Second Halloween goals content report

Around the community Halloween decor has mostly been packed up and sent into storage for another year. So to round off the Halloween season, here is a lowdown of the unlockable content from the second set of goals.

The goals were a surprise in themselves. We'd already enjoyed one comprehensive update which included a quest, so to get another for the same theme was nearly unprecedented. The only previous example of such an occurrence was in January when Storm8 first started tampering with the timeframes for goals. Back then it was winter themes which featured twice in a row.

Everyone's got their own take on the quick turnover of goal sets. For some it's great news because it means there's always something to do and additional stuff to be unearthed. But I'm firmly in the camp that feels this is all a tad too much. My preference would have been to see the latest content introduced via a regular update without the accompanying challenges. There's nothing wrong with goals, but too many leaves us with very little time for freestyle cooking and playing the game on our own terms. This is particularly significant as Black Friday approaches and every last mastery gem that can be earned needs to be squeezed out.

Nevertheless, I got myself in gear and got to work on this second batch of Halloween goals. In the end I did finish it all, but a refusal to sacrifice too many appliance slots to the bonus goals chain meant I completed the last step of it with only around an hour to spare.

But winding back, the first major obstacle in the goals came in the form of the Cauldron Oven which at 45,000 coins was a very expensive appliance. It required 6 Fiery Fuses, 10 Haunted Knobs and 6 Black Kettles to build with the knob a new part.

Haunted Knob and Creaky Board

Was it just me or does the Cauldron Oven sound like an oxymoron of sorts? A cauldron would surely be placed on a stove of some description, however rudimentary, which makes the inclusion of 'oven' in the title questionable. Indeed this cooker has the flames erupting from underneath - if you had flames in your oven you'd be evacuating the building!

As you'd expect, this appliance holds three new recipes:

Cauldron Oven recipes

Normally I begin to despair when we start getting too many variants of a recipe (cupcakes anyone?) but in the case of the shrimp family it's perfectly fine because it reminds me of one the greatest films of the age - Finger Shrimp, Fried Shrimp, Caribbean Spiced Shrimp, Fine Shrimp Bites, Shrimp Kabobs, Shrimp Tacos...

The choice of a different plate colour for each dish is pleasing since this establishes a unique characteristic for each and makes it all the easier to distinguish between them. The name of each recipe has been sourced in some capacity from classic horror genre TV shows and films (and the same goes for the second trio of dishes later too) but not being much of a fan of the genre, the undoubtedly inspired puns in play are going right over my head. In truth that's probably for the best as otherwise I'd be joining in with some crackers of my own. Credit though to twospoons who was able to break down some of the puns over on the Storm8 Forum.

Let's have some ratings:

Finger Shrimp
Profit	XP gain	Portions	Profit per plate	Availability	Rating
1	6	1	4	5	3.0

Creamed Corn
Profit	XP gain	Portions	Profit per plate	Availability	Rating
2	5	1	5	5	3.2

Upside Downed Waffles
Profit	XP gain	Portions	Profit per plate	Availability	Rating
2	5	2	5	5	3.4

Duplicated statistics are the order of the day with the Creamed Corn and Upside Downed Waffles. The corn has a whopping seven identical compatriots including the Beans Drowned (Creepy Oven) which was only added earlier in October with the first Halloween goal set. And the waffles is mirrored by four other 2 hour entries, among which is the Slender Steak (Creepy Stove) which again is as recent an addition as you get.

Fortunately the shrimp makes a clean break, although its numbers are not all that pretty. Yes it has a solid XP, but with only 10 out of 64 recipes of 2 hour length yielding less profit and portions, it fully deserves those two red rankings and consequent overall score of 3.0.

On to the second appliance pivotal to these goals, and the Posessed Drink Machine is a mighty 50,000 coins to purchase. That ties it for the seventh most expensive cooker currently available to buy on the market, and the majority of the others are unconnected to goals.

Once you've parted with all those coins, 8 Magical Wood, 12 Creaky Boards and 8 Ice Blue Flames are called for to construct this drink machine, with the boards being a new part. This is the seventh successive second goal appliance which has required 28 parts to put together including 12 of the new one. My response to this is the same as always - the gamemakers either need to be less demanding on parts or increase the time permitted for the goals as a whole.

Anyway, the Magical Wood and Ice Blue Flame are each making their first appearance since being added, which in the case of the wood was more than five years ago. Having stocked well over 100 in the half-decade since it's very satisfying to finally put some of them to good use!

There are three drinks you'll struggle to down on the Posessed Drink Machine:

Posessed Drink Machine recipes

The blood colour tone of Dr. Acula's Tomato Juice is off-putting, and the eyeballs floating in the Hocus Potion are as creepy (and gross) as they come. Meanwhile the Crystaled Lake Punch with its lack of a Halloween twist resembles that one kid in the trick or treat group who doesn't put any effort into dressing up but still hopes to get the same goodies as everyone else.

Here come the ratings:

Dr. Acula's Tomato Juice
Profit	XP gain	Portions	Profit per plate	Availability	Rating
1	7	1	5	5	3.4

Hocus Pocus
Profit	XP gain	Portions	Profit per plate	Availability	Rating
2	8	1	5	5	4.1

The big headline here is that the punch is only the second ever 13 hour recipe in Restaurant Story after the Bacon Panini (Panini Oven) released in August 2015. With such a limited pool of dishes in the duration it is therefore not possible to compare using the ratings, but a direct comparison can of course be done. When it comes to profit and portions the panini provides around double that of the punch, but that gets turned on its head when the subject moves on to XP gain.

The 175 XP provided by the Crystaled Lake Punch is not only 20% higher than the Bacon Panini manages, but it also compares well with the larger 12 hour recipe bracket. It effectively earns 13.5 XP per hour of cooking, and that beats out every candidate in the 12 hour duration with the exception of the Farmers Market Salsa (Basic Oven). And with the salsa not unlocked until level 72, the punch certainly represents an attractive alternative for those making their way up the levels.

Elsewhere the tomato juice matches the Pumpkin Pepper (Haunted Oven) from 2014, and that means another contrast between the key factors. The profit and portion figures place it in the bottom 10 within the 2 hour length, but on the other hand only three dishes can boast a higher XP. Don't be fooled though - Dr. Acula's drink is one of 10 recipes which gives 60 XP and among the others are the Sage Mushrooms and Bagel Sandwich (both Basic Stove) which are unlocked at level 12 and 16 respectively.

 First Halloween 2017 goals

 25/10/17 Goals content report
 11/10/17 Sale
 08/10/17 Goals
 08/10/17 Update

Finally the potion is twinned with the Yuletide Yams (North Pole Oven) which makes it the joint 12th worst profit and joint third worst portions provider. But again the XP front is brighter, charting at joint 8th best in a duration which now contains 113 entries.

Away from the recipes, there were four floor decorations could be obtained via the goals, with one of these a re-release. That was the Headless Horseman which was originally a prize in the 2012 Halloween goals. It was actually one of the first goal prizes I ever unlocked! It's worth noting that it also appeared in a Halloween sale in 2013 for 24 gems.

Featuring a decapitated horseman holding a pumpkin head in one hand whilst riding a dark horse, I was keen to get hold of him despite already having one in my diner. Essentially I think it would work really well as a pair of guards flanking some entrance, and now I've got that option if I so wish to use it.

The bonus goals themselves that led to the Headless Horseman involved the Candy Corn Cupcakes and Mud Pudding which both also appeared in the bonus strand for the first Halloween quest. I can't really get too worked up about this though since they are seasonal dishes and therefore are a sensible choice for a Halloween themed event. Plus Cheeseburgers were mercifully dropped so really we should be partying in the streets!

First step of bonus goals within second Halloween 2017 goals

Back to the main chain of the goals, and the Demogorgonzola might be the oddest name for an item in the game's history and is almost certainly the oddest looking. According to Natasha_07 on the Storm8 Forum this piece relates to the TV series Stranger Things, which means little to me (my lack of pop culture knowledge is costing me dearly in this report!) It does look totally bizarre and almost disturbing, which isn't necessarily a bad thing at Halloween. But a man who has partially morphed or been transfigured into a Gorgonzola is certainly out there.

Easier to make sense of is Spendthrift the Clown. Here we have a very clever play on the character of Pennywise. We do have clowns already in the game, but they're not generally very accessible so I see this is as a good inclusion. I'm not one to be fearful of clowns but plenty are, and this one has all the usual clown traits from the red nose and balloons to the overdone mascara and brightly coloured clothes (and more). This may be quite a way away from Halloween, but I consider him very handy for a birthday theme.

 Second Halloween 2017 goals

 26/10/17 Sale
 25/10/17 Second goals
 25/10/17 Second update

Last but not least is the Scary-Go-Round which is a 4x4 behemoth. It has eerie purple horses spinning around a black and white carousel. At a time when we see so many cases of content recycling across the Storm8 fleet this is a truly unique decoration which is a really different Halloween inclusion. The fairy lights could have taken the edge off it but in my opinion have instead added an additional chill. This is a very successful and worthy final prize.

So all in all, after getting over the slight unease at receiving another Halloween goal set hot on the heels of the first, the actual content was pretty darn good. This felt like a complete Halloween experience, and a much more satisfactory one than the last couple of years when the game's developers have opted to go relatively soft with the level of scariness in the Halloween decor. Ultimately it's a solid thumbs up!