Game update: 27/11/13

Thanksgiving may be upon us, but the Old West is making a return...

Notification for Old West update

With the potential for some very special Black Friday sales, this update was always going to be a bit underwhelming, but here's a full list of the new content all the same:

Tables:

• Barnwood Table - 80,000 coins

Chairs:

• Barnwood Bench - 22,000 coins

Wall decorations:

• Bull Horns - 12 gems

Floor decorations:

• Mechanical Bull - 39 gems
• Rawhide Lamp - 38,000 coins

Wallpapers:

• Wood Logs - 1 gem

Counters:

• Hey Bale Counter - 48,000 coins

In addition to these new items, there is also a new recipe on the Basic Grill. Details on that in a moment.

So a very small update which is also quite random - I fully expected one last batch of Thanksgiving content, perhaps including some of the stuff from the holiday in 2012. Instead we've got some Old West items, which is just bizarre.

There was an Old West theme back in September, which included a set of goals, while there was also a Western update at the end of February. So this is the third Wild West themed update of the year, yet they've all come separately and in between bigger themes. It seems that originally the gamemakers planned to have a three or four week theme on this, but changed their minds and are now intermittently drip-feeding the stuff whenever there's a space in the calendar.

Let's move on to the items themselves then. The Barnwood Table and Barnwood Chair are really tidy in my opinion. They go together nicely and would fit into a Thanksgiving theme reasonably well. I'm not going to invest in them myself as I really like the Pumpkin Stool as an alternative, but I am tempted. Their coin costs are high, but at least they're not gems.

The Wood Logs wallpaper also slots into a Thanksgiving or Autumn themed area nicely, but the 1 gem price tag will be less appealing here. Meanwhile the Hey Bale Counter is another item which is well suited to a Thanksgiving theme, or indeed any outdoor theme.

The Bull Horns are something we probably should have had previously in Wild West updates, but it's good to see it now. This would go excellently with the Old Saloon wallpaper to help create that rustic feel of a bar in the West.

Finally the Mechanical Bull is this week's expensive piece.

Preview of Mechanical Bull

At 39 gems and 3x3 in size, it resembles a limited time offer, but appears to be a permanent addition. I think it's a brilliant item, and considering that I'm planning to do an Old West saloon section in my restaurant (and was planning that before this update) anyway, I might just go for it if Black Friday doesn't light my fire.

Now for the new recipe:

New recipe on Basic Grill

The Ribeye Steak is currently positioned at the start of the recipe list on the Basic Grill and is a 6 hour dish.

The Ribeye Steak has now been moved - it is positioned between Beef and Rice Patty and Kobe Beef Burger.

You can analyse this recipe using my recipe list located here.

It's a cracking recipe as far as the statistics go. Among fellow 6 hour dishes the steak is fourth best for profit and portions behind Kiwi & Cake (Basic Oven), Fish Sticks (Orange Deep Fryer) and Tom-Tom Cake (Drum Set Oven). And it's also fourth best for XP gain, with only Escargot (Basic Stove) giving significantly more XP. But then the Escargot is only slightly above average for profit and portions.

So the Ribeye Steak is a very strong all-rounder, and on balance I'd say it has equalled the Escargot for the best 6 hour recipe in the game. Impressive.

Moving on to something which may have gone unnoticed by most is the removal of the remaining Halloween items which for some reason were not taken away in the main Halloween content removal a couple of weeks ago. Namely they are as follows:

• Pumpkin Table
• Pumpkin Stool
• Halloween Sign
• Haunted Floorboards
• Pumpkin Counter

At the time I pondered that the extended stay of these things may be because of the pumpkin connection to Thanksgiving, so TeamLava decided to leave the pumpkin related stuff in the game a bit longer. But then why leave the sign and floor tile? This - along with the abrupt removal of these items - leads me to believe that they simply missed these five items first time round. This may sound careless, but unfortunately the game's developers have history for making gaffes!

In addition to item removals, a couple of Halloween recipes have bitten the dust. The Devilish Eggs and Ghost Peppers on the Basic Stove have been removed, but the other four Halloween dishes are still around. Another strange move.

That concludes this week's main update, but stay tuned as Black Friday is almost here, and after providing sales on gem purchases and loads of special content (past limited time offers and box items out of box) in previous years, I'm expecting a real treat this Friday. There will be a full analysis of the update on Saturday!