don’t really have enough room to try and set up a proper park. Maybe I can try and fit something in and if so, I can also update this post with some photos and a video, but right now, I just don’t feel particularly inspired especially with the space restrictions and getting close to hitting the limit as well…

The only other thing I could do is Memory Grinding, of course, but my motivation with that is just… so low. The rates just feel too low and being plus the awful duplicate system even if you still need a bunch… I just find it too disheartening and it hits the “will burn me out” level super quickly due to that. If it gets adjusted (like watering flowers before they changed it to dried flowers only = AMAZING) and I can just go hard in a day and knock things out, fine, great! But as it stands right now, I just can’t deal with it.

My Fluffy Life – The Easter/Spring Event returns for 2023!

It started last week, but with everything going on (see my last post), I hadn’t had a chance to write much about it!

After it’s been Winter for a while, I always get thrown off a bit to see it finally be Spring Time again.

The biggest change this year, besides some new items, is the Dye system got a bit of an overhaul, with items now getting a flat white base. While this at least means Darker colored items can now be made more pastel, warmer shades are still VERY hard to dye and come out, at best, more a Dusty Rose than a Light Pink. The Desk Teddy Bear also didn’t come out too well.

Dyeing items is also cheaper now (20 per item instead of 100), but all our items from the first event are now White which… kind of stinks. The only exception is I think my character’s lighter pink base is still fine? Maybe?

At least I did get to make one of my favorite dresses closer to what I wanted, but I still wish it was a bit of a brighter pink. But I’m not really sure how to “fix” this without outright just giving people pre-shaded options which would likely be more work.

As per tradition, I made a new Scrapbook Page with some of the new stuff– I think it came out kind of cute:

I’m not sure if I’ll get around to dyeing much more of anything. I think I’m a bit disheartened with how my pink attempts have gone and also feeling kind of overwhelmed to the point of not knowing where to start with so much that got reversed. Maybe I can experiment I guess and see if I can make anything look at least somewhat okay.

Disney Dreamlight Valley – It’s time for Update 4!

This update has been… a lot. I had gone in thinking it’d be a bit more low-brow, not in any negative sense, but like in the sense that outside of maybe a single new Potato, there wouldn’t be much else than what was announced and there would be some stuff I couldn’t do more of right now due to the Easter Event. AND BOY WAS I WRONG.

This post has actually been written slowly over the last several days so you’ll essentially see a lot of things in different parts. Like I said, IT’S BEEN A LOT.

Before we get more into my Gamelog of everything, I do want to start out on the Twitch Drop stuff. I do feel bad only 20 people got picked and being one of the smallest of those 20, I’m still so surprised I was invited, but I hope that the success of this means it’ll be open to everyone next time. I also want to give a big shout out to EVERYONE who stopped by. At our largest, we had over 1,600 people. I’m still in shock over it, but I’m especially in shock because everyone was so nice. Nobody broke any rules. Everyone was polite. People really vibed with the No Commentary, which I’ve had smaller crowds berate me about, and I got to do the thing I really love doing in the Gaming World: Answering questions. My very first step in anything Gaming-related was making game guides. I still do from time to time, but there is a specific level of dedication required and I often prefer games with a vast Collection which can make actually making a guide take a VERY long time.

It’s part of why I often do Focused Guides– set on focusing on a specific collection or extra thing that I’m really passionate about. With DDLV, that comes in Companions (which the Premium Shop ones are making me cry and we’ll get to), Cooking, and stuff like the Potato. I’m so passionate with completing the Collections and Mysteries so those things are just my entire jam. It was also so much fun working through the Orange Potato on stream. Again, we’ll get to all of the stuff in a bit, but I do have some ideas on the Blue Potato so we’ll be testing that in the Stream today (and this will probably be posted after that). You do need to have at least the Gold Potato, and possibly also the Red Potato, done in order to find these Potatoes so be sure to do so if you haven’t yet!

I’m not a very social person. Socializing is pretty hard for me, so I also am super thankful both to the Chatters and my friend and moderator, Diggeh who really helped keep the Chat going, even as my Social Anxiety really started kicking in, especially with the general overwhelmedness with way more things in this update than I ever expected combined with exhaustion and allergies really starting to kick in.

I know all the other days will probably be a lot lighter, but the response has definitely made me want to try and stream more which is something that has been very hard between issues with my chair and just… general health issues due to the weather and other issues in the world.

Regardless, let’s get to the Game log!! There is A LOT to talk about and this will be all over the place because I was overwhelmed from the get-go.

Before the update started, in my usual “log in once and stay offline until the update hits” pattern, I ended up slightly reorganizing things as I realized I couldn’t fit through the door as the Piano was slightly too far over. I think it still looks nice. I also realized that I apparently never made the new Light since unlocking Sapphires so I fixed that.

As soon as the Update was done, the first thing I did was talk to Buzz. I tried looking everywhere, checking each house in case of Aliens (based off what Buzz said) and Potatoes (because of the Red Potato)… But ended up finding my first Alien just lying on the ground and as I’d eventually learn, it seemed they were outside only despite what he said.

As for everything else though… This entry really does get pretty long so be sure to click to keep on reading!

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Disney Dreamlight Valley: A Special Announcement! Plus some other things

Twitch Drops have been announced for Disney Dreamlight Valley for the first week of Update 4 and I’m one of the channels you can watch to earn them! You will earn the first item after watching for 15 minutes and additional items after watching for an additional 30 minutes, 45 minutes, and 1 hour respectively for a total of 2 and a half hours. I will be live starting from when Update 4 goes live on Wednesday until I get through everything I possibly can. I’ll continue to be live randomly throughout the week after to finish anything else as well :)


Drops start April 5th when Update 4 goes up!

You will likely need to claim them after each respective amount of time from the Twitch inventory page and you need to make sure you have DDLV Account linked to your Twitch account.

If you have no idea what Twitch drops are or are unfamiliar with Twitch as a whole, they’re essentially things you can earn from watching Twitch Streams. There is more information in the official announcement, but if you have any questions, feel free to ask below!

And don’t forget to follow me over on Twitch to be notified when I go Live in order to earn these drops from watching! I generally do “No Commentary” stuff just like Youtube so it’ll be a nice relaxing time with just the game sounds :)

With that out of the way, we officially got the new Patch Notes! For the most part, I’m pretty excited, but there are a few things I am still bummed about… and of course, it’s about the Premium Shop.

– New optional items are coming to the Premium Shop for a limited time! Get ready to live your perfect life at sea with Prince Eric’s Boat house Dream Style and meet Dreamlight infused animal companions for the first time.

I’ve bolded the parts that tie to my concerns most, but essentially, there isn’t a single good reason for any of the items to be limited time. I hate the wording, I hate the vagueness of it, and I just hate the idea of any premium store content being limited in general. It’s possible this is just referring to the usual rotation, but then it’s misleading at best and either way, just isn’t great honestly?

As for my other concern, it’s whatever the prices will be for Pets. If you found your way here randomly and have no clue who I am, I love collecting Pets in games. I’ve written guides about pets, they’re almost always my first initial focus/goals in games that have them to collect all of them, and missing out on a pet can actually kill a lot of my motivation for a game. I won’t talk about how much money I’ve put into games in the past due to this. It is very much a big deal for me and as mentioned in my past entries, with how bad the prices have generally been, I am both very scared for the prices for these along with how many there could be. I had really hoped it would stick to just furniture and apparel. :(

Moving onto more positive things from the patch notes, I am very excited for the new Lion King Realm. I love the Realms a lot, honestly, and I hope we may eventually get them more often. Nala is also one of my favorite Disney characters, so I am really excited to get her unlocked. Plus, with Simba and Nala’s arrival, I’ll finally be able to complete one of my last Dreamlight Tasks.

I’m glad the rides will also be part of the Star Path due to how advertised they were. I am curious if there will be some in the Premium Shop too (hopefully not), but we’ll just have to wait and see.

Scrooge’s shop is still such a mixed bag for me to be excited for because I still have SO many items I’m missing already, but I am looking forward to more variety with the Bathroom furniture.

We also got confirmation for an Easter Event which it sounds like it’ll be longer than the previous events. I’m guessing we’ll have to find Eggs and maybe there will be some new recipes? Excited to see either way.

I am VERY excited about the new crafting stuff for our Pets! I think the hard part will be deciding who to let out in each… though, I’ll likely try to make enough for all of them, assuming there isn’t a limit to how many pets you can have out. Though, I probably need to actually start decorating more to really find a good place to put them… Unless I start working on my second Floor. Or both. Or maybe I can finally do the proper makeover of the room to the right…

I would say the other thing I’m excited for is Buzz’s new quest. We haven’t really had many random new quests in a while now and I am always down for new quests.

Obviously, anything related to the Potato Situation won’t be mentioned, but I’m going to continue to keep an eye out. I’m also hoping the increased Critical rate means maybe better memory spawns? Memory spawning has still been an absolute mess and anything to make it better would be quite welcomed.

Sitting on Benches is very cute as well, but I don’t know how often I’ll use it.

Finally, a few more things I’ve been doing in-game in the meantime! It’s not been too much, but I did end up doing a little rearranging and adding some new furniture I got.


I also realized I can apparently find chests while in the Furniture placement mode which helps a lot.

It’s still not a foolproof effort (I still haven’t found my Moonstone chest today, but I did find my Green chest for today and yesterday), but it’s definitely very helpful and is a lot easier for me to check than trying to on foot. Also gives me more motivation I guess to work on decorating my Valley more so maybe I can have actual designated areas to check in the future…

Disney Dreamlight Valley – Sharing Progress before April’s update

With April’s update likely hitting in a few weeks, I wanted to talk more about what I’ve been up to in the meantime, but like most intermediaries, it’s mainly just been stalking Scrooge’s store each day and failing at finding my Moonstone Chest, which has been stressing me out even more since the Premium shop’s release.

So, to start, I’m going to address the biggest issue with the game right now: The Premium Shop. Obviously, I spoke about them in my post for Update 3 already, but since there have been “adjustments” to it, I do want to still state my current stance on it and to sum it up briefly, just because they’re better doesn’t mean they aren’t still bad. If you want to skip me going into more detail about it, you can click here to just go where I show some progress stuff.

The prices are still wildly unbalanced and that fact that even the worst ones won’t be adjusted because people already bought them doesn’t help. I get that partial refunds are hard, but even as someone who HAS bought some of the items, if they got made cheaper for players who haven’t bought them, I wouldn’t care because honestly, they SHOULD be. The prices just aren’t good right now and even if they’re getting better, when your bar is so low that it’s in the center of the Earth, that isn’t saying much. Would a partial Moonstone refund be nice? Sure, but more than anything I just want to see the prices be better.

There isn’t a single good reason everything needs to be Bundled nor any real reason that any item should be on rotation. And the prices should be more comparable to how the Star Path is set up. The Star Path costs 2,500 Moonstones which is equal to $10. It features:

  • 1910 Moonstones
  • 16 Decals
  • 8 Clothing item
  • 9 Furniture
  • 1 Pet
  • 2 Character Skins

Which you can get if you finish all the tasks. In the end, if you do everything, you could end up using only about 500-600 Moonstones for the Star Path… or you can go and spend that much for just three items with some bundles of three items being more expensive than the entire Star Path.

And I just… I can’t wrap my head around how someone looked at that and thought those prices were fair and okay. I’m the type of person who will absolutely spend money on Premium stuff if I find the prices feel fair. These just… don’t. And when you literally have to search for a measly 50 Moonstones a day (where I swear to God, it feels like my chest does not spawn), that doesn’t help. I have always had trouble finding my Moonstone Chest due to the fact that I suck at navigating, but with the Premium Shop the way it is, it’s honestly just made the whole situation all the more demotivating.

Not to mention that people have said the Premium Shop items don’t count, but I’m sure curious where the 27 Clothing items I’m apparently still missing are from then because Scrooge’s shop hasn’t stocked any type of clothing in weeks. Items that clearly match the Star Path items only being available through the Premium Shop rotation at a much higher cost is also pretty disheartening.

Even from a Content Creator aspect, I can’t justify the prices and so I only get the few items I feel I would absolutely use right then and there, but it’s still really bummed me out that the prices are as bad as they are and like I said, while they’ve gotten better, they’re still far from good/balanced.

Moving onto game stuff now, like I said, I’ve mainly just been dealing with Scrooge’s shop. I’ve been debating on working on my Valley more, but honestly, have been really demotivated for reasons I explained above in addition to the story still being ongoing has me a bit apprehensive of doing too much incase I accidentally cover spawn points and possibly mess up a questline due to that and the Star Path tasks requiring various things such as removing specific amounts of Moonstones means I’m too paranoid to clean them all up incase I end up needing a bunch for Tasks because I don’t like leaving the Star Path tasks for too long and prefer to knock them out right away.

I’m also still waiting for the one Path I want as it requires Alexandrite which is still MIA. Still hoping for a nicer house skin/better Castle one that will hopefully be more reasonably priced.

Regardless, despite my general demotivation right now, I have been working one some things. For one, I completely redid my storage system and also moved it to the last floor instead of the second.


I’m hoping even if I’m feeling demotivated from an Exterior standpoint, maybe I can still work on some of my Interior Design ideas. The main issue there is I don’t really want to work on a “theme” until I have all the items unlocked for a series and my luck with Scrooge’s shop just… hasn’t been great.

Regardless, I did a handful of decorating with some of the new items I’ve gotten, mostly a few from the Premium Shop that I knew I’d actually use, but also the few I actually unlocked from Scrooge’s shop.



I really wanted to fit the Beauty and the Beast Fountain I FINALLY got somewhere in the house, but the front room is just too big. Maybe if I split up the Kitchen and Living Room it could work, but having the Kitchen there is convenient due to all the cooking in the game. The bathroom could likely be smaller though and maybe merged with the Study Room which is mainly just a mess of furniture I think is neat anyway.

It’s just really hard for me to decide what I want to do without really knowing everything available. I’m hoping to eventually have a better idea of how I want everything set up, but hopefully things look nice for now.

I’m also still hoping for additional Quality of Life stuff such as knowing how many of an item you already have when purchasing items from Scrooge (or even just if you already have it) and maybe an increase to 75 or 100 Layers for the Design Tool.

April’s teaser still leaves a lot of questions of what to expect beyond the Lion King Realm, but I’m still really excited for it. Really, I would say anything besides the Premium Shop has me pretty excited, but it’s hard to really be able to just be excited without everything with the Premium Shop as someone who really loves to collect everything in these types of games.

I’m also really hoping we’ll get the next part of the on-going Potato mystery (which does seem likely), though, I wonder just how many updates it will take before the entire mystery can be solved…

Cats vs Pickles: Cows vs Aliens… but Puppies vs Squeaks too??

I was recently made aware of a specific excerpt in the February 2023 edition of the Big Toy Book which I have highlighted below:

And while I had been already aware of Cows vs Aliens and had been waiting for the first reveal of them (as I know they were shown to investors already at this point), I don’t think anyone was aware of the reveal of Puppies vs Squeaks as well.

I still don’t entirely know how to feel about Cows vs Aliens, which may be partially because I feel like everything in the Versus World is already way too much to keep up with without adding new series to the moniker. I only have a couple of Kittens I’m still trying to get (Lil Gumbo and Lil Moo, where art thou?* T~T) which I’m hoping to finish up before new releases, but even then, I have no idea when the next batch Gold Wave will drop either. There’s also still the matter of various Beans that were added to the Gold Wave sheet on the website before being removed– my personal theory is maybe a second batch of the Blue Striped Wave. Only a guess though.

*I know what stores they’re stocking in. Those stores are just not around here.

Regardless, Cows vs Aliens do look very cute and I’m already tempted at least by these three. But I also am curious about the Cow right above the Alien in the middle too:

As for the Puppies, I already am really excited to see more of them. I love Dogs so much and so the Puppies really calling out to me is not a surprise (though, my Wallet is less excited). If I also narrowed it down to three, I would say these are the biggest ones for me:

I’m also really curious about the Puppy to the right of the Pink Squirl (It reminds me of Alice, who is my favorite of the Dogs). Lil Brenda and Lil Hazel (the bottom left and bottom right respectively) also look very cute. With the catalog out, I hope maybe more pictures can be shared of the ones we can expect in the first batches of each… If only to keep track of the ones I want ahead of time.

It’s just crazy to think these are coming out this Summer alongside likely more batches of Gold Wave and also, one of Cepia’s newest lines of plushies, Pop Art Soft, is getting their second animal this Summer as well: Turtles!

I haven’t spoken about Pop Art Soft too much here yet, partially as I wanted to do so along with my Collection video update (which has been… taking a while– it’s hard finding a shelf that works with the Condos), but for those unaware, they’re cute Elephants (and well, eventually Turtles).

If you really like the feeling of the Cats vs Pickles, but wanted something a bit more proportionally weighted than how the Jumbos are, I’d highly recommend checking out Pop Art Soft. There’s three sizes: Mini (About the same size as a regular CvP Bean), Mighty (About CvP Jumbo size, slightly smaller), and Mammoth (Not as big as huggers, but fairly big and soft):


Can you tell who my favorite is? :P

I have various Minis, 1 Mighty, and 1 Mammoth… But you may notice three others that are a bit bigger than the one Mighty. Those are the retired size that was only available through the Soft Launch: Jumbo which is about an inch or so bigger than the current Mighty Size. You could get them either through the Lake Zurich Learning Express (which does take phone orders, but I don’t believe many, if any, art left) and CvP’s Official Store Front which is currently down for maintenance and only had a small selection. These are also the only places currently carrying one of the Mammoth Designs– Sugar. That said, if you happen to be going to Planet Comicon in Kansas City, Cepia will have an Exhibitor’s Booth there and the Jumbo size for sale as well.

Considering their MSRP (5$ for Minis, $10 for Mighty, $20 for Mammoth), I feel like what you get is very much worth it, though Minis are unfortunately through Blindbags only. Despite that, I am impatiently wanting this new Mini that was shown in the magazine as well:

As for the Turtles, I will say I don’t know if I like their design as much as the Elephants, but I am absolutely in love with this Turtle design at least and if nothing else, I definitely will be picking up this one:

I think this one also looks pretty neat:

Also in the magazine was a sneak peek of another new species to Pop Art Soft: Giraffes! (And confirmation that yes, more animals are to come)

I think I like the plush base better for the Giraffes, but not sure if any design jumps out at me just yet… Maybe the smallest one. I like the Mini Sundae Turtle too.

Anyway, are you excited for Cows vs Aliens and/or Puppies vs Squeaks? Are you overwhelmed by how much is coming out when there’s still so much already that hasn’t yet? All of the above? Do you like Pop Art Soft? Are you Team Elephants, Turtles, or Giraffes? Let me know! I think I’m mostly excited… but also still very stressed.

I will say I am working on something though that will hopefully make things at least a bit overwhelming… Or at least it will for me.

Accessibility shouldn’t be a Punishment

This is something I think about a lot, as someone who generally doesn’t play games for the challenge. It doesn’t mean I can’t or necessarily have the inability to, but a combination of various factors such as:

  • I need to focus on something relaxing/engaging without the stress
  • I’m not feeling well, but really want to continue the story of a game or progressing in general
  • This is a type of content I struggle with or just do not enjoy doing to the point of it being a huge detriment to my enjoyment when I truly do adore everything else.

Too often getting a Hint can penalize you. Using a certain power-up or mode can make you ineligible to finish or unlock certain endings. Assist mode may help, but your save file will always have a mark saying you had to use it. It’s essentially giving you a permanent demerit for something that only you will see anyway. The most frustrating part is games will advertise this accessibility and yet have that demerit on that you needed help and it’s just… permanently there. You can’t unlock everything and you are permanently prevented from accessing everything.

Sometimes, you can rectify it quickly by replaying the one section or level maybe you needed the extra help with, but other times you literally would have to restart from the very beginning or even wipe your save and as someone who doesn’t even replay things I enjoy, I’m not going to replay something in a way I wouldn’t even enjoy it just to have that proper ending or to not see some stupid mark on my save file saying how I didn’t play it the way the game wanted me to.

And that’s what gets me. If you want your game just for people who enjoy that challenge, who want that difficulty, fine! Cool! That’s great. But DON’T add those modes then. You can’t say you want your game to also appeal to others and set it up for that just to mark them in some way to say they aren’t good enough for the real thing or even lessen their rewards. A lot of the times, these are single player games or at least, there’s no big high score table linked to it (and honestly, high score stuff shouldn’t be linked to collectibles– most people interested in high scores are doing it for the challenge itself, not some in-game collectible and it’s obnoxious when they are stuck to these types of things, but I digress), so forcing these people who, for whatever reason, maybe can’t do the game or level or challenge at its normal difficulty or maybe made several mistakes along the way to be constantly reminded they weren’t good enough is just really obnoxious.

I don’t really know what started with calling people out for wanting to be able to play a game that makes it more comfortable for them. Nobody judges people who play hardcore or randomizer modes in games, but playing a game easier?? Limiting survival stats? Starting off with more money (Or heck, with Sims, giving yourself infinite)? You’re apparently ruining the game and not getting the full enjoyment value. People get enjoyment their own ways! Unless they do this and start complaining about the game being too short, which what did you expect then, there is no reason to judge people for wanting to play in a way that fits them better, whether it be a personal thing, a skill thing, or even just general life stuff that makes it hard to devote as much time to a game. If it doesn’t have an actual effect on other people and only applies to the person playing, I just don’t see the problem and why it has to constantly be such a fake compromise.

Either let the game actually be accessible to people who may have more trouble or don’t. Stop pretending you really want them to if you’re going to make them feel bad about it or force them to do it without that accessibility.

I especially want to give a big shout-out to Finji who I feel is one of a few companies that really went all out with just how accessible they COULD make their game. Chicory and Tunic both have quite a bit of fighting in them, and yet you can make yourself near immortal if you want. Heck, in Chicory, you can skip bosses altogether. And that doesn’t stop you from earning 100%. That doesn’t stop you from finding all the collectibles and secrets. It doesn’t hurt you at all and so if it’s something that you struggle with or stresses you out, you can actually pick those options with no caveats. You’re not permanently marked as someone who used easy mode. You’re just playing the game in a way that works for you and that’s so refreshing. I haven’t gotten Tunic yet, but knowing they have those options too has made me plan to even though it’s a game I would normally struggle with quite a bit due to those battles.

When it comes down to it, I just wish everyone shared this message.

Not everything has to be a competition and someone having an easier time doesn’t take away others’ accomplishments. I hope in the future when more people consider Accessibility and Assist modes, they’re not taking away from your game. They’re just opening the door for more people to enjoy them when they normally wouldn’t be able to do so. And maybe one day, they will be able to work towards playing it the “normal” way, but they shouldn’t have to be penalized first to get there.

In a similar sense, if your game is relatively calm and relaxing and accessible until the last stage or a final area (whether optional or not), it runs under this same problem. I’m not saying there shouldn’t be a challenge mode for people who want that, but I am saying that it absolutely doesn’t have to be the only option. A lot of people who want that challenge will DO it for that challenge alone. Just look how popular Pokemon Nuzlockes are.

But there is some silly idea that people who play more relaxing or casual don’t actually want to experience everything and that isn’t true. They just want to experience it in a way that is still fun and/or possible for them. And I wish people would realize letting everyone be able to have that chance is entirely possible without taking away their challenge mode which for most of the people doing that is rewarding in itself.

My favorite Demos from February 2023’s Steam Nextfest!

I was asked by a few people now which my favorites were and while I gave a short list on Discord, I figured I’d talk about it more here and what my favorite things were. This unfortunately got delayed a bit due to some health stuff, but many still have Demos up so I hope it’s still informative.

Before I start, I want to at least bring up a few things including 5 games that will NOT be listed in the extended part below, but are ones I’m just as excited for:

  1. Any games where I’ve previously played the demo, even if I played the newer ones, I will not be talking about below. This essentially includes Mail Time and Shumi Come Home which are two games I’ve already said I’m quite excited for and that hasn’t changed. They did an adorable collaboration between each other with their demos this round so I still wanted to shout them out regardless.
  2. Similarly, games I played previously that did not have demo updates like Mineko’s Night Market and Townseek! Still very excited for both. Townseek is a tricky one since I don’t believe I mentioned it above like the other games I’ve mentioned so far, but it’s because I actually played the Game Jam version back in 2021. I absolutely loved it and the new Demo with the full release announcement as well. JUST as excited for it, even though I don’t think I’ve spoken about it as much. Again, this is just due to having played the Game Jam version and my very specific rules or we would’ve had that most so much longer for all the games without release dates I haven’t tried yet.
  3. And finally, any sequels. Like I adored Seaberry Keep and have very much been looking forward to the continuation, so I really enjoyed the demo for Chippy’s Escape, but like the above, I don’t really have more to say that I haven’t already. Still shouting it out though.
  4. Any Demos where I didn’t really get to see any gameplay. I am still very much interested in SunnySide, but since the demo was just a Character Creator, it’s hard to say much about it just yet.

So, in short, I’ll only be focusing on games where either I hadn’t heard of them prior to this OR I haven’t gotten to try them before! Despite that, I actually downloaded 88 total Demos, including the ones I mentioned above, so I’m picking a handful of my most favorites, and ones I am most intrigued to see more from, in no particular order.

Steam Nextfest for February 2023 is unfortunately over now, but not all demos go away at the end so if any of these games interest you, definitely try and check to see if they are still available! Each link will go to my Playthrough of the Demo, but in each of the descriptions, you can find a link to the game’s steam page. And if they aren’t available, you can still wishlist them and keep an eye out as they often will rotate demos back in.

  • First up, A Tower Full of Cats! DevCats seems to have really found a groove with the ___ Full of Cats games they’ve been doing and I find it interesting how they have been weaving in a story to go with it. It’s one of the few games where the different poses haven’t really driven me nuts and I really appreciate that there is a hidden counter as well so you know how long you need to click around for. That said, the extra hidden items are a new layer of difficulty and I’m still angry at one particular bolt that decided the best place to be was outside the initial area. Either way, very excited for the game’s full release. The Demo is also still available!
  • Next, Pekoe! This is another one of those games where I’ve been following for a long time and I was so excited to see it finally get a Demo! I did run into a few bugs, but that didn’t make it less fun to play. The tea sets are so pretty. The Demo is also still available!
  • Coming from the same people who made Behind the Frame, another game that I really liked and also made me cry, is The Star Named EOS and while it ended on a rather ominous note that has me a little nervous to see what’s to come, I really want to see the journey unfold and enjoyed everything I got to do in the Demo and I can’t wait for the game’s release. I also hope it’ll end in a less bittersweet way than Behind the Frame did.
  • Arcade Party is very silly, but also really fun and you essentially play through various Mario Party-esque minigames to defeat enemies and it’s just… genuinely a lot of fun and done in a less intense way than other similar games can be. The customization is neat too. The Demo is still available!
  • Sound Hidden Forest is an adorable puzzle game where you have to interact with various things in the overworld in order to mimic back the song the bird is singing. Some are VERY tricky though and even items of the same type can sound slightly different. I have pretty good hearing and even I struggled on a couple. If it ever adds an accessibility mode (Such as adding a floating set of notes or the musical chord when interacting with something), I think that could help it find a lot more people too. The Demo is still available!
  • Moonlight in Garland was maybe one of the biggest surprises for me in the sense of games I didn’t expect to see at all. Something kind of refreshing is turning the usual “moving somewhere new” on its head a bit where instead of going to some idyllic village in the outskirts of nowhere, you’re actually moving to a city which is really neat. I DO WISH WE COULD’VE PICKED UP TRASH IMMEDIATELY THOUGH!!! XP Regardless, I had a lot of fun, even if I kept getting mercilessly lost, and am excited to see how the story goes and hope we can help everyone out despite where we stay. The Demo is still available!
  • In contrast to talking about the game that most surprised me, next up is another game I’ve been waiting on for a long time: Mika and the Witch’s Mountain. I don’t know, there’s something about flying around delivering things to people and helping them out. The Demo is a bit short, but I definitely really enjoyed what I played. I should probably finish Summer in Mara finally before the game releases though…
  • Going into more of a Puzzle focus, I want to bring up two that I’m really excited to see more from: Boxes: Lost Fragments and Puzzle Compound, both which I played along with my husband. We both really enjoy Escape Room and Puzzle Cube-esque games (and genuinely had been saying earlier this year how fun it’d be to have a game where you just open up Puzzle Boxes) and both were genuinely a lot of fun. I think my only critiques I mentioned in the description of my videos and those still stand, but definitely want to play more of both. Both Demos are still available: Boxes: Lost Fragments, Puzzle Compound.
  • Ribby: The Game is a very strange game, but I am very intrigued none the less and need to see how the story unfolds. I will forever be haunted by the photo I missed. On a positive note, I did get a Certificate! The Demo is still available!
  • Our final game on this list, The Empress Quest: Full Moons Saga! I can be really picky with Point & Click games where the cursor can have multiple modes (I find it a bit overwhelming and have trouble keeping track of what I did plus as someone who just loves doing EVERYTHING, having to suddenly click 3-4 times an item versus once gets really painful after a while), I really enjoyed this and I just really hope both Kobi and the Empress can get home safely. The Demo is still available!

I’m going to cut the list off there, but for those who have been wondering, here you go! There’s a few other games I debated adding as well, but I wanted to try and keep the list somewhat short. There were a lot of neat games though and I’m glad I got to try out so many neat things during the recent Steam Nextfest.

Disney Dreamlight Valley – It’s time for Update 3!

Update 3 is officially here!! As always, you can find my video playthrough over on Youtube as well.

First thing I ended up doing was checking out some of the new things. Seeing how many new recipes there were (Just one– Buñuelos. It’s made with Wheat, Cheese, Eggs, Milk, but you’ll also learn how to make it through Mirabel’s story). Unfortunately, as soon as I brought up the Premium Shop, my entire excitement died and my mood dropped as I saw the prices.

They’re bad. They’re really bad. Or more specifically, they are very expensive. The Star Path (the game’s mission/season pass) costs 2,500 Moonstones and usually has multiple furniture items, clothes, decals, etc. These packs are 3,000-5,000 for three pieces of furniture or a Premium House Skin which is… just… crazy to me? Like I don’t know how those prices were thought to be fair. To make matters even worse, the items rotate out after 5 days. And I was so worried when they decided to increase the daily moonstone price that the prices would be expensive, and yet this is still so much worse than I imagined.

I also can’t help but think from the POV of someone who gets the game free to play and like… What will 250 (assuming they find their daily chest each day– as mentioned, I suck at finding mine) get them? Nothing. The items will rotate out before they even have a fraction of the amount they need for anything.

I don’t even like everything from each pack, but you have to buy the bundle, and just… I don’t know what to do. I don’t really want to pay those prices, though I do have enough Moonstones due to having the Ultimate Edition, but I also don’t want to miss out on things due to the Collector side of me. I’d like to hope maybe they will reconsider these prices as I haven’t really seen anyone actually happy about them, but who knows when that could happen and the items could rotate out first. I don’t even mind buying things from time to time, but the value has to balance out and I can’t see how any of these cost more than the Star Path does. I was expecting 500-1,000 at most if it was on the higher end. I never expected over 3,000 at the lowest.

For those who don’t play, to give an idea of value, $5 of Moonstones is 1,200, $10 is 2,500 (The Star Path price), $20 is 5,500, and $50 is 14,500 which as usual with these things, the highest is the best value. It’s 15,005 for all four “packs” currently in the store. $50 isn’t even enough to cover that. You may still have enough if bought the Ultimate pack and have kept up with your Star Path rewards and Daily Moonstones, but it’ll still take up most of your reserves.

I don’t really have words for just how… incredibly disheartened I’ve been with the whole situation. I really hope they do something, but at the same time, I feel like anything that could be done won’t be quick enough before anything switches out. The trailer even showed more items that will clearly be in the Premium Store so plenty are planned, which isn’t surprising if they are rotating out every 5 days and we get game updates bi-monthly.

Moving onto actual story stuff and not feeling like I got backstabbed by the new series of microtransactions, the main story continued with Frosted Height’s now covered in a blizzard. Towards the back of the area, there was a locked door with some footprints.

Inside was Olaf and honestly, I feel awful that he’s just been trapped here waiting for us to find him. That’s really heartbreaking. It’s clearly been years, but who knows how long it felt in the Valley itself.

After getting back his nose and buttons from the Dark Squirrels, we just needed to find his arms. Meanwhile, we continue to see the Forgetting being evil. I still hate their outfit. And Elsa has some of her own advice to give to the situation. I’ll be honest, I’m bad at letting go of stuff in real life, let alone game me as well apparently.

To get his arms, we needed to reach through the portal as they were apparently still holding onto the Orb.


With Olaf’s arms returned to him, he was able to finally give us a warm hug and thanks to the power of warm hugs love, the Frosted Height’s Orb was rejuvenated. Honestly, I could use a Warm Hug in real life right now.

With the Orb now back to life, it was time to put it back in its pillar. It is very pretty. We also got our own little Dark Squirrel friend from Olaf so… I guess they really were playing with him? Maybe?

Now, it was time to find the other new character and to lead us there, a golden doorknob was found in Peaceful Meadows near one one of the ways down to Dazzle Beach.

While getting to work on this, I also had Olaf on to follow me so I could work on his friendship quests. He wanted to put on a play like he used to in order to make everyone smile. In the end, for whatever reason, he decided to make the play about our character’s story. Though, honestly, it seems to focus more on Donald and what happened in the Forest of Valor in the end. I also find it interesting we essentially got to make popcorn, but still can’t actually make it? (For anyone who needs a reminder of the recipe, it’s 2 Corn, Sugarcane, Butter, and Pure Ice.

Once I got through the latest part of Olaf’s quest, I got back to working on Mirabel’s and she finally returned along with the Mini-Casita… Or more accurately, the Mini-Casita decided to come back with Mirabel in tow. The Mini-Casita is absolutely huge, honestly. I think the only thing “mini” about it is that it only contains Mirabel’s room.

Before continuing with Mirabel’s storyline, I decided to finish up Olaf’s first. At least we got the stage after considering how many other quests just… take the items away and we never get to have them for ourselves.

It was then time to help out Mirabel and get her room set back up. During it, we had to do some things for our house as well, so I took advantage of the new door appearance feature. I really need to buy more of the door designs more. I initially thought changing it would not actually “use” the item, but I guess it makes sense it does.

While working on the Star Path stuff in-between everything, I also noticed Remy’s restaurant had gotten an upgrade. And yet, most of the tables continue to remain empty which is especially frustrating as I get super unlucky with the Star Path tasks this time around.

Despite the steady progress, I did hit a breaking point in the next step after finding the parts of the table. Essentially, I need to wait for Kristoff, Anna, and Elsa to finish fixing the table and Moana to finish working on the tablecloth to continue. I have no clue when this will be done (I would guess at least a day? Maybe?), but I’ll update this post later and put out a second video once that finally finishes.

As an aside, if anyone is struggling with finding things with Mirabel’s quest, I found Scrooge’s Key near the back of Anna and Kristoff’s house (buried, you have to dig for it) and the parts of the table had two partially buried that you had to dig up and two just laying around.

Meanwhile, the Potato mystery just got weirder. For one, there was a Red Potato in Remy’s house. I know some people are thinking maybe this is a way to get the Golden Potato without the code, but I don’t think the code has an expiration date so I don’t know if that is necessary.

But with one new Potato, we also found new steps for how to proceed with our Golden Potato… In Merlin’s house, you can see the book and multiple of these stone diamonds. There is one next to the book as well.

Going into the Cave on Dazzle Beach, placing the Golden Potato on one you can find as you headed down caused a Golden Carrot to spawn.

The next one was on the table in Elsa’s Cave. Putting the Golden Carrot there caused a Golden Crab to spawn.

Then, at the top of the castle on the railing, putting the golden Grab there made a Golden Night Thorn spawn.

Heading back to Merlin’s house, we could then place the Golden Night Thorn by the book which caused us to get a Gleaming Gold Potion. As for what to do next… That’s what I’m still currently trying to figure out.

I ended up finishing off things mostly trying to get as many Star Path tasks done as possible, especially as now I just feel… even more demotivated than usual with it. It doesn’t help that one of the new tasks is having 5 daily conversations with the same character which means it gets completion-walled for 5 days… Technically, 6 for me counting today because I spoke to Mickey during Mirabel’s quest before I got this task. -_- Regardless, as always, I got the new Critter first.

I also placed some of the new furniture I got from Olaf’s friendship quest.

And, of course, I changed my House to the pink variant. I do wish it was a pale pink instead of so white though. Not pink enough at all. Which is a shame as I feel like every other color option HAS a lot more of that color than the pink one.


(As an aside, also not a huge fan of the new chest design? I don’t have the patience to craft and replace so many chests either so I really wish they chests just upgraded based off your house size like the chest you start with. I miss when we could buy crafted items from Scrooge)

I’ll likely check back in later to see if maybe I can get any other Star Path stuff done or if Mirabel’s final quest part can be continued, but otherwise, just expect an edit and additional video tomorrow.

Edit as of 7:15PM on February 16th, 2023: The objective for Moana ended up ticking about 3-4 hours later. Still no change on the other objective part though, but I would assume it’ll definitely be done sometime tomorrow. Anna specifically says it’ll take them “a day” so it’s a matter of if just a new day/rollover will be enough or if it’ll actually require 24 hours.

Edit as of 3:04PM on February 17th, 2023: As expected, the other objective ticked after about 24 hours, so I finished up Mirabel’s quest. What kills me a bit with these wait periods on the final quest is that the task that follows is like… 3-5 minutes long at best so it’s just a super unsatisfying wait and makes the walling feel a lot more obnoxious. The photo moment was cute though and once again, I’m glad they’re giving us the items now.

I also got these cute Earrings in Scrooge’s today:

The only Star Path task I have left now is just having to have 5 Daily Discussions with Mickey so I’ll likely be back on the “Just buying from Scrooge each day” task. That said, I still can’t seem to find my daily chest at all -_-

Edit as of February 18th, 2023: Apparently, we could do more with the Red Potato as well, hinted by a new post-it note in Remy’s Realm.

Cooking the Red Potato, Lobster, Raspberries, Chili Pepper, and Slush Ice together makes the “Icy-Red Stew… Yuck”. You then place it in the Serving Section in Remy’s Realm in order to spawn the Raging Red Potion.