Let’s talk about Peridot! (The Game by Niantic)

I’ve had a few people ask about what I’ve thought of the game at this point due to having played some of the Beta and I think the biggest thing is I constantly kind of regret not putting more time into the Beta, but I suppose I couldn’t predict the kind of changes Niantic would make before launch, to say the least.

That sounds kind of overly cynical and I don’t think every change is necessarily bad, but I do think they made some replacements where there could have just been additions, some things were made grindier, and I’m not sure a single person who played the Beta, and heck, even those who haven’t, enjoys how the Nests were changed. Before I get into all the stuff with Nests and Hatch-a-Dot (the game’s breeding system), I do want to talk a bit more about some of the other features.

The game essentially gives you a cute supposedly completely random Pet (I say it this way because I’ve seen some that genuinely look identical, and I can only assume the change is as small as like… identical twins) and it’s honestly pretty adorable. I love how the Dots look. I think a lot of the traits are really neat.

The game is more or less AR exclusive, with only menus and certain special screens (IE: Hatching/Breeding Dots) not being AR, which depending on how you feel about AR will be how you feel about this. I don’t necessarily dislike AR, but find it tends to use up a lot of power. Quality settings were added towards the end of Beta and is one of the main reasons I didn’t (or honestly, couldn’t really) play very often before this addition. Even on Low, my phone gets quite hot. It’s not that old, but I have to constantly close the game and generally can’t have any other things in the background when it’s opened.

And that’s really my biggest issue with it– the battery drain is huge, my phone gets really warm, and for me, phone concerns far outweigh any kind of enjoyment I get from seeing my Dot in the real world more than I could get from seeing it in some random environments like when catching a Pokemon in GO. I haven’t actually taken a single AR photo of one of my Dots due to just not having any good lighting anyway. And when out, I usually need my phone to not be dying so I can’t have it up much because of how much it drains the battery.

Personally, I’d love to have a PC Companion thing where I can have my Dot play around on my desktop like the old Desktop Pets/Shimeji would do.

Regardless, as cute as they are, there is only really so much you can do. Are there still cute to just watch? Sure, absolutely. There’s a lot of impressive things with the AR as well and how the Dot can tell how close or far something is based off the environment and where you’re tapping. The AR can even react to even a Dot goes behind something and so from a technical standpoint, there is a lot of really neat stuff here, but as someone who is just into “cute pet yay”, I think what you may get out of it can vary, especially if you also have Phone Power issues with AR constantly up.

The Dots themselves, they can only dig in a certain spot so many times before having to wait again (though, I suppose if you’re somewhere with a bunch of different surfaces, maybe it feels less an issue), growth has a limit to how much you can earn at a time (which you can easily hit faster than your 30 minutes Speed Sprout runs out so it can very quickly become a waste :/) outside of Desires as you stop earning growth from anything else once your Dot’s bars are full, you can play with your Dot by teaching them tricks (currently there are only 8), playing fetch, and petting them, but again, they will only earn growth until their Hunger and Happiness Bars are filled. Still can be worth to learn those tricks, but I generally find it’s best to work on them while you can still earn growth from them. As mentioned earlier, Dots can still earn growth through their desires which they get roughly every hour. These Desires can be refilled with Dewdrops which is what you’ll need to hope you have a bunch of if you don’t want your Speed Sprout to go to waste (That said, I find “A Small Walk” to be super glitchy to make count and having no Habitats near me, that ends up being another wall I can hit– Dewdrops will NOT Refresh any incomplete desires so if you have 1 or 2 “Take a Small Walks”, the Dewdrop will only refresh the empty spots).

Thankfully, Dewdrops can actually be found in the wild. Initially, they were used to develop your Dots personality more with each Dot having three traits (one per stage) that could each be upgraded three times to be more developed. While I do think the Dewdrops have more use now, I kind of miss feeling like Dots’ personalities were more complex. Having just one trait in the end (with it adjusting as they grow) feels a bit more one-note and I’m not entirely sure why the change. Like… Fine, make it so traits are automatically fully upgraded, but I don’t think we needed to lose having three traits to end up with just having one. Either way, I’m going to try and not think of all the Dewdrops I wasted (or the Dotnips as well before I realized how they worked).

The photo mode can be fun, especially if you’re walking out and about, but because of the fact that I haven’t been able to do much of the latter, I haven’t really done that at all. You can also dress up your Dots, though, I find the cosmetics kind of limited and most seem to only be part of expensive bundles over ever actually showing up in the shop’s small daily rotation.

I also am genuinely happy they can’t die or get sick. One thing I find exhausting with a lot of other pet games is stuff like that– I don’t need the same worry/concern from taking care of a real pet when I’m caring for a virtual one. I know some people like that kind of realism, but I’m not here to play a pet game for that.

Besides your Dots own desires, you also have Daily and Weekly tasks which contribute to getting your Keeper Level up. The maximum level is 50. I kind of hope they don’t increase it, though, I’m sure as they add more traits they will. They adjusted various things with the experience needed and I really do wish I managed to get up to a higher level before launch, but with the lack of quality controls to help lessen battery drain and overheating (and it’s still bad now), I just couldn’t put as much time in so all I really did was check to see what Stray Dots were around and then more or less went on quite a hiatus, only really coming back when those changes were in… and not long after that did some of the more… controversial changes end up happening as well.

One other big thing that I haven’t really gone into though is the general care for your Dot beyond mentioning the growth system. Your Dot can be fed (they have a hunger meter) and has a happiness meter as well that goes up as you play with them. They also have a Growth meter which when hit, your Dot will grow from a baby to a teen and when hit again, a teen to an adult. Only Adult Dots can breed. It takes about 4,600 total growth in order to grow your Dot up fully. I will say, as much as I like watching them grow, I find the growth animation kind of… creepy? It looks like our pet is being mangled as it transforms into a bigger size, and I’m really confused why they went that way as I feel like it always looks like they’re in pain. I know some people find the growing too fast, but I actually don’t mind it. I think part of the issue is, especially with the Hatch-a-Dot changes, is there’s not much new to do with your Dot after they grow up and learn all the tricks. I love my Dots, but there truly isn’t much to do with them right now. I think they could easily add other things (Something akin to Pokémon Contests/Musicals or Chao Garden Racing) for more Solo Content, but right now, you’re mainly just watching them interact with stuff or breeding them.

Hatch-a-Dot is currently one of the biggest features in the game though, in the sense of it having the most variables, which considering the advertising of how unique the Dots are and the encouragement with getting new ones to discover new traits and archetypes, yeah, it’s a really awful choice to make them cost only real money. It’s also something a lot of people really look forward to trying their hand in with these types of games.

I think, offhand, a lot of people not as well-versed with these types of games could end up thinking Hatch-a-Dot is a side part of the game and a luxury to enjoy more, except it’s really not and that’s part of why people are so upset. Even the newsletters that have been going out since Peridot launched talk about breeding, the Hatch-a-Dot system, having new generations of Peridots, and finding new traits as if people are going to be super okay with spending $5 per new Dot, let alone to experiment with some RNG in hopes of getting one they want. Discovering Archetypes is supposed to be a huge part of the game and the lore but is now almost completely behind a purchase price.

While obviously you don’t need to discover the Archetypes to enjoy the game to the fullest, that doesn’t change the fact that the game is actively encouraging for people to do so while not actually giving any real way to earn them beyond paying.

During Beta, you could earn nests from finding Nest Parts while digging, using the Premium Currency to buy them, and even from Daily Login streaks. It wasn’t super common, but if you played enough, you could at least earn some and build those up. Those who played the Beta were given a random free Archetype Dot alongside 5 free nests, but when there’s people who played for a long time and have like 40+ Generations of Dots, it really doesn’t make up for how much was lost with this change. Even with my infrequency, I had about 20 nests built up. Sure, only like 10-15 weren’t given to us, but that’s a lot for someone who had a lot less time with it.

I did find Nest Parts a bit overwhelming (as you could also find nest parts for specific types of traits for a Dot which could help better control what Dot you may be trying to breed for), but you could gift them to one another as well and I think I’d deal with the overwhelming part system and slowly try to work that out over the way nests work now.

And yes, some of those people still paid. But it’s a lot more reasonable to purchase some Premium Currency where you’re short to get a bit more for something or as you level up and just play– essentially making progress towards it versus having to chuck out $5 every time you want to breed a Dot. This also means less people are willing to experiment and even feeling more like a gamble as you can put that money on the line and not get anything you actually want.

These were my very first Dots. Squishy was the one I got upon starting the game while Pearl is the first Dot I bred, back when nests weren’t pay-walled.

Initially, you could not see random people’s Dots at all. You could only find random Stray Dots at Habitats to breed with. One day, I saw a Unicorn Archetype at our “closest” Habitat. As you’re probably aware of at this point, Pink is my favorite color, especially lighter pinks, so I booked it over there and Pearl ended up being more or less perfect to me color-wise.

My goal from that point was to hopefully get a Dot with Pearl’s colors, but with more of the Traits I actually liked in a Dot. As much as I love Squishy, he is very basic, and Pearl inherited all of his traits and none of her Mysterious Unicorn Mother’s beyond her colors. Despite saying that, I actually do not care for most of the Unicorn traits. In fact, most of the required traits for Archetypes aren’t my thing. I think the closest would maybe be the Cotton Candy one?? Kintsugi can be kind of pretty too, though, I think it would depend on what color I got to go along with the gold. And well, the Rabbit one just requires Rabbit Ears and a Tail (but I find the Rabbit Tail… oddly pointy?), so I guess if I liked everything else enough, maybe it’d be okay.

Celestial I do like a lot, but with my color preferences, as much as I like them as an archetype, that would keep them from being a top favorite. Cassiopeia ended up being my first Archetype Dot, due to being the free one I got as a gift for playing in the Beta.

She is very fabulous and looks like a Pop Star. But I do not like the Picks shape for the Ears (I also do not care for the Square or Heart shapes either– too edgy). I find the way her curls are makes it, so the Picks don’t bother me as much at least, but those are probably some of my least favorite Ear styles in the game.

The short of it is that I really do not have much interest in collecting Archetypes because I actually like them versus the need to fill out my profile essentially and be a good “researcher” so to speak. Like I said, some I do find appealing, but a lot of the time I’d want something that would actually cause the Archetype to be ruined/not count.

That said, while I do miss seeing Stray Dots at Habitats (and don’t see why they needed to be removed– this really could’ve been an added on thing over a replacement), I actually like being able to see other people’s Dots in the wild. I think this opens up a lot more flexibility for one with what you could find, but also more chances to try again as well. This also doesn’t require you to be in range like it did for Stray Dots at Habitats which as someone who can’t go out very much is really appreciated, especially as they continue to murder Pokemon GO’s Accessibility every update.

But removing the option of Stray Dots as habitats does cause an issue for those who don’t want to ask people or have any real interaction with Campfire, Niantic’s own social platform that Hatch a Dot requests get sent through. I feel like having both could’ve been helpful to everyone so I just… don’t really understand the choice for the full replacement.

I do wish there was an option to auto-accept requests though. I like helping people and it makes me happy to see people ask so I try to approve them ASAP, but I always worry one maybe is just sitting there or I somehow miss it and just… It’d be nice if I could set it that way considering there is the option to not get requests, it feels silly there isn’t an auto-acceptance either.

But when it comes down to it, let’s hypothetically say I only want to earn each of the Archetypes. There are 22 different Archetypes in the game. While some Archetypes can overlap (IE: You could probably have ones like Kintsugi and Patina alongside Rabbit or one person I befriended who happens to have a Dot that has both the Ram and Bismuth Archetypes), I wouldn’t really bet on that so at maximum, I would need 22 nests. That’s $110. That also assumes that I will breed perfectly each time and one of my three eggs will be that archetype I’m trying for. We’re not even accounting for if it’s an appearance I like.

Most likely, you will need much more than 22 nests. And considering the focus and encouragement of this feature, the only way to get them being locked behind spending real money is just really really bad. And unfortunately, it’s not something I think will end up changed. At this point, because I’ve played too many games and seen this justification happen for why it can’t be changed even if it still should, the people who did spend money will be angry if it gets changed because they wasted their money. Personally, I’d rather a heavily advertised feature not be locked behind a paywall more than being upset that I used some money up.

Right now, there’s 6-8 Hatch-a-Dot Requests I’d really like to try to send out to Dots that people on my friend’s list have, but I can’t justify spending $30-$40 to do that. That’s an entire game I could buy. And as cute as they are and I would love to try my luck getting one as cute as I think their offspring could be, I can’t justify that in any way. Not to mention it’s probably even a bit more expensive for any Traits I don’t have unlocked I may want and would need to use premium currency for.

And maybe there would be other fun projects to do. Like besides going for all Archetypes, I know some people have tried getting a Dot with all the same star rating Traits… I think if I tried for that, I’d want:

  • 1 Star Traits – Gradient Pattern (or maybe Baguette depending on how the colors looked), Asparagus or Bear Tail, Cow or Goat Horns, Hermes or Skirt Plumage, Glitter Material, Round Face, and Bear or Llama Ears
  • 2 Star Traits – Loops Pattern, Agave or Radish Tail, Asparagus or Meringue Horns, Spades Plumage, Bedazzled or Glimmer Material, Heart Face, and Pigtails Ears
  • 3 Star Traits – Celestial or Cracked Pattern, Ribbon Tail, Shell or Bun Horns, Curls Plumage, Starry Material, Star or Bandit Face, and Heart Ears but I don’t really like any of the 3* ears…
  • 4 Star Traits – Breezy Pattern, Paradise or Whale Tail, Narwhal or Trident Horn, Bee Wings Plumage, Iridescent or Furry Material, Octopus Face (though, I honestly kind of dislike both 4 Star Face Shapes), and Seraph Ears

Of course, considering my level, it’ll be an expensive Dot to breed unless I max out my leveling first… Some traits can be cheaper (just a few 100) while others can be $10-$20+ by themselves to unlock early just for that breeding chance. And then there’s the consideration on if it would be better to be a lower level and do that or purposely not pay a premium currency because those higher level traits are ironically the only ones you don’t want.

Supposedly, part of it is that Niantic wanted people to focus on the Dots they have more which is part of why things were changed, but then we do need more we can do with our Dots. And there shouldn’t be such a big highlight around Archetypes and getting all of them. I feel like people will still spend for Cosmetics (especially if they divide them up and make them $1-$2 each instead of being part of a bundle) and even for Premium Currency from time to time without flat out making Nests real money only.

And that’s the thing– there are so many ways Pet Games and Sites have made monetization possible without literally forcing you to pay real money for more space. Those are usually saved for in-game currency, if anything. Some examples of how sites (I know I’ve seen tons of people who play Flight Rising bring the game up) do monetization are:

  • Cosmetics – People love to dress up their Pets. Right now, we have very few cosmetics and even worse, as mentioned, most you can’t even buy individually. People would absolutely be buying more cosmetics if they had more Dots and if there were more ways to buy them in the first place (IE: Buying individually or offering a Choose # out of a selection for bundle discounts)
  • Instant Growth. For those who don’t want to go through the growing process. Here’s something that could be an easy $5, would still be an option for people who want to rush to being able to breed their Dots, and does not literally make you pay for actually being able to breed.
  • Make Your Own Dot. Some Breeding Games/Sites have an option where you can use everything currently available and make your dream Pet (at generation 1) without going through all the Breeding RNG. You pick each of the traits/patterns/colors from the predisposed options in the game. Think of it like “Create a Character/Avatar” but just your very own Peridot. Would be super helpful for people who maybe want to have Dots based off certain characters, whether their own or for something they like. These aren’t cheap (I want to say $20-$30 is the average– lowest I’ve seen is $10-$15, but I have seen $50– I don’t think that price would work well here, but I do think $15-$20 could and $5-$10 definitely would), but it’s something that pulls people in, especially if they use it as a start to breed more of what they do want. I know I’d be tempted by this, not just for making something with all my favorite traits, but maybe seeing if I can get an Archetype closer to what I’d like or a Mega Audino-themed one or something.
  • Archetype Bundles. Or just the ability to buy a Stray Dot of a specific Archetype. This could rotate, but would be an option for people who don’t want to deal with the nest RNG.
  • Pick another Egg when breeding – Sometimes I do want a second egg of the three or in rare cases, all of them. There’s no reason something like this wouldn’t work well– again, would be better as a premium currency cost, but I do think it would be a well-liked feature.
  • Lifetime Option – Let people pay like $60 or something to “buy” the game and make breeding completely free for those who do. Those who don’t would have a premium currency option.
  • Edit a Trait/Color – I do think this would be a better one with in-game currency, even if the Premium one, than straight up real money only, but if you get a near perfect Dot and either hate the color(s) or just have one trait off or something or very little off, I think this would be nice to be able to adjust a breeding and pick what you want out of only traits in relation to the Parents. Other subsidiaries of this could be:
    • Eye color choice
    • Locking specific traits that HAVE to be included with each Egg.
    • Crossing out traits you absolutely do not want passed down (essentially the opposite of the above

But there are options. So many better options to add a monetization system without literally locking a whole part of your game behind a paywall and every day that no change is made to this, I worry about being given more excuses on why it won’t be changed back.

I would say my other wish with the Hatch-a-Dot system is the option to actually be able to grab more than one Egg from a Breeding if you have enough nests available. Let me pay more Sundrops on the spot, I do not care. If I have the nest room (or heck, even give me the option to buy one or two more nests DURING it to grab those egg), give me the option to pick more than one egg T~T It doesn’t happen too often, but there have been a few breedings now where I would’ve absolutely picked two eggs, if not all three.

I’d also really love if I could gift Dots to people and vice versa. I think that would be nice.

At the very least, I did manage to get a lot of very cute Dots in the time I played. Sakura is pretty much what I wanted– having a Dot with one of my favorite traits (the Ribbon Tail) with Pearl’s color scheme. She’s still fairly basic, but I absolutely adore her. I don’t know if more traits would’ve made her any better for me. Even the Llama ears have grown on me at this point.

Sure, maybe she could’ve looked nice with some horns, but personally, I think she looks very cute as is. And with how many breeding attempts it took hoping to get something like this, I would not want to try my luck again.

You can check out all my other Dots over here, but here is a few more of my favorites:


I do wish you could see your Dot’s family tree. I think that’d be neat. Just like with ones you own, but maybe even the option to show a number of how many other Dots a Dot of yours has bred with.

But when it comes down to it, there’s just not much else to currently do in the game. And while I do think the Dots are cute enough on their own to still warrant having it up, the power use due to the constant AR makes it impossible for me to do so.

Even the Community Day, announced for this upcoming weekend (May 20th & May 21st), feels a bit underwhelming as it focuses on Breeding, you know, that thing that is apparently not at all the main point of the game :| The game gives discounts on breeding costs and a discounted Nest Bundle which… if you can’t put real money into the game, then there’s not much for you?? None of these discounts are applicable to anyone who doesn’t have any nests. Maybe you still have your one free nest, but if not or after that?

Dewdrops will be dropping twice as often, but if you already grew up all your Dots and can’t get new nests, it’s kind of pointless and you’re just stocking them up to sit there. At least they don’t expire like food can.

There will be a special Dewdrop Archetype Bundle, but it is unclear how much it’ll cost* and I am curious how Event Archetypes will work. Will they always be limited like this? Will we never see this Archetype again? If not many people can afford the pack, will the Archetype be especially hard to get? I’m hoping if they continue to do these, they’ll be closer to the price of additional special research in GO if anything. But at least for now, it seems like the majority of Community Day will only really benefit those who can pay which… kind of kills part of the point of a community day.
*Edit post-community day: They ended up being $15. Which is… not great. That is very expensive. That is $180 a year which unless you work with others, you would need to end up spending because there is no way to get those traits for those Archetypes otherwise. Also need to hope you know someone willing to breed their Dot with you and as someone who did NOT buy the Archetype (As it’s a random one and I just did not like the color options I got), the number of resources I wasted trying to get one and failed is insane. The amount of pay to complete/play in this app baffles me.

I’m hoping maybe some adjustments can still be made or maybe there are some special surprises we don’t know about, but right now, it seems kind of underwhelming for Free-to-Play players.

Outside of stuff with your Dot and the Hatch-a-Dot with others (which can be done with Strangers too if you see them at a Habitat or Nearby list), there is slight interactivity with anyone on your friend’s list in that you can give friends 400 Sundrops. These Sundrops are not taken from you so there’s not really any reason not to, but it can take a lot of time if you have more than a few friends because:
-Every time you give Sundrops, your friend’s list scrolls back up to the top.
-Every time you accept Sundrops given to you, you’re kicked out of the friend’s list and once again, scrolled all the way back to the top.

Considering this costs nothing, it’d be nice if there were Give All and Accept All Buttons and I’m genuinely not sure why there aren’t.

tl;dr: Very cute, nests shouldn’t cost real money (there are better ways to do monetization), needs better power settings and/or a way to toggle AR off at times. Would be nice to have more ways to play with/interact with your Dot. And better QoL for the friend gifting system is absolutely needed.

I REALLY do like it, I think it has a lot of potential, and I LOVE my Dots, but I think something needs to be done about the nest system and the game absolutely needs more optimization. But if I can get a plushie or figure of my favorite Dots, I would buy those so fast. I already genuinely really want the Dot Plush they keep showing at Press Stuff :(

THIS IS SOMETHING I WOULD ALSO PAY REAL MONEY FOR, NIANTIC. WHERE IS THE PLUSH PERIDOT. YOU HAVE A PHYSICAL MERCH STORE IN THE IN-GAME SHOP AND THE PLUSH PERIDOT IS ABSENT. XP Despite the caps, I am serious and I want one so bad and it constantly taunts me :( It’s all my favorite colors too…

Cats vs Pickles: Gold Wave pushed back to Fuchsia

Recently announced earlier this week on Cepia’s official Facebook Group for Cats vs Pickles was that the rest of Gold Wave (which would have likely been Sets F, G, and H) have been pushed back to Fuchsia Wave, which honestly, if they are going the way of smaller waves/batches overall, I’m not too bothered by. I’m just happy information has been shared and the designs themselves haven’t been scrapped.

For those not in the group, this is the announcement for reference:


Transcription:


Dear Cats vs Pickles fans,

We hope this message finds you well and enjoying a nice weekend with friends, family and beans. We have some news to share with you that we know might be disappointing, and we want to address it as transparently as possible.

Due to circumstances beyond our control, we have had to move the characters from Gold Wave assortments that have not yet been released into the new Cats vs Pickles Fuchsia Wave. We know that many of you have been eagerly anticipating these characters and we are truly sorry that we could not deliver them as planned. As you may know, we work our designs more than a year ahead, and so by the time we realized that this would happen, we had already committed to the first two assortments of Fuchsia. However, we promise that these characters will come, and we thank you for your patience as we work to make them available.

Going forward, we will release shorter checklists so that this does not happen again.

At Cats vs Pickles, our fans are our number one priority, and we are committed to delivering the best possible products and experiences. To that end, we will be showing at Distoy in London and holding a Facebook LIVE event on Monday, May 29th, at a time to be announced later. During this event, we will answer all questions about the timing of future waves, our e-commerce solution, and UK distribution.

Again, we apologize for any disappointment this news may cause and thank you for your understanding. We are dedicated to making Cats vs Pickles the best brand it can be, and we are grateful for your continued support.

Peace, love, and beans,

Team Cat + Team Pickle

😻⚡️🥒❤️

That said, I worry about people not in the group. They did mention that information would be shared on other platforms on Monday, but well, that hasn’t really happened yet (though, I would guess it’s because of all the Kickstarter packages being sent out. I still haven’t gotten any tracking updates yet myself at the time of writing this T~T Hopefully soon… One thing I know as Backer #1 is that they very much did not do it in Backer order :P).

But even then, a lot of people are just randomly getting blindbags (or buying a bunch in hopes of certain ones) and like I mentioned in one of my last posts where I spoke about the problem with the batches and checklist, now there is no indication that some of these Beans people are opening up for will apparently never be in those Gold Wave bags due to now being pushed back to Fuchsia. I don’t know of a fix for this, it’s just kind of an oversight in general, but it just makes me want to emphasize even more how glad I am they are going back to smaller Waves and just hope that maybe the Checklists will be adjusted for what is actually available at any given time.

Dragon Kitty’s Bean size being part of the Kickstarter may even add to that confusion due to it being on the Gold Wave list and essentially having been pushed back to the Fuchsia Wave. The Kickstarter definitely went under the radar even for existing fans, let alone new ones who will only be finding out about it as all these releases come, but it also worries me that someone will see it online and start buying up bags not being aware that those sets will not be releasing in Gold Wave afterall.

It’s currently unclear how the Chonks and Jumbos will be affected (supposedly we’ll be getting more information during the Facebook Live at the end of the month), but my general stance is as long as things are still coming, I’m happy.

There’s so many designs I’ve been really excited for that have no indication on when we can see them. Knowing that the rest of these Gold Wave will be part of Fuchsia, even if after a while (as the first two assortments of Fuchsia were planned before running into this setback with the rest of Gold Wave), gives me at least some sense of Peace to not have to worry about getting my hopes up for something that won’t come. There’s still a lot of Designs I have so many questions about and even just a “Yes, they are still planned” or “Yes, they will be part of *insertwavehere*” would be really nice to hear. Right now, there is just a lot of back and forth such as with the Firey Bean with a Pitch Fork from the NYC Toy Fair 2020– It only really got released as a Reversible (minus the Pitchfork) and while initially said it would get a Bean size when the Reversibles launched, it has currently changed to a more “not sure” answer which kind of sucks for people who decided to not pick up the design due to waiting for the Bean form.

Either way, with so much already dropping this Summer with Puppies vs Squeaks and Cows vs Aliens, I don’t mind not having to worry about Gold Wave for a while. I hope we’ll see a bit more about Fuchsia Wave and maybe even get a checklist before they drop in stores this Fall.

And if you are disappointed, I think that’s understandable. From a organizational standpoint, having to essentially tuck these away until possibly next year is kind of stressful. I’m very much the type of person who needs to have each thing “finished” before being able to start the next one so having the rest of Gold Wave just kind of nagging there is a bit rough, but there are also Kids who won’t really understand why Gold Wave ended early and having to wait until multiple Fuchsia Wave releases happen to see some of the ones they’ve been waiting for.

It’s hard! I appreciate that we got information, I understand the reasoning they give, but I also worry for those who may not learn this information and it’s still kind of disappointing to know these are a ways off, but at least they’re still coming. They’re not gone. I’m lucky that most of my top wanted ones for Gold Wave were already releaed– I think Piggy Cat, Emboss, and Steamer were the few left of my most wanted (along with Purr-Lock from the temporary extended sheet) with Daisy for Chonks, but Sir Catsalot was definitely my husband’s most wanted (along with Dragon Kitty which we at least got from the Kickstarter) which obviously was pushed back now. He’s pretty casual about it so I know he doesn’t mind, but I feel bad about it anyway.

Considering Kittens vs Gherkins had a similar “shortened” checklist put up around the same time Gold Wave got their shortened checklist, I do wonder if that could be the case for them as well leaving Sets E and F MIA. Lil Finley was one of the first Kittens I wanted and there’s about half I want across the two sets so I hope even if they’re also pushed back that they will still be coming in the long run.

Dogs vs Squirls has hit a similar issue with the Chonks, the sheet only finally opening to list some of the ones found in Canada and Australia as now being exclusive there with 6 to be exclusive in the UK where there have been a bunch of distribution issues right now. I actually really like most of the UK 6…

Edit as of May 22nd: The 6 supposedly exclusive to the UK have now been found in Australia, so… No clue if it’ll be both or is just Australia only right now or what.

…But I also really loved Krystal’s and Watson’s designs from the Chonk sheet, among others, and so I just… really hope they’re coming, but honestly, if they make them Beans instead of Chonks, I absolutely won’t complain. There’s a few others I like a lot too, but would want to see more of first… But I really adore Krystal and Watson so much.

Anyway, here’s hoping we’ll get more information during the Facebook Live (and hopefully those in the UK will have better distribution soon). Either way, I’m just hoping we really will see all the designs that have been previewed eventually.

Disney Dreamlight Valley – Twitch Drops Return! Plus what I’ve been up to.

Despite the positivity in my Twitch community last time, I didn’t expect to be invited again! It’s honestly still an honor, though, I’m also still hoping that we’ll get to a point where anyone streaming it can do this too! I’m guessing they’re still figuring out the best format first because, as you’ll see below, this time it’s a shorter period with two days per window to earn these items. You also only need to watch for two hours total (60 minutes per bundle) instead of three to get everything each time period, but you do need to stop by at least two different days for each of those hours. You essentially have 42 hours for Bundle 1 and 48 Hours for Bundle 2.


Please keep in mind the times listed are for the Eastern Timezone in the USA. Please check here for what the start time for Bundle 1 is in your timezone and here for what the start time for Bundle 2 is in your timezone.

I’ll be streaming over on Twitch starting at 6AM EST on Friday when the Drops start until I go to bed and then each following day from when I wake up until I run out of energy and need to sleep until the Drops are over so streams should be roughly 12-18 hours a day on average, or if I can manage to forgo sleep altogether, we’ll see. :P You should be able to see if I’m live here on the website by looking in the top right as well. You can watch other Streamers as well and everyone on the Eligible List on the official site counts alongside myself! (I’m right there, reminder that MizunoSakura is my Twitch name for anyone who doesn’t know or forgot ^^; )

I will say I do wish they let people earn everything at the same time over the four day period over setting it up for one bundle per two days @-@ I feel like it’s hard for some people to watch a stream more than once depending on their own personal schedule. I guess they’ll look at the feedback to see how to do Drops more in the future. I just hope I can help a lot of people regardless.

Moving on from the Drops stuff, I’ve been doing my usual thing of just… constantly trying to get items I really want from Scrooge. There are so many items I want and even when I get lucky, it almost feels like a joke because I will CONSTANTLY start getting that item in the shop and it just makes it feel like it’s so much more weighted to items you have over those you don’t. I feel like that is probably unlikely, but at the same time it feels too common for there not to be something off here.

Most items I don’t really have a planned use for, but I did start decorating a few areas at least. I’m also really excited about the Air Hockey Table, but I think I want to save doing an Arcade until I set up the Wreck-it Ralph room, or at least until I actually get more of the arcade furniture which has been alluding me quite a bit.


I do have some ideas for what I want to do with some items, especially after one of the recent teasers over on Twitter, but I’ll be saving some of that decorating for the stream this weekend :)

I also only realized recently the Fountain was facing sideways so I fixed that… Plus, I started adding more flowers around to lessen certain things spawning everywhere.

The Premium Shop also continued its chokehold on me with more pets as I expected. I’m still super sad about the price. Even if I thought they were actually really nice, I think the price just doesn’t average out properly.

Unfortunately, I’m pretty much at compacity for pet houses so I ended up putting some near Minnie which while cute, I am a little sad I couldn’t figure out a way to keep them closer to my character’s house with all the other pets.

I did get one other Premium Item though– the Rainbow It’s a Small World Clock which I genuinely really like. I do wish the Clocks could still move even if you turn off the music. I genuinely do love the It’s a Small World theme, but sometimes I just want to relax to the more peaceful music.

Outside of my own personal in-game adventures, we finished the rest of the Dreamlight Park Challenges! The last gift ended up being Moonstones for now, but we’ll be receiving a Teapot that looks similar to the one in the Teacup ride in the next Update which should release sometime next month.

My love of teapots while not being a fan of Alice in Wonderland has me very conflicted on if I’ll use it or not. I guess if I make a Wonderland themed room maybe if I choose to not include it in the Kitchen…

Of course, we did get one big surprise. a surprise event through Discord— the Festival of Foolishness. Playing through the Event grants you 9 codes which all grant some pretty great rewards.

I did make a guide and outlined the codes on my Tips & Tricks page for the game, but for easy access:

  • FOFCRAFTYKIT – 5 Clay, 5 Fabric, 5 Cotton
  • FOFSUCCESS – 8 Pumpkins
  • FOFLOSHARD – 5 Dream Shards, 5 Night Shards
  • FOFTROPHY – 150 Moonstones
  • FOFSURPRISEKIT – 15 Snowballs, 15 Hardwood, 15 Glass
  • FOFLOGEMS – 3 Sapphire, 3 Ruby, 3 Diamond
  • FOFGLITTER – 150 Moonstones
  • FOFCATCHDAY – 5 Kingfish, 5 Fugu, 5 Anglerfish
  • FOFSOUVENIR – 5 Iron Ingots, 5 Gold Ingots, 5 Tinkering Parts

The codes can be used until July 10th, 2023.

Speaking of my Tips & Tricks Page, do you guys think that the Potatoes should have their own Guide Page? Let me know!

Should I make a separate guide page for the Potato Mystery?

  • Yes! (43%, 3 Votes)
  • What's the Potato Mystery? (43%, 3 Votes)
  • No, it's fine as part of Tips & Tricks (14%, 1 Votes)

Total Voters: 7

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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.