Saturday 4 February 2017

Tips for Playing Birdland Paradise

I am going to post the information about Birdland Paradise here as it is another Frismos breeding game that features birds instead of sea creatures.  Shadowfish and I have a new Club in Birdland Paradise named Freyashawk, not because I am an egomanic but because I thought new players might recognise the name from other Frismos games and join.

To be honest, Shadowfish is much more experienced than I with respect to Birdland Paradise as she has played consistently for many months, where I basically installed the game, discovered I was spending far too much money on it and avoided it afterwards until she asked me if I would be interested in playing again.

Of all the Frismos games that I play, Birdland Paradise is the most dangerous in my opinion in the temptation to spend real money.   You will not be forced to do so, but breeding appears to be so random that the weak-willed may indeed, like me, be induced to spend money to move forward faster where various Goals are concerned.

The basis of all these games is breeding.  You make money by visiting Friends and by opening gifts that your friends send to you as well as from the sale of creatures that you have bred yourself.  The other important aspect of the game and one which will allow you to advance in level and in the acquisition of coins and premium cash is the Goal List.  When you achieve any Goal, you will receive valuable rewards consisting of Experience Points, Coins and/or Premium Cash.  In Birdland Paradise, the Premium Cash takes the form of Feathers.  In Fish Adventure Seasons, it is Seastars.

Unlike Age of Pyramids and Creatures of Olympus, where the breeding combinations achieve specific results that will be different creatures from the parent creatures for the most part, Fish Adventure Seasons and Birdland Paradise are all about colours.  You will not obtain a different specie when you breed but rather may obtain a new colour or new colour combinations.

In Fish Adventure Seasons, colour is created partly by the colours of the parent fish and partly by the use of Elixirs.  There are no Elixirs in Birdland Paradise, more's the pity.

How then do you obtain new colours in Birdland Paradise through breeding?  Basically, the only method by which to breed your Birds is by spinning a Wheel.  The results are partly random but can be determined partly as well by the place where the spinner lands.

Now, it is here that I need to make an important point about the connection between Breeding Goals and the Birds that you choose to purchase in the Market.  I made a colossal mistake in my first game because I bought Birds in colours that I liked, using the valuable Feathers from a special promotion rather than using Coins.  For example, I bought a Purple Cockatiel for 35 Feathers.  There is a Purple Cockatiel, a Blue Cockatiel and a Green Cockatiel, each for 35 Feathers.  Then there is the plain Cockatiel, a multi-coloured bird, for 1200 Coins.

You will find two early Goals ask you to create a Fiery Cockatiel in Red and Yellow and another one to create a Grey and White Cockatiel.  Well, unless you have a male and female Cockatiel that has those colours (the 'plain' Cockatiel in fact), you will be hard-pressed to create a bird that contains only Red and Yellow or Grey and White.

Of course, I was able to breed beautiful birds using my Purple Cockatiel and one always can sell them but I was unable to achieve the two Cockatiel Goals until I had two of the 'plain' multi-coloured Cockatiels!

Spinning the Wheel
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In order to breed your birds, you must have an Adult Male and an Adult Female and neither can be hungry.  Hungry Birds will refuse to breed.

Note here that Breeding Goals tend to be based on the birds in the Market that are Coin purchases. Early Goals are breeding Budgies, Love Birds, Cockatiels and Macaws. To achieve the colours that the Goals require, you should buy a pair of Birds that can be purchased for Coins.  The exotics that require Feathers are NOT featured in these early Goals.

Now, to actually Breed the birds, do the following:

Tap on the Heart at the bottom of the screen to see all the available Birds that can be bred.  When you choose a Male, all Females of the same species that are available for breeding will be shown.  Choose one and tap 'Start Breed'.

The Wheel will spin.  There are different types of results where the spinner can land.  The largest part of the Wheel usually is the plain yellow with a speckled yellow Egg Icon in the middle.  If your spinner lands there, you will not achieve a new colour combination.  Instead, the Egg you obtain will hatch into a bird that is identical either to the Father or the Mother.

The second largest section will be green with a multi-coloured Egg Icon in the centre.  This part of the Wheel gives a Club Bonus as well.  The percentage of the Club Bonus is determined by the number of times that all members have used the Wheel.  The more active members that your Club has, the better the results in terms of new colour combinations.

Finally, there is a small portion of the Wheel with the label 'Special'.  This is the Rainbow outcome.  If your spinner lands in the Special Section, it will activate a time-limited Rainbow option in a new Wheel.  This is the Wheel that is most likely to give you NEW colours.  When you spin the Rainbow Wheel, the largest section will give you a colourful Egg that may contain a variety of colours of both parents or a completely different colour.  The smaller portion of the Wheel will give you a colour change Bird that will flash beautifully with all colours.  The colour change Bird will NOT be breedable, however!  It is strictly ornamental.

Many of the Goals in the game are colour-related.  You may be asked to produce a bird of a specific solid colour or a bird of two colours.   As previously indicated, the colour or colour required by the Goal is one or more that are included in the Birds that can be purchased for Coins.   Once you have a Male and Female that contain the required colour or colours,  you need to breed them by spinning the Wheel.  The only way to achieve the Goal is by spinning the Wheel until you obtain an Egg that hatches into a Bird of the designated colour or colours.  Your best chance always is if you activate the Rainbow Wheel.

Note that there always will be an option to respin the Wheel.  The price for doing so is always premium cash.  It will begin with 1 Feather but will increase if you continue to respin.  You do need to respin the Wheel occasionally to achieve specific Goals in the game but I personally find that it usually will not result in a better position on the Wheel.  You can spend up to 5 Feathers, respinning the Wheel multiple times if you landed on the speckled plain egg section the first time only to land in the same section again and again.

Gaining Experience
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In all of these games, new options are unlocked by increasing your 'Level' which is based on the total number of Experience Points you have earned.  In Birdland Paradise, higher levels mean new birds in the Market, new Themes and Decorations.

Our group in Birdland Paradise is Freyashawk and one of our members, Viola's Birds has a great tip for players.  Instead of performing your visits by going from friend to friend, go home each time and access the Club list from your home.  You will find that your own feeders will need refilling and you will be able therefore to earn extra experience each time you perform this action.  It is more time-consuming, but Viola's Birds earned 10,000 Exp in one day by doing this!

Tuesday 17 January 2017

New Black and White Fish Tank Contest

I am sorry I neglected to take some screenshots of our wonderful Christmas and New Year Contests but our current contest is for a fish tank in black and white.






The contest only began on Monday but here are some screenshots of the tanks of a couple of our most valued members:  Shadowfish and Ginny.

I found myself far more excited about this game when I reached Level 10 and unlocked the Elixir game, a sort of mini-game that gives players Elixirs in special colours as well as the Magic Elixirs tht produce a colour-change effect.  Unfortunately, there is no Black or White Magic Elixir because I think that would be a dramatic flashing effect, but the Black and the White Elixirs are found only by playing the Elixir Game.

You have to use your own basic Elixirs to be able to play the game.  Usually, you are required to 'bet' two of the Red or Green Elixirs but only one of the Blue or Yellow Elixirs to have a chance to obtain either a special Elixir or a rare Magic Elixir.  The 'board' consists of three shelves with Elixirs in Bottles.  The Magic Elixirs ordinarily occupy only the first two slots on the top shelf.  The fairly uncommon colours are contained in white bottles and are White, Purple, Pink and Black occupy a random number of positions on the bottom shelf and sometimes one or two on the middle shelf.  The rest of the slots are taken by colours that include Orange, Brown, Dark Green, Dark Blue and Lime.  It is a pity that one cannot use these colours to make bets as it is more likely that one will 'win' one of these than one of the Elixirs in the white bottles or a rare Magic Elixir.

The primary basic Elixirs are Red, Green, Yellow and Blue.  Fish that are sold in the Market sometimes will be sold in primary colours, but often the varieties that are bought with Premium Cash in the form of Seastars will be rare colours, either in combinations or as solids.  The primary purpose of the game really is to breed different colours of fish.

Our Group, named Harvest Moon after one of my favourite series of games, runs contests periodically to encourage players to try different colour combinations.   Contests promote visits to neighbours and group members to see what they have accomplished as well as promoting conversations between group members.  Finally, it is fun to see how creative other players can be in decorating a tank for a contest or the types of fish they choose to include in that tank.

As previously indicated, we currently are using a black and white theme for our contest.  It is a challenging and difficult theme in a way because the Black and White Elixirs are rare and beyond that, it often is difficult to superimpose black or white on a fish of a different colour.  Even in cases where you can purchase a white or black fish, it can be difficult to create a combination of black and white.

How does one accomplish this?  Well, you can breed a solid black fish with a solid white fish and hope to obtain an egg that is both black and white.  More often, however, a player will use a Black or White Elixir to add one of those colours to a breeding combination.  Some solid colours are more tenacious than others, I have found and particularly where certain species are concerned.  You can buy both a solid white and a solid black Goldfish in the Market for example, but when more often than not, I would obtain a solid black or white Goldfish egg by breeding the two.  Even when I added a Black or White Elixir to the breeding pair, I did not receive a result that combined black with white.
One of our group members discovered one of the secrets of the game early.  Shadow declared that it is far easier to obtain a new colour combination using the offspring of the original purchased fish than it is to obtain a new result from the fish you bought in the Market.  In other words, if one purchases both the Black Goldfish and the White Goldfish and breeds them together, the most likely result witll be a solid White or a solid Black Goldfish.  The next time round, though, do not breed the two original fish.  Instead, use the offspring once the fish reaches breeding age or adulthood.  You are more likely to receive a mixed colour combination from a fish that has parents of BOTH colours than if you use the original solid fish.  This is even more likely with the next generation.

If you want fish that are identical to the parent fish, use the original fish purchased in the Market but when breeding for new combinations, always try to use the offspring.  The further down the family tree you go, the more likely you are to obtain an interesting new result.

The interesting discovery I made, though, was that I had wasted my Black and White Elixirs basically on inexpensive, fast-breeding fish like the Goldfish and the Bettas.  I had as much chance of obtaining a mix of black and white when I simply bred a black fish with a white fish as I did when I added a Black and White Elixir.  I daresay this is not true in terms of actual probabilities but the advantage of using an Elixir in such a case is not worth the price.  If, however, you are adding a NEW colour, then you do need an Elixir.  But in terms of two fish that are solid and have the colours you want,  breeding an egg that has both colours does not appear to be more successful an effort when you use a White or Black Elixir.

Your White or Black Elixirs, therefore, should be used initially to ADD Black or White to a breeding effort where the two parent fish do not have those colours.  If the Elixir you use is a Magic Elixir, the result will be an egg that is the colour of the Elixir.  The two colours of the parent fish will not be displayed, but the fish with the colour change will still have the genes of the parents and those colours are not lost.  When you breed the Magic colour-change fish with another fish, one of the original parent colours may reappear as a partial result.  The Magic Elixirs are dominant, however, and it is more likely that even in breeding it in the next generation, the result will be another colour-change Fish.  To me, that is the best possible result.  It is difficult to obtain the Magic Elixirs and if they did not carry through to the next generation at all, it would be quite sad!

What is really beautiful to me is the result where an egg has partial colour-change but has one or more other colours as well.   I have seen something else with respect to the Yellow Magic Elixir.  Often, you will see one of the colours of the parent fish flashing inside the Yellow Magic colour, or on the borders of the fish.  It is quite a lovely effect.  I initially was not that fond of the Yellow Magic, finding the Blue and Purple more beautiful.  Now, however, if I breed a fish that has more than a couple different colour spots on it, Yellow Magic can produce some fabulous results.

You see, every type of fish has a set number of places on its body that can display different colours.  Usually the maximum number of colours any fish can display is five and they always are in the same locations on that fish.  Even when the fish is a solid colour, those colour locations still are active and may produce a different colour in the next generation.

For example, the Goldfish can have different colours in the following location:  top fin, lower fin pair, upper body, lower body, tail.  The Black Goldfish that you buy int he market may be solidly black but if bred with a goldfish of another colour may produce a result that shows the other colour in one of those locations.   Goldfish are fun to breed because they breed quickly and because the colour combinations are almost endless.

Fish Adventure Seasons has a list of Goals that sometimes can give valuable rewards.  One of the Goals usually is to breed a specific number of fish (unspecified types) and another is to sell a specific number of fish.  Breeding and selling Goldfish can be the quickest way to achieve these Goals, although they do not have a high XP value, so your level will not increase as quickly if you only breed Goldfish as it will when you breed more valuable fish.