Game update: 20/11/13

Thanksgiving is now just over a week away, so there's another batch of new Thanksgiving content in this week's update.

Notification for latest Thanksgiving update

Here's a comprehensive list of all the new items coming our way:

Tables:

• Cornucopia Table - 27,000 coins

Chairs:

• Cornucopia Chair - 5,400 coins

Wall decorations:

• Happy Harvest - 19,000 coins

Floor decorations:

• Turkey Divider - 2 gems
• Thanksgiving Dinner - 34 gems (LTO)

Wallpapers:

• Turkey Wallpaper - 4,300 coins

Counters:

• Cornucopia - 5 gems

There are also two new recipes on the Basic Oven. More on them in a minute.

So a small selection of items with a fine mixture of coin and gem content. It's particularly pleasing to see both the Cornucopia Table and Cornucopia Chair available for coins, even if I personally don't find them very appealing. The Cornucopia counter matches the table and chair well, so those three together make for a good combination.

 Thanksgiving 2013

 13/11/13 Box update
 11/11/13 Initial recipe report

 06/11/13 Goals

 06/11/13 First update

Something I do like is the Happy Harvest sign. Although it is a bit small (which is a general problem with wall decorations) it does have that warm and cosy feel about it, so fits in well in my burgeoning Autumn and Thanksgiving section.

There's also two turkey related items - the Turkey Divider is a cool idea for a divider, but the 2 gem price tag will put many off, after all you'll probably want a few of them to create a partition. And the Turkey Wallpaper is okay I guess, although the green background to it is a touch out of place. Perhaps an orange or earthy brown would be more appropriate?

Last but certainly not least is the limited time offer, which this week is a Thanksgiving Dinner.

Thanksgiving Dinner limited time offer

This floor decoration is available for five days only (from Wednesday), and is 3x3 in size. I managed to get a preview of this piece:

Preview of Thanksgiving Dinner

It's hardly a feast of food for Thanksgiving, but I actually like it. It has an outdoor picnic sort of feel to it, and would go really well with my Cider Bar, which was another Autumn LTO.

It's unusual to get two limited time offers for a single theme (we've already had the Tropical Elephants), so I wonder if this is a sly attempt by TeamLava to get players to dispense with their hard-earned gems ahead of a major sale on Black Friday. Then players would be more likely to purchase gems to be able to splash out on some of the special content.

I won't be falling for that though. My gems are staying firmly in my pocket as I anticipate some real treats next week. I sincerely hope I'm not going to be left disappointed.

Let's now look at the two new Basic Oven recipes:

New recipes on Basic Oven

You can analyse these recipes using my new recipe list located here.

It's nice to get two recipes with relatively short durations considering that Thanksgiving content may be removed shortly after the event much like Halloween stuff was. We may need to master them quickly!

As for the stats, we'll start with the Gobble Up Cupcakes. This dish shouldn't get the world's attention. Among two hour recipes it is tied for sixth worst on the XP front, tied for fifth worst for portions, and is well below average for profit. So I suggest gobbling them up pronto, and never baking them again.

The other new recipe is Bacon Roasted Turkey. It fairs a bit better. The XP gain of 58 is the fourth best among the small group of 5 hour recipes, but is pretty inferior when you add the 4 hour recipes into the mix. To demonstrate this point, look at the Garlic Noodles (Basic Stove) and Smoked Turkey Leg (Basic Oven). These offer 23.5 and 22.3 XP per hour respectively compared to the measly 11.6 from the turkey. When it comes to profit and portions, this dish is outright poor, even if we restrict the analysis to the 5 hour recipes.

So two unappealing dishes number-wise, but I guess Thanksgiving isn't about the quality of the food...

Meanwhile the two recipes which came with the initial Thanksgiving update have been moved from the start of the recipe list. The Peruvian Loin Sautee is now positioned between Caramel Apples and Minestrone Soup on the Basic Stove and the Pork and Persimmons is situated between Pumpkin Cheesecake and Rack of Lamb on the Basic Oven.