Showing posts with label and. Show all posts
Showing posts with label and. Show all posts
Tuesday, 7 April 2015
Missed Classic 5 Wizard and the Princess WON! and Final Rating
By Joe Pranevich
Happy Wanderer Travelogue #3: The hero comes and the hero conquers, but he also learns a valuable lesson: always get your contracts in writing. I have explored the mountainous region in the far north and found the castle of my nemesis. Though it was not easy, I was able to use his own magic against him to rescue the princess and return her home. But alas, my days of wandering are not over yet and I must quest onward if I ever hope to claim my reward. I think I’ll go explore the desert first. What could possibly go wrong?
Episode 5: In Which Our Hero Does Some Shopping
Last week, the happy wanderer and I crossed a desert, explored a forest, sailed over an ocean, and dug up a buried treasure. As we ended the session, we had just used a vial of flying water to sail over the northernmost part of the ocean to land on a new continent. This has been a long journey and I admire the game for providing a sense of distance, something that many quest games don’t manage to do. My feet are sore just thinking about it.
Unlike the wide-open spaces of the desert and forest, the new land is mountainous with one pah that presses me onward with few few diversions. Along the way, I find a ring on the ground and meet up with a woman that warns me that there is a giant up ahead. Giants in these sorts of stories always end up being the evil “use your bones for bread” kind of giants, but this seems vaguely racist. For once, I’d like to meet a giant in a story that was just sort of a tall accountant.
A bit further along the path, I discover an old bridge crossing a deep gorge. The bridge is in bad shape and when I cross it, it collapses and I die. Over the next few deaths, I try to lighten my load and cross but each time meeting the same end. Only when I am carrying nothing does the game let me keep going. Since I do not have much of an alternative, I proceed empty-handed.
I continue crossing the mountains and it starts to rain. Since this is the first weather in the game, it must be significant, but the rain stops and a rainbow appears. I do not immediately find I can do anything with the rainbow, so I keep going west. In the next screen, I finally find that promised giant: he doesn’t seem all that bad of a guy, but he won’t let me continue. When I retrace my steps, I notice that the rain and the rainbow are gone. I smell a puzzle! I restore back to when the rainbow was out and beat my head against the parser before I find something I can do: “follow rainbow”. At the end of the rainbow, there is a single goal coin. I had honestly hoped for a full pot of coins, or perhaps a figure from Irish folklore, but one coin is a good start! I go back to the giant, coin in hand, and confidently try to pay him off. That gets me absolutely nowhere and this puzzle is not quite as simple as I thought.
Back at the bridge, I am wondering if this is where I should have been using the flying vial. I restore back to the previous island and look for another way to cross, but fail. I even revisit the parrot, but he will not give me a second vial. I will spare you the long narration of playing the harp in every room and generally acting like a fool, but I found a lead right where I didn’t expect: I had been so used to being forced on a linear path in the mountains, that I did not notice that one of the screens (on the far side of the bridge) let me go north. When I followed that, it to an empty cave. Now, when you see an empty cave, I’m not sure what you think of, but I had a moment of “I’ve Played Roberta’s Games Before” intuition and it paid off! I return to the bridge and instead of dropping all my stuff, I use the “LUCY” spell to send the items into God-knows-where. When I cross the bridge and check in the cave, all my stuff was present! I had completely forgotten about the locket until the cave jogged my memory, so I will call this a lucky break.
With my backpack filled again, I return to the giant. I remember my children’s stories, so the first thing I try is to give the harp to the giant and he lets me pass! Do you think this is the same giant from King’s Quest? I suspect not as he was guarding a chest of gold, rather than a harp. (Gurer jvyy nyfb or n unec va Xvatf Dhrfg I, ohg V sbetrg gur qrgnvyf.)
Just ahead on the path is a peddler, apparently unaware that a giant was blocking his paying customers. His wares are spread out on a table and each cost one gold coin: unless I find more money, I will just get to pick one. With a bit of experimentation, I can make out a pair of boots, a dagger, a vase, a pan, and a horn but I have no idea what any of them do. Leaving that for now, I head north and discover a castle with a moat. Is this it!? Have I found the wizard’s castle? Unfortunately, the drawbridge is up and the moat is filled with crocodiles, so I do not find a way in. Let’s see if anything I can buy will help!
I head south and the salesman is gone. Since there is no way to know what to buy when you meet him the first time, it hardly seems fair that he disappears before you can come back. Something for me to complain about in the PISSED rating, but for now I restore back. In my first attempt, I take the violent approach: I buy the dagger and try to kill the crocodiles. I guess Roberta only believes in the mass slaughter of snakes, because that doesn’t work AND I lose the dagger. On the next pass, I try the horn. When I play it, the drawbridge opens and I can finally enter the castle! Time to fight a wizard!
Final Episode: In Which Our Hero Does Not Get Everything He Deserves
Inside the castle, everything looks normal enough and I have some options how I want to explore: there are doors to the north and west, and a stairway leading up. I choose west at random and find myself in a large dining hall with a flag on the wall. I note a door to the north, but keep moving west. That leads to a throne room. No one is home, so I do exactly what you would do in this situation: sit on the throne.
ZAP!
After a moment of disorientation, I realize that I have been teleported into an open courtyard. There is an angry looking boar here, but after failing to kill the crocodiles I decide to take the non-violent approach: I still have the apple that I picked up in the cabin just after I left I desert. I hand that to the pig, he eats it, and is dead at my feet in moment. Seriously? Who would leave a poisoned apple out where anyone I can pick it up and eat it by accident?
I re-enter the castle and find myself in an old fashioned kitchen. I start to explore further, before…
ZAP!
I am teleported again, this time to a small room with a locked door. How am I supposed to make any progress if I am teleported around like a madman? I do not have any way to open the door, so I step outside and into a hedge maze. At least, I think it’s a hedge maze; you know how the graphics are… Fortunately, the hedge maze turns out to be large, but simple: each corridor heads off in one direction and there are no switchbacks or hidden exits. Along the way, I find a dungeon room that contains a cell (that I cannot open or do anything with) and the exit back to the castle entrance hall. (The hedge maze had been out the door to the north.)
This pass, I try to explore north of the dining hall instead and… ZAP!
This time, I find myself in a cell with a locked door, probably the same cell that I just found the other side of in the hedge maze. Unfortunately, I cannot find any ways out so I am forced to reload the game.
This time, I do some experimentation. I find that the zapping is consistent and that it happens whenever I do anything in the teleporting rooms, and always loads back to the same place. More importantly, it seems to only happen once! When I retrace my steps all the way through the hedge maze this time, I can explore the throne room freely without getting teleported anymore. I do not find anything but it is at least a lead!
When I’m done exploring the downstairs, I head up and find a landing with rooms left and right. Left takes me to a gigantic frog, but ZAP! I am pushed back to the landing. I go in again and the same thing happens. This is the only play that zaps you more than once, so it must be significant. Could it be that the princess has been turned into a frog? Who would ever see that coming!?
The room to the right is a former bedroom, but I find a pair of shoes on the floor in the closet. When I examine them, they have the word “WHOOSH” written on the bottom! I try my new magic word in the frog’s room, but I am still teleported out. It must be something else… how about that locked cell? I force myself to be zapped back to the cell and try my new magic word: nothing happens. But I do not give up that easily and try it again after putting the shoes on. It works! I am teleported back to the very beginning of the game!
Thinking on this for a second, I remember that walking back to the castle won’t be an option. The rowboat is on the wrong shore and I still have no means of getting a second flying vial. Fortunately, using “whoosh” again here teleports me back to the castle entrance. Awesome!
Having triggered and survived that teleport trap, I can explore north of the dining hall further but that ends up not being as exciting as I hoped: it just leads back to the old fashioned kitchen where I was teleported to in the first run. This leads me to another boring segment where I type stupid commands in bunches of places and try to find something that I didn’t before. It’s not the most fun to type up and read, so I’ll spare you the details and just tell you that I found that I could pick the lock in the door at the end of the hedge maze using my knife. (That’s the room I was teleported to, so I wonder if I needed to solve the hedge maze at all.) That leads me to a new room with stairs and a door to the east. When I go through that door, I find myself in the frog room and am teleported out, but the stairs take me to the top of a tall tower.
Now, the first time I went into the tower, it was empty, but at some point I entered it a second or third time and there was a bird flying around. I try to catch the bird or kill it, but that doesn’t get me anywhere and I find myself stuck yet again.
And this is where I get really stuck. As in, hours and hours of not finding anything new. I even explore the entire first section again after using the “whoosh” spell. Other than the rowboat resetting (so I could get to the second island), there was still no way to get more flying vials so I could not retrace my steps to the castle completely. After hours and hours of this, I gave up and took a hint. I am not proud of that, but I did want to finish eventually. I made it pretty far solving some puzzles and beating others to death with sheer stubbornness, but this one beat me.
The trick is in the ring that I found in the mountains: if you put it on and “rub” it, you transform into a cat. In your cat form, you are able to easily pounce on the bird and eat it. Are there any stories where you rub a ring? I would never have thought to try that verb. Did I miss a hint anywhere?
While that does not seem to do anything immediately, for some reason I can now enter the frog’s room without getting teleported away. (After winning, I consult a guide and it seems that the wizard had disguised himself as the bird to evade detection.) I pucker up and kiss the frog, transforming her back into a beautiful princess.
The princess follows me back to the throne room and I expect an ending, but that does nothing. For lack of any better ideas, I use “whoosh” one more time and we are both transported to Serenia. With all the pomp and circumstance of buying a soda from a machine, the game is over:
After all this effort, walking halfway around the world, and defeating the wizard, the best they can do is “Junior-Master Adventurer”? The manual clearly stated that I would marry the princess and take half of the kingdom, but now I’m just left disappointed. Did I miss something? Is there a better ending that I could have received? Please reply in the comments!
Time played: 4 hrs
Total time: 9 hrs
Final Rating
Without further pomp or circumstance, let’s talk about the game overall.
Puzzles and Solvability - 3
This game is a mess when it comes to puzzles, with some absolutely brilliant/fun ones (the notes that you have to assemble to leave the desert) with some real losers (rubbing the ring to kill a bird that was secretly an evil wizard). This game loses points for the opening maze as just an example of poor pacing, as well as the puzzles that required reloading to solve. I may be able to forgive the latter since the game was nearly over and we expect an increase in difficulty, but to start the game off in a maze? That was just poor design.
Interface and Inventory - 3
Other than color, the interface to this game is the same as Mystery House with few exceptions. The keyword “all” has been added and can be used in a few cases, but that is about it. (And the only way I even know about that is that the manual brings it up.) This game however has a great collection of inventory items, almost all of which you need to solve a puzzle. While many of those puzzles had their flaws, the inventory in the game isn’t that bad in itself.
Story and Setting - 4
I sort-of like the story and setting of this game. It’s a decent traveling journey across varied terrain and you really get a sense for having gone a long way. While it was not well-used, I also liked that you could re-explore pretty much the whole game at the end. A better game would have made that worthwhile, but this isn’t that game. I know I’m letting my future-sight cloud my judgement here, but this felt like a King’s Quest game with that same hodge-podge of fantasy tropes and mixed up mythologies that enjoy. I am sure that many would not find that as endearing as I did, but I liked it.
Read more »
Happy Wanderer Travelogue #3: The hero comes and the hero conquers, but he also learns a valuable lesson: always get your contracts in writing. I have explored the mountainous region in the far north and found the castle of my nemesis. Though it was not easy, I was able to use his own magic against him to rescue the princess and return her home. But alas, my days of wandering are not over yet and I must quest onward if I ever hope to claim my reward. I think I’ll go explore the desert first. What could possibly go wrong?
Episode 5: In Which Our Hero Does Some Shopping
.png) |
| The artist must have practiced drawing people between games, but not trees. |
Unlike the wide-open spaces of the desert and forest, the new land is mountainous with one pah that presses me onward with few few diversions. Along the way, I find a ring on the ground and meet up with a woman that warns me that there is a giant up ahead. Giants in these sorts of stories always end up being the evil “use your bones for bread” kind of giants, but this seems vaguely racist. For once, I’d like to meet a giant in a story that was just sort of a tall accountant.
.png) |
| Too deep for billy goats. |
I continue crossing the mountains and it starts to rain. Since this is the first weather in the game, it must be significant, but the rain stops and a rainbow appears. I do not immediately find I can do anything with the rainbow, so I keep going west. In the next screen, I finally find that promised giant: he doesn’t seem all that bad of a guy, but he won’t let me continue. When I retrace my steps, I notice that the rain and the rainbow are gone. I smell a puzzle! I restore back to when the rainbow was out and beat my head against the parser before I find something I can do: “follow rainbow”. At the end of the rainbow, there is a single goal coin. I had honestly hoped for a full pot of coins, or perhaps a figure from Irish folklore, but one coin is a good start! I go back to the giant, coin in hand, and confidently try to pay him off. That gets me absolutely nowhere and this puzzle is not quite as simple as I thought.
.png) |
| Red, orange, and yellow were unavailable. Blue and green were drunk. |
.png) |
| So many items! Wait, is everything levitating? |
Just ahead on the path is a peddler, apparently unaware that a giant was blocking his paying customers. His wares are spread out on a table and each cost one gold coin: unless I find more money, I will just get to pick one. With a bit of experimentation, I can make out a pair of boots, a dagger, a vase, a pan, and a horn but I have no idea what any of them do. Leaving that for now, I head north and discover a castle with a moat. Is this it!? Have I found the wizard’s castle? Unfortunately, the drawbridge is up and the moat is filled with crocodiles, so I do not find a way in. Let’s see if anything I can buy will help!
.png) |
| The selection is great, but no free shipping. |
Final Episode: In Which Our Hero Does Not Get Everything He Deserves
.png) |
| No castle moat would be complete without a collection of crocodiles. |
ZAP!
After a moment of disorientation, I realize that I have been teleported into an open courtyard. There is an angry looking boar here, but after failing to kill the crocodiles I decide to take the non-violent approach: I still have the apple that I picked up in the cabin just after I left I desert. I hand that to the pig, he eats it, and is dead at my feet in moment. Seriously? Who would leave a poisoned apple out where anyone I can pick it up and eat it by accident?
.png) |
| I just feel so guilty... |
ZAP!
I am teleported again, this time to a small room with a locked door. How am I supposed to make any progress if I am teleported around like a madman? I do not have any way to open the door, so I step outside and into a hedge maze. At least, I think it’s a hedge maze; you know how the graphics are… Fortunately, the hedge maze turns out to be large, but simple: each corridor heads off in one direction and there are no switchbacks or hidden exits. Along the way, I find a dungeon room that contains a cell (that I cannot open or do anything with) and the exit back to the castle entrance hall. (The hedge maze had been out the door to the north.)
This pass, I try to explore north of the dining hall instead and… ZAP!
.png) |
| This hardly seems fair. |
This time, I do some experimentation. I find that the zapping is consistent and that it happens whenever I do anything in the teleporting rooms, and always loads back to the same place. More importantly, it seems to only happen once! When I retrace my steps all the way through the hedge maze this time, I can explore the throne room freely without getting teleported anymore. I do not find anything but it is at least a lead!
When I’m done exploring the downstairs, I head up and find a landing with rooms left and right. Left takes me to a gigantic frog, but ZAP! I am pushed back to the landing. I go in again and the same thing happens. This is the only play that zaps you more than once, so it must be significant. Could it be that the princess has been turned into a frog? Who would ever see that coming!?
.png) |
| Not looking forward to kissing that… |
.png) |
| Oh God, not again. |
Having triggered and survived that teleport trap, I can explore north of the dining hall further but that ends up not being as exciting as I hoped: it just leads back to the old fashioned kitchen where I was teleported to in the first run. This leads me to another boring segment where I type stupid commands in bunches of places and try to find something that I didn’t before. It’s not the most fun to type up and read, so I’ll spare you the details and just tell you that I found that I could pick the lock in the door at the end of the hedge maze using my knife. (That’s the room I was teleported to, so I wonder if I needed to solve the hedge maze at all.) That leads me to a new room with stairs and a door to the east. When I go through that door, I find myself in the frog room and am teleported out, but the stairs take me to the top of a tall tower.
Now, the first time I went into the tower, it was empty, but at some point I entered it a second or third time and there was a bird flying around. I try to catch the bird or kill it, but that doesn’t get me anywhere and I find myself stuck yet again.
.png) |
| Anyone have a rod with a rusty star on one end? |
The trick is in the ring that I found in the mountains: if you put it on and “rub” it, you transform into a cat. In your cat form, you are able to easily pounce on the bird and eat it. Are there any stories where you rub a ring? I would never have thought to try that verb. Did I miss a hint anywhere?
While that does not seem to do anything immediately, for some reason I can now enter the frog’s room without getting teleported away. (After winning, I consult a guide and it seems that the wizard had disguised himself as the bird to evade detection.) I pucker up and kiss the frog, transforming her back into a beautiful princess.
.png) |
| You still look a little green. Are you okay? |
.png) |
| JUNIOR-MASTER!? |
Time played: 4 hrs
Total time: 9 hrs
Final Rating
Without further pomp or circumstance, let’s talk about the game overall.
Puzzles and Solvability - 3
This game is a mess when it comes to puzzles, with some absolutely brilliant/fun ones (the notes that you have to assemble to leave the desert) with some real losers (rubbing the ring to kill a bird that was secretly an evil wizard). This game loses points for the opening maze as just an example of poor pacing, as well as the puzzles that required reloading to solve. I may be able to forgive the latter since the game was nearly over and we expect an increase in difficulty, but to start the game off in a maze? That was just poor design.
.png) |
| If only the Professor had thought of this, Gilligan and his friends may have made it home. |
Interface and Inventory - 3
Other than color, the interface to this game is the same as Mystery House with few exceptions. The keyword “all” has been added and can be used in a few cases, but that is about it. (And the only way I even know about that is that the manual brings it up.) This game however has a great collection of inventory items, almost all of which you need to solve a puzzle. While many of those puzzles had their flaws, the inventory in the game isn’t that bad in itself.
Story and Setting - 4
I sort-of like the story and setting of this game. It’s a decent traveling journey across varied terrain and you really get a sense for having gone a long way. While it was not well-used, I also liked that you could re-explore pretty much the whole game at the end. A better game would have made that worthwhile, but this isn’t that game. I know I’m letting my future-sight cloud my judgement here, but this felt like a King’s Quest game with that same hodge-podge of fantasy tropes and mixed up mythologies that enjoy. I am sure that many would not find that as endearing as I did, but I liked it.
Sound and Graphics - 2
The graphics were somewhat more mature than Mystery House, but it still looked amateurish and unpolished. Worse, it seems that the continuity wasn’t always there. The damned sailboat thing really screwed with me for a long time, but I bet that was just an artist trying to draw the rowboat from far away and not caring that different kinds of boats look different. Sound was nonexistent, of course. I also have to ding some points here for the blandness of some of the environments, especially the two mazes. Since you spend the majority of the first hours in the desert, at least they could have made it slightly less bland.
Environment and Atmosphere - 3
Just like the “story” section above, I find myself uncontrollably reading the Kings Quest feeling into this game, but otherwise the environments were hit or miss. The desert section went on far too long, detracting from the feeling that the game was going anyplace. While I found it somewhat annoying, the constant “zapping” in the final castle created an unsettled feeling, like you could get whisked away at any moment. Exploration became more hurried, tension was higher. That was a good way to shake up the final segment and I’ll give the game a point just for that.
Dialog and Acting - 3
Like its predecessor, the text in this game is sparse and there are relatively few NPCs that you can talk to. I’m reminded of the lonely town of Serenia which apparently has no people at all! But unlike Mystery House, there was enough text to get a feeling for the tone of the game and to appreciate the writing when it was there. I scored it a bit higher for that reason.
Drumroll Please...
(3+3+4+2+3+3)/.60 = 30 points! That is just slightly ahead of Mystery House. I was considering deducting a point for the terrible opening, but I think the scores speak for themselves overall. The first Kings Quest game scored a 48 and while I can see a glimmer of what that series will become in this game, we can see a much earlier and less refined approach to storytelling here. If the art had been a bit more consistent and the start not quite as frustrating, I think we would be a lot closer. I am curious whether any of the “Hi-Res Adventure” games will come close.
Roberta Williams may have taken the criticism that Wizard and the Princess was too hard seriously: her next game would be Mission Asteroid. Released as her third game in 1980, the game was renumbered as “#0” to act as an easier prequel of sorts to help new adventurers get into the genre. That will be my next “Missed Classic”!
The graphics were somewhat more mature than Mystery House, but it still looked amateurish and unpolished. Worse, it seems that the continuity wasn’t always there. The damned sailboat thing really screwed with me for a long time, but I bet that was just an artist trying to draw the rowboat from far away and not caring that different kinds of boats look different. Sound was nonexistent, of course. I also have to ding some points here for the blandness of some of the environments, especially the two mazes. Since you spend the majority of the first hours in the desert, at least they could have made it slightly less bland.
.png) |
| See the pirate hiding behind that tree? Me, neither. |
Environment and Atmosphere - 3
Just like the “story” section above, I find myself uncontrollably reading the Kings Quest feeling into this game, but otherwise the environments were hit or miss. The desert section went on far too long, detracting from the feeling that the game was going anyplace. While I found it somewhat annoying, the constant “zapping” in the final castle created an unsettled feeling, like you could get whisked away at any moment. Exploration became more hurried, tension was higher. That was a good way to shake up the final segment and I’ll give the game a point just for that.
Dialog and Acting - 3
Like its predecessor, the text in this game is sparse and there are relatively few NPCs that you can talk to. I’m reminded of the lonely town of Serenia which apparently has no people at all! But unlike Mystery House, there was enough text to get a feeling for the tone of the game and to appreciate the writing when it was there. I scored it a bit higher for that reason.
Drumroll Please...
(3+3+4+2+3+3)/.60 = 30 points! That is just slightly ahead of Mystery House. I was considering deducting a point for the terrible opening, but I think the scores speak for themselves overall. The first Kings Quest game scored a 48 and while I can see a glimmer of what that series will become in this game, we can see a much earlier and less refined approach to storytelling here. If the art had been a bit more consistent and the start not quite as frustrating, I think we would be a lot closer. I am curious whether any of the “Hi-Res Adventure” games will come close.
.png) |
| Can you hear me, Major Tom? |
Monday, 6 April 2015
Tiny Death Star Tips tricks and Cheats for android
Tiny Death Star
Tips tricks and Cheats for android
1. Convert Your Bux Into Currency Near The Start of Your Elevator Upgrading Practices
There’s only one occasion where we recommend converting Bux into Credits using the game’s rather poor currency converter, and that’s at the very beginning of the game. Before you do anything else, upgrade your elevator one level so you can zip around the Death Star, dropping off passengers, much more quickly. If you must use this system again, go for the maximum conversion – you get more Credits per individual Bux this way.
2. Produce Some Apartments Within Your First Couple of Floors
When you have a good amount of floor space available in your Death Star residency, build a healthy amount of apartments on those floors. Three or four apartment s should suffice. You’ll have more rooms to offer to workers and more of those high-level visitors once they arrive. You have a better shot at keeping better workers if you implement more living quarters.
3. Split Up Your Bitizens For All Those Jobs on Deck
our Bitizens need to be spread out accordingly for all the jobs that make up the majority of everything that’s going on within your Death Star. There’s no need to leave a bunch of workers on one job if you don’t even have a large gathering of workers anyway. If you’re low on workers, then keep at least two of them on a single job at a time.
4. Always Keep An Extra Room Open for Super Great Visitors With Great Stats
Once you have a healthy amount of floors and available rooms ready for all the visitors who frequent your Death Star, you’ll notice that some of those visitors have some great statistics/perks. These folks will award you with more money if you take ‘em in, so always keep an extra room open for them if possible. Some of the Bitizens that take up residence at your Death Star may not be worth the effort of keeping around. Kick ‘em out and move in those money making folks for a much improved worker output rate.
5. Upgrade Your Elevator As Soon As Possible
Spending your Bux on all the different tasks that make up the production of your Death Star is always a viable method of play. However, make sure you offer some bucks towards your elevator’s growth when you have the money available. Do this as soon as possible so you can pick up and transport way more passengers than before. Plus the faster your elevator is, the more Bux you’ll gather as you take care of all of your intergalactic customers.
6. Stack Up Some of Those Imperial Bux for Those Extra Characters
If you don’t want to spend that REAL currency you have lying around, then save up a good amount of Imperial Bux. You’ll need to use these bucks as you come along all those cool characters variations that true Star Wars nerds will be enamored with. There’s Droids, Bounty Hunters, Men/Ladies of the Rebellion, Rebel Heroes/Aliens, Outer Rim characters,
7. Stock Up Those Lower-Tier Items to Kill Some Time
Stock According to Your Own Time – If you’re stuck on a subway for hours thanks to a tunnel fire or whatever, go ahead and stock lower-tier items since they restock quickly and you’ll be around to refill orders as necessary. If you can only pop in on the game for a second, stock higher-tier items. They take a long time to refill, but you’ll know for sure that you can simply press “stock” next time you play and start selling right away.
8. Earn Extra Bux By Ratting Out Those Rebels
Your Tiny Death Star is going to be packed to the rafters with a slew of famous and not-so-famous Star Wars characters. There will be instance where you’ll have to search out for an honored guest or some rebel scum within your Death Star. When you’re given these missions, all you have to do is tap on the floor they’re on to locate them. CONGRATS! You just earned some Bux.
9. Make Your Workforce Focus on More Beneficial Business
Got plenty of businesses but not enough workers? Concentrate your workforce on those areas of the business that have the most valuable stock to sell – and make sure each one is maxed out with workers. Then you can start filling out the less profitable shops in the stack.
10. Evict freeloaders.
Some people just arent right for the job. Any job. Whenever a new resident moves in, the first thing youll see is their skill set. If they have low numbers for each skill, dont even give it a second thought - boot them. The last thing you want is an unmotivated worker. The higher their skills, the more productive theyll be when you assign them a job.
11. Keep an open apartment on every level.
Every time you build an apartment level, five new flats open up. Your tendency will be to want to fill them with every person that visits the empty floor. Resist that urge. If those bitizens dont meet your needs, evict them. And its sometimes a good idea to take someone who may not be bad at things but may just not be great at things and boot them instead.
12. Give workers their dream gigs.
You get a special bonus for placing workers in their dream jobs, too. If one of those great bitizens arrive when you dont have an open apartment to put them in, theyre lost to you forever; youll get a tip for bringing them to the apartment level they tell you to go to, but they wont benefit you at all otherwise.
13. Build a few apartments early
Sure, youre going to end up with a lot of unemployed bitizens early in the game, but hear me out: Lower apartment levels are easier to fill. Youll have a better selection of bitizens to start putting into jobs later in the game. when apartments get built on really high levels, its more difficult to get bitizens to visit them, and you have to rely on VIPs like Recruiting Officers to fill them. Whats more, having a ready pool of available talent means you can be more selective when it comes to hiring high-skilled workers.
14. Upgrade your elevator
As soon as you have enough Imperial Bux to afford it, upgrade your elevator. Not only will you be able to move Bitizens faster, but youll collect an increased tip for each level you bring them to. Upgrading to the twice-as-fast elevator, for example, will get you 20 coins when bringing someone to level 10. And it also helps you move traffic that much faster, which makes it more likely youll find VIPs that you need to move the game along.
15. Save your Bux
Level-building gets expensive quickly. You may want to covert Bux to coins to help speed along level creation, but resist the urge. Its short term gain, to be sure, but youll find yourself in the hole very quickly, and itll make you more likely to spend real-world money through In-App Purchases to help get a leg up on the game. And that rabbit hole goes down very far, indeed.
16. Keep space for your VIPs
VIPs arrive with other Bitizens; they can upgrade levels, or fill an entirely empty apartment block with new tenants who need jobs. Theyre also Imperial supply officers who can create items that Darth Vader wants. You can park up to five of them at a time on the Arrivals level, but its a good idea to keep at least one slot free - that way if a special VIP arrives, you can put them to good use. Otherwise youll have to use them right away.
17. Manage your inventory effectively
Each business sells up to three items. The first item is the least expensive, but also takes the least time to craft. The second and third items take longer, but you get a lot more. Make sure to craft the expensive items when youre planning to leave the game for the hours youll need to make them. Also, try to have your businesses completely stocked before you quit the game - your bitizens will continue to buy goods and services while youre away.
18. Spread your risk
Dont build too many of one kind of business. Try to keep it balanced between food, retail, service and recreation. Too many of any kind of business makes buyers appear less frequently.
19. Visitors save build time
Any time a store is crafting a product or a level is being built, bringing a visitor to that level shaves a minute off the build time. While you have to bring visitors to whatever "normal" level they want to go, any visitor can be brought to an Imperial level. So its a good way to shave minutes off your Imperial level build times, especially.
20. Horde Your Bux Early On for Elevator Upgrades
Simply put, the starting elevator in Tiny Death Star sucks. At the start of a new game, you’ll want to save up as soon as you can for the first upgrade. It’s much faster than the starter, coin rewards are doubled, and a faster elevator means more potential bitizens. Personally, I’d recommend saving all your bux just for elevator upgrades, as the upgrade benefits are real, useful and the only way to to upgrade an elevator is with bux. This also means that you should refrain from spending bux on skipping missions, fast-tracking restocking or buying out inventory. Restocking and inventory simply take time, while missions are almost never worth skipping, even if the requirements feel onerous. Also, I wouldn’t recommend spending bux to fill residential vacancies, at least at the onset. Once you get more floors and it becomes less likely you’ll ferry a bitizen to a specific new residence, you can consider it (however, see the tip further down on dream jobbers to minimize this desire).
21. Save Your Recruiter VIP for New Floors
The Recruiter VIP is my favorite person in Tiny Death Star, as he’ll instantly fill out any vacancies in whatever residential floor you take him too. If you take him to a completely empty floor, that’s five new residences that would have either taken five bux or a decent amount of time trying to ferry bitizens to that respective floor. They’re also pretty rare, too. Thus, it makes perfect sense to save them for when you have empty floors. If you get one before you have an empty floor, save it and build one before using it.
22. Go All In On Dream Jobbers
As we mentioned in our review, Tiny Death Star is pretty stingy when it comes to doling out bux. In fact, the only sure fire way of earning them is to place bitizens in their respective dream jobs, which doubles the stock of the item they are in charge of and also provides a one-time reward of one bux. So it’s in your best interest to try and place as many bitizens as you can into their respective dream jobs. There are a few techniques you can employ to make this happen more often. For starters, make sure that you build lots of extra residential floors. One piece of advice I’ve heard is to make every other floor residential. This will not only make it far more likely that an elevator-riding bitizen will actually go fill a vacant spot on a resident floor, but it also means you’ll have tons of extra unemployed bitizens with dream jobs that need to be satisfied. Once you’ve gotten a good system going, it’s just a matter of moving in bitizens, placing them in their dream jobs, and evicting any bitizens that either have dream jobs for floors you haven’t built yet or have already given you their bonuses and have been replaced. This tactic is a little tough at the onset when you don’t have too many floors, but the more you have, the easier it’ll be to cycle dream jobbers in and out.
23. Reserve Floor Upgrades for Low Stock Shops
This may be more of a personal preference for me, but I’m not a fan of having to deal with floors that have low inventory/restock times. So whenever I had some spare credits or a VIP that upgraded floors, I’d focus on those floors. As you upgrade them, both their inventory and restock timers get longer, meaning you have to check them less throughout the day. Considering Tiny Death Star doesn’t really give players any bonuses for perpetually fully stocking floors (other than an occasional buying frenzy), I’d rather simply have an upgraded floor that I have to check less.
There’s only one occasion where we recommend converting Bux into Credits using the game’s rather poor currency converter, and that’s at the very beginning of the game. Before you do anything else, upgrade your elevator one level so you can zip around the Death Star, dropping off passengers, much more quickly. If you must use this system again, go for the maximum conversion – you get more Credits per individual Bux this way.
2. Produce Some Apartments Within Your First Couple of Floors
When you have a good amount of floor space available in your Death Star residency, build a healthy amount of apartments on those floors. Three or four apartment s should suffice. You’ll have more rooms to offer to workers and more of those high-level visitors once they arrive. You have a better shot at keeping better workers if you implement more living quarters.
3. Split Up Your Bitizens For All Those Jobs on Deck
our Bitizens need to be spread out accordingly for all the jobs that make up the majority of everything that’s going on within your Death Star. There’s no need to leave a bunch of workers on one job if you don’t even have a large gathering of workers anyway. If you’re low on workers, then keep at least two of them on a single job at a time.
4. Always Keep An Extra Room Open for Super Great Visitors With Great Stats
Once you have a healthy amount of floors and available rooms ready for all the visitors who frequent your Death Star, you’ll notice that some of those visitors have some great statistics/perks. These folks will award you with more money if you take ‘em in, so always keep an extra room open for them if possible. Some of the Bitizens that take up residence at your Death Star may not be worth the effort of keeping around. Kick ‘em out and move in those money making folks for a much improved worker output rate.
5. Upgrade Your Elevator As Soon As Possible
Spending your Bux on all the different tasks that make up the production of your Death Star is always a viable method of play. However, make sure you offer some bucks towards your elevator’s growth when you have the money available. Do this as soon as possible so you can pick up and transport way more passengers than before. Plus the faster your elevator is, the more Bux you’ll gather as you take care of all of your intergalactic customers.
6. Stack Up Some of Those Imperial Bux for Those Extra Characters
If you don’t want to spend that REAL currency you have lying around, then save up a good amount of Imperial Bux. You’ll need to use these bucks as you come along all those cool characters variations that true Star Wars nerds will be enamored with. There’s Droids, Bounty Hunters, Men/Ladies of the Rebellion, Rebel Heroes/Aliens, Outer Rim characters,
7. Stock Up Those Lower-Tier Items to Kill Some Time
Stock According to Your Own Time – If you’re stuck on a subway for hours thanks to a tunnel fire or whatever, go ahead and stock lower-tier items since they restock quickly and you’ll be around to refill orders as necessary. If you can only pop in on the game for a second, stock higher-tier items. They take a long time to refill, but you’ll know for sure that you can simply press “stock” next time you play and start selling right away.
8. Earn Extra Bux By Ratting Out Those Rebels
Your Tiny Death Star is going to be packed to the rafters with a slew of famous and not-so-famous Star Wars characters. There will be instance where you’ll have to search out for an honored guest or some rebel scum within your Death Star. When you’re given these missions, all you have to do is tap on the floor they’re on to locate them. CONGRATS! You just earned some Bux.
9. Make Your Workforce Focus on More Beneficial Business
Got plenty of businesses but not enough workers? Concentrate your workforce on those areas of the business that have the most valuable stock to sell – and make sure each one is maxed out with workers. Then you can start filling out the less profitable shops in the stack.
10. Evict freeloaders.
Some people just arent right for the job. Any job. Whenever a new resident moves in, the first thing youll see is their skill set. If they have low numbers for each skill, dont even give it a second thought - boot them. The last thing you want is an unmotivated worker. The higher their skills, the more productive theyll be when you assign them a job.
11. Keep an open apartment on every level.
Every time you build an apartment level, five new flats open up. Your tendency will be to want to fill them with every person that visits the empty floor. Resist that urge. If those bitizens dont meet your needs, evict them. And its sometimes a good idea to take someone who may not be bad at things but may just not be great at things and boot them instead.
12. Give workers their dream gigs.
You get a special bonus for placing workers in their dream jobs, too. If one of those great bitizens arrive when you dont have an open apartment to put them in, theyre lost to you forever; youll get a tip for bringing them to the apartment level they tell you to go to, but they wont benefit you at all otherwise.
13. Build a few apartments early
Sure, youre going to end up with a lot of unemployed bitizens early in the game, but hear me out: Lower apartment levels are easier to fill. Youll have a better selection of bitizens to start putting into jobs later in the game. when apartments get built on really high levels, its more difficult to get bitizens to visit them, and you have to rely on VIPs like Recruiting Officers to fill them. Whats more, having a ready pool of available talent means you can be more selective when it comes to hiring high-skilled workers.
14. Upgrade your elevator
As soon as you have enough Imperial Bux to afford it, upgrade your elevator. Not only will you be able to move Bitizens faster, but youll collect an increased tip for each level you bring them to. Upgrading to the twice-as-fast elevator, for example, will get you 20 coins when bringing someone to level 10. And it also helps you move traffic that much faster, which makes it more likely youll find VIPs that you need to move the game along.
15. Save your Bux
Level-building gets expensive quickly. You may want to covert Bux to coins to help speed along level creation, but resist the urge. Its short term gain, to be sure, but youll find yourself in the hole very quickly, and itll make you more likely to spend real-world money through In-App Purchases to help get a leg up on the game. And that rabbit hole goes down very far, indeed.
16. Keep space for your VIPs
VIPs arrive with other Bitizens; they can upgrade levels, or fill an entirely empty apartment block with new tenants who need jobs. Theyre also Imperial supply officers who can create items that Darth Vader wants. You can park up to five of them at a time on the Arrivals level, but its a good idea to keep at least one slot free - that way if a special VIP arrives, you can put them to good use. Otherwise youll have to use them right away.
17. Manage your inventory effectively
Each business sells up to three items. The first item is the least expensive, but also takes the least time to craft. The second and third items take longer, but you get a lot more. Make sure to craft the expensive items when youre planning to leave the game for the hours youll need to make them. Also, try to have your businesses completely stocked before you quit the game - your bitizens will continue to buy goods and services while youre away.
18. Spread your risk
Dont build too many of one kind of business. Try to keep it balanced between food, retail, service and recreation. Too many of any kind of business makes buyers appear less frequently.
19. Visitors save build time
Any time a store is crafting a product or a level is being built, bringing a visitor to that level shaves a minute off the build time. While you have to bring visitors to whatever "normal" level they want to go, any visitor can be brought to an Imperial level. So its a good way to shave minutes off your Imperial level build times, especially.
20. Horde Your Bux Early On for Elevator Upgrades
Simply put, the starting elevator in Tiny Death Star sucks. At the start of a new game, you’ll want to save up as soon as you can for the first upgrade. It’s much faster than the starter, coin rewards are doubled, and a faster elevator means more potential bitizens. Personally, I’d recommend saving all your bux just for elevator upgrades, as the upgrade benefits are real, useful and the only way to to upgrade an elevator is with bux. This also means that you should refrain from spending bux on skipping missions, fast-tracking restocking or buying out inventory. Restocking and inventory simply take time, while missions are almost never worth skipping, even if the requirements feel onerous. Also, I wouldn’t recommend spending bux to fill residential vacancies, at least at the onset. Once you get more floors and it becomes less likely you’ll ferry a bitizen to a specific new residence, you can consider it (however, see the tip further down on dream jobbers to minimize this desire).
21. Save Your Recruiter VIP for New Floors
The Recruiter VIP is my favorite person in Tiny Death Star, as he’ll instantly fill out any vacancies in whatever residential floor you take him too. If you take him to a completely empty floor, that’s five new residences that would have either taken five bux or a decent amount of time trying to ferry bitizens to that respective floor. They’re also pretty rare, too. Thus, it makes perfect sense to save them for when you have empty floors. If you get one before you have an empty floor, save it and build one before using it.
22. Go All In On Dream Jobbers
As we mentioned in our review, Tiny Death Star is pretty stingy when it comes to doling out bux. In fact, the only sure fire way of earning them is to place bitizens in their respective dream jobs, which doubles the stock of the item they are in charge of and also provides a one-time reward of one bux. So it’s in your best interest to try and place as many bitizens as you can into their respective dream jobs. There are a few techniques you can employ to make this happen more often. For starters, make sure that you build lots of extra residential floors. One piece of advice I’ve heard is to make every other floor residential. This will not only make it far more likely that an elevator-riding bitizen will actually go fill a vacant spot on a resident floor, but it also means you’ll have tons of extra unemployed bitizens with dream jobs that need to be satisfied. Once you’ve gotten a good system going, it’s just a matter of moving in bitizens, placing them in their dream jobs, and evicting any bitizens that either have dream jobs for floors you haven’t built yet or have already given you their bonuses and have been replaced. This tactic is a little tough at the onset when you don’t have too many floors, but the more you have, the easier it’ll be to cycle dream jobbers in and out.
23. Reserve Floor Upgrades for Low Stock Shops
This may be more of a personal preference for me, but I’m not a fan of having to deal with floors that have low inventory/restock times. So whenever I had some spare credits or a VIP that upgraded floors, I’d focus on those floors. As you upgrade them, both their inventory and restock timers get longer, meaning you have to check them less throughout the day. Considering Tiny Death Star doesn’t really give players any bonuses for perpetually fully stocking floors (other than an occasional buying frenzy), I’d rather simply have an upgraded floor that I have to check less.
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