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| Introduction to 'Wicked Halloween' goals |
Technically Halloween landed in Restaurant Story a fortnight ago with that incredible sale, but there's a more formal and official feel to it all when the quest finally drops, and today's the day!
As usual most of the content in the update can be purchased right away (from level 12 in this case), but to access the three floor decorations you'll need to work through the goals - details specific to those can be found in a dedicated post here. In the mean time, here's the lowdown on the Halloween additions:
Tables:
- Wicked Table - 2 gems
- Wicked Chair - 5,000 coins
- Wicked Wall Mirror - 7,000 coins
- Wicked Cat - locked by goal
- Wicked Throne - locked by goal
- Wicked Spell Station - locked by goal
- Wicked Woods - 4,000 coins
- Wicked Floor - 10,000 coins
- Wicked Oven - 30,000 coins
- Dark Drink Maker - locked by goal
- Wicked Counter - 10,000 coins
The first thing that strikes me about this collection is that it is fairly cheap. Maybe I've not been observant enough when it comes to pricing, but I definitely feel that the goal updates are getting less and less expensive. The Wicked Table is of course for gems (although shouldn't need to be purchased in the goals) but otherwise the only twang of purse pain goes to the Wicked Floor which at 10,000 coins will mount up a serious bill if you buy it in bulk. This is undoubtedly good news, especially for quest updates where lower level players may have greater problems completing all the steps than old timers.
Anyway, the gamemakers were generous enough to provide us a glimpse of this week's goodies almost 24 hours ahead of time with a teaser on the Storm8 Blog:
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| Items from update as shown on Storm8 Blog |
My overall impressions are generally positive. Along with everyone else I've been begging Storm8 to avoid the bright and cheery decor that frankly ruined last Halloween in favour of creepy content in the same vein as their earlier efforts. On this front I don't think the game's developers have done too badly. At a glance the teaser suggests otherwise, but bear in mind that the floor is mostly plain white. Change it all out for the Wicked Floor or any other darker tile and you've got something which can pass as eerie.
Having said that, there is a serious absentee here, and that is a character of some description. The Wicked Spell Station looks lonely without anyone practising their charms and jinxes, while the Wicked Throne is missing an imposing figure perched upon it. I do wonder if this may be partly due to concerns within Storm8 that any characters they did include would be derided as too happy? After all most of the new figures we see in decorations these days are excessively happy. Luckily we do have the sale items to try and pad out the new stuff with characters, but inevitably there are a lack of viable options.
I'll reserve any further feelings regarding the goal prizes for the goals content report which is likely to be released early next week.
Instead I will start the round-up with the Wicked Floor. Although I have already admitted that it is an expensive buy, it is also a high quality one. When I redecorated my place for Halloween a deep purple floor tile was something I noticed was absent from the market. Until now I was using the Moon and Stars flooring introduced last year in one area of my diner, but this much more subtle tile is likely to take over.
Often the floor tile and wallpaper in an update are of a similar style, but as we now move on to the Wicked Woods that is simply not the case this week! This wallpaper depicts long and narrow trees devoid of leaves. That alone sounds perfectly reasonable for Halloween, but when you see that they are a pale grey colour and are imposed on a pastel green background you'll soon change your tune. This wallpaper doesn't convey any fear whatsoever and instead looks fresh for Spring. I daresay everyone will be sticking to a properly frightening image of creeping trees at night - The Woods wallpaper.
Halloween 2016
05/10/16 Sale
Luckily the wallpaper is an anomaly - the Wicked Table, Wicked Chair and Wicked Counter are all characterised by a royal purple which certainly throws up connotations of witches and magic. The table comes with thorny legs which would make it a very uncomfortable place to eat, while the chair looks like it's come straight out of an old manor which has long since fallen into the hands of the ghosts (do ghosts technically have hands?!)
The chair also has the added benefit of being usable in scenarios outside of Halloween, whereas the same can't really be said of the counter. The Wicked Counter involves black branches crawling up the white sides of a square box topped with purple. I don't like the use of white here which makes the counter too vivid for the theme. Maybe that puts some extra emphasis on the darkness of the branches, but for me it's not working.
The last item for perusal right now is the Wicked Wall Mirror, and it's okay. It could do with being a little more dirty, but on the flip-side this does mean it can be utilised outside of the current season. Plus if you really want a scary mirror the Haunted Mirror is the choice for you anyway.
So overall this is a decent Halloween update. It doesn't reach the heights of some of the vintage efforts several years back, but it certainly doesn't come close to the calamity that was 2015's showing. And we're not finished yet...
Along with the goals pop up, there were notifications for a sale on 'more spooky items' and the Witch's Familiar.
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| Notifications for latest Halloween sales |
Now the Witch's Familiar is available for 44 gems although does not have the orange framing treatment - you can find it not too far into the floor decorations tab. I've always quite liked this item but have found it to be way overpriced. It's the same again this time so I will have to settle with the busy Witch's Kitchen from last year's goals.
In contrast to the Witch' Familiar I can't find the so-called spooky decor that is billed as having been returned to the game. The existing sale continues with 16 days to run, but as for more cut-price content, I'm at a loss.
But do not be too down readers! This is a witch themed update, and a powerful spell has been cast in the boxes tab. There aren't any more boxes have been reduced, but if you keep scrolling there are some exciting additions:
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| New expansions in the market |
New expansions! We had three expansions unexpectedly added around four weeks apart last year which took the maximum restaurant size to 26x29. Now another five have been chucked into the mix all at once! In truth I can't be sure when they appeared - Bakery Story got its new expansions last week and neither game provided any form of notification. All I can be sure of is that they weren't there at the end of last week.
The costs are daunting. You can either pay 100 gems per expansion, or with enough neighbours fork out a huge number of coins. The 27x30, 28x31 and 29x32 expansions are 25 million coins each, while the 30x33 and 31x34 expansions will set you back 27.5 million coins each. These five expansions alone cost 130 million coins!
That's a ridiculous amount in my opinion. Maybe I just don't do a good enough job of hoarding my coins as I did in the past! With 25 million coins in the bank I managed to blow nearly every last one on the Chemist and Cat's adventure, and have been saving ever since. Just this week I've actually nudged the 20 million marker so will hopefully be executing my next expansion - to 25x28 - in the near future. Whenever I do pull the trigger it will be my first expansion since June 2015 - looks like I've got a heck of a long wait to reach the maximum size ever again!
And that is that. The witches have cast their expansion spell and left behind some of their decor. It's sad to think that this may well be the only Halloween specific update we get this year, but at least it wasn't a total let down. I'm off to address the goals!
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