Lion Simulator - Full Review (MS-DOS game)

'Lion' is a type of life simulation game where you take on the role of a lion that may be either a solitary lion or one that is part of a larger group. If you’ve ever wanted to know what it’s like trying to survive as a lion in the African landscape then you’ll enjoy the highly realistic and highly enjoyable game that is 'Lion'.
 
Developer: Sanctuary Woods
Genre: Simulator
Release date: 1995
Platforms: PC, MS-DOS
ESRB: E - Everyone.  
 
Gameplay and game modes

Lion has two primary modes of play; a scenario mode and a simulation mode. There’s an additional mode that’s called ‘Safari’ which is actually just an educational resource about lions, presumably to make this game more attractive to parents who feared their children were just frivolously pretending to be big cats. The Safari mode is extremely extensive with voice overs, information and pictures in what is basically an interactive encyclopaedia. The scenario mode has objectives that you must complete and has a very strong roleplaying element as it also comes with background information on what has recently happened. Sometimes you are trying to find food for your three cubs who trail around behind you whilst you yourself struggle to keep going, other times you’ve been cornered by a group of hunters and must quietly slip away without being shot. The gameplay is varied due to these objectives and also pretty challenging. When you’re starving hungry, unable to find water anywhere and desperately need to sleep it’s extremely difficult to keep going and the sense of urgency that comes with it is highly immersive. 

The scenario mode and the simulation mode are both played from a birds eye view of the area which I prefer over ‘over the shoulder’ type cameras as this way you can see what’s happening around you at all times. The scenario mode’s use of objectives is really the only difference between that and the simulation mode as they require you to complete the objective before time runs out or the game ends. Simulation mode strips away these time constraints and you can just go about your business which generally means resting, drinking, eating, not being killed and living a prosperous lion life. Whilst simulation mode is generally where you’ll be advancing your social status or increasing the size of your pride you won’t have to do these things for the scenario mode, unless it’s the specific objective you have been set. 

Staying alive isn’t necessarily easy however as you live somewhere between the Masai tribes and the wilderness of the savannah. You could always try stealing the Masai cattle but it’s not recommended as they have spears and they want to keep their cows. Since the Masai don’t want to share their food with lions you need to either scavenge off of already dead carcasses or hunt down your own meals, though that requires a great deal of energy. Thankfully you don’t just have to rely on what you can immediately see on the screen; you have access to a plethora of lion senses to help you survive in this harsh wilderness of a landscape. These senses can be used via either keyboard hotkeys or by using the bar at the bottom of the screen that also includes your stats and a mini-map. By using the bar the game is automatically paused so you can click around and freely use your mouse without moving your lion who is usually controlled by the mouse, not the keyboard. Hearing and scent are extremely important as they will point you in the direction of valuable resources like food and water. Some animals are far too large for you to catch on your own and are more likely to crush you than nourish you. When you’re just a single, solitary, hungry lion you need to be a little selective about which animals are worth wasting your energy on. The easiest way to catch prey by far is to sneak up on them. By using your mouse you control how fast your lion is moving and you can also make them crouch so that rather than walking up to a giraffe you’re sneaking up to them, making use of the environment’s natural cover like trees and bushes. If your prey notices you then you’ll have to sprint, full pelt, and try to slash them as soon as you’re on top of them, this is no easy task as lions have fairly low stamina. The game also employs a tally for each lion, which is basically how many animals they’ve killed that’s broken down into individual species, meaning you can see which member of your pride isn’t pulling their weight. 

Of course, all that running to catch a zebra is going to tire you out and make you thirsty. Sleeping is easy, you can sit or lay down whenever you want to though you should make sure you’re in a safe area first or else have to groggily escape from a group of tribesmen or poachers. Water on the other hand is rare, we are in the savannah after all, and you can quite literally spend days trying to find a watering hole or river. It’s an incredibly realistic representation of the struggle that African animals have to go through and, when you finally find the water, the sight of dozens of other species of animal also quenching their thirst there is not only surprising but really quite lovely. Keeping yourself fed and watered as you try and complete your mission objectives sounds easy, but it’s not and it does require a bit of practice to realize just how far you can push yourself before you become too weak to survive. To make matters worse there’s also mankind to contend with. From time to time you will encounter hunters who, if they spot you, will most certainly shoot you. They’re incredibly dangerous but fairly slow moving so as long as you’re aware of where they are at all times you should be ok. 

The simulation mode has the exact same form of gameplay only without objectives or time restrictions. At the beginning of a simulation mode you can adjust the settings for each new game such as the weather, the density of prey, the number of poachers on the map and how long the game will run for which can be anywhere between six months to infinity. You then select which lions you’d like in your pride by looking through a number of female and male lions each with their own strengths and weaknesses in the fields of endurance, hunger and strength. These lions are all named and have backstories to make things a little more immersive. In simulation mode you have greater freedom and can try and improve your own social status if you like. That means for male lions starting your own pride or taking over a pre-existing one. You can find and then try and overthrow the leader of another pack before mating with others and having some cubs. You can then raise those cubs; keeping them safe, fed and watered so that they may grow up to be lions themselves and to keep your pride going strong. There are not many games that require you to take on the role of a hungry lion who is desperately trying to impress a lioness in order to mate with her, but then again there are not many games like Lion.

Overall

If you’ve ever fancied trying out what it’s like to be a lion for a bit then you may as well give this game a go. The graphics are reasonably attractive with highly detailed animals and some nice little features like vultures above carcasses and scrubby bushes. Whilst they are just normal VGA and nothing spectacular the game still looks fairly appealing, nicely coloured and detailed enough to do the job. The transition between day and night is brilliant with sunrises and sunsets whilst the change in weather adds a much need variation to the otherwise dry and yellowed landscape. Though I find the simulation mode a little boring due to the repetitiveness of gameplay I found the scenario mode interesting and varied enough to play through a couple of times. Since I kept dying I can only assume I’m either a terrible lion or the game is actually pretty challenging but it’s still a great game that you can get a few hours play out of before it loses its initial edge. Overall though this game is such an old gem that it’s instantly appealing for those who like a good simulation game or who just really like animals. 

The Good:

• An actual lion game! Where you're a lion!
• Varied objectives and levels
• Very customizable sandbox level
• Lovely, quaint graphics
• Suprisingly challenging
• Responsive, intelligent AI
• Scoring system adds in competetive play
• Very detailed use of lion senses

The Bad:

• A little difficult to control your lion
• Could do with a greater variety of sounds
• Sandbox mode becomes boring after a while

The Score: 7/10 

Last thoughts: "I never knew animal simulation games could be this well made, I wonder if Wolf is just as good..."

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Harvest Moon: It's a Wonderful Life, SE - Recipes and Cooking Guide

In Harvest Moon, It's a Wonderful Life there's a huge variety of meals that you can cook ranging from desserts to starters and everything in between.You can cook things in your kitchen for a few reasons and one of those is that they provide far better sustenance than the wild plants found around the valley, the guide on those can be found here if you'd like more information on flowers and wild plants. 

Cooked meals will boost not only your stamina but your spirit too and keep you smiling all the time. If you’re happy you won’t have nightmares and you won’t tire so easily, besides not looking depressed all the time which is kind of disconcerting when you’re trying to enjoy a game. Another valuable reason to cook things is that they can dramatically increase the worth of the ingredients put into them. This isn’t a rule of thumb; quite often the ingredients cost a lot more than the overall dish once it’s completed but I’ll show you below which things make the most money. Certain people in the village will also appreciate your home cooking such as Takakura and Marlin, if you want to make friends with them, which you do, then cooking is cheaper than S-crop produce which they also like. Lastly, recipes are fun to make; all the plates and things look different and when you have a family you can stock your fridge full of your unique food.

To get more recipes you need to make 25 meals out of soups and salads. This will give you entrees and desserts. Once you’ve unlocked those ones you can then make an additional 10 more meals to unlock main courses. For the first 25 meals you can just make light pickles which only require one turnip. In Summer, plant 25 turnips and by the end of the month you’re laughing. 

Tip: Using different grades of crop has no impact on the value of your finished meal. Grow regular B ranked crops that are intended to be put in a recipe and keep your S ranked crops for your seed maker or for selling. For more information on crops, click here.

Below is the list of all recipes in the game, you’ll notice many of them include ‘rare crop’ or ‘rare tree’ then a number. You’ll also notice weird sounding things like ‘Dhilon’ or ‘Gretoma’. If you’re in the first chapter of the game then ignore this, you can access them later on by basically combining two types of tree or two types of crop into new ones. 

Soups:

Earth soup: Potato + Carrot (100G)
Fish stew: Potato + Carrot + Fish (250G - > 300G)
Stew: Potato + Carrot + Milk (200G –> 240G) 
Tomatoma Soup: Tomato + Carrot (90G) 
Yam Soup: Yam (110G -> 132G) 
Good soup: Fish + Turnip + Bashota (250G -> 300G) 
Super soup: Rare crop 10-13 + Rare crop 18-21 (400G -> 480G) 
Good 4 U Soup: Rare crop 08 + Rare crop 17 + Rare crop 14, 23 or 24 (400G -> 480G)

Salads:

Dhibe Salad: Dhibe + Tomato + Berrytoma (35G)
Egg salad: Egg + Tomato + Gretoma (25G) 
Mellow Salad: Melotoma + Dhilon + Rare tree 02 (35G) 
Good pickles: Rare crop 14 + Rare crop 22 (60G) 
Fruit salad: Apple + Orange + Tomato (40G) 
Light pickles: Turnip (25G) 
Marinade: Fish + Mugwort + Tomato (35G) 
Melon salad: Melon + Apple + Orange (25G) 
Tomacaro Salad: Tomato + Carrot (35G) 
Tomamelo Salad: Tomato + Melon (35G) 
Red Veggie: Rare crop 18 + Tomato + Trady (35G)
 

Entree:

Sashimi: Fish (150G -> 180G)
Sashimi (S): Fish + Fish (200G -> 240G) 
Mixed fry: Fish + Mushroom + RC 04/09 (95G) 
Fried Nuts: Any Root Veg/Tomato + RC 03 + Butter (70G) 
Fried Veggie: Any Root Veg /Tomato + Any Root Veg /Tomato + Butter (70G) 
Fried Mushroom: Mushroom + Any Root Veg/Tomato + Butter (80G) 
Smooth Veggies: Potato + Turnip/Carrot/Tataro/Radita/Cady + Same as previous (175G -> 210G) 
Tempura: Yam + Wild plant/mushroom + Wild plant/mushroom (80G) 

Main courses:

Baked Tataro: Tataro + Egg + RC 23/24 (125G -> 150G)
Bean Bowl: RC 07 (150G -> 180G)
Mountain Bowl: RC 09 + Mugwort + Matsutake (150G -> 180G)
Curry: Potato + Carrot + Ruby's Spice (200G -> 240G)
Hot Curry: Carrot + RC 11 + Ruby's Spice (250G -> 300G)
Mushroom Curry: Potato + Hackberry + Ruby's Spice (200G -> 240G)
Fish Set: RC 23/24 + Fish (250G -> 300G)
Meuniere Set: Fish + Butter (250G -> 300G)
Gratin: Milk + Butter + Cheese(200G -> 240G)
Mushroom Gratin: Butter + Milk + Matsutake (150G -> 180G)
Mushroom Pasta: Cady + RC 14 (225G -> 270G)
Veggie Pasta: RC 04 + Tomato + Mugwort (200G -> 240G)
Mixed Veggies: Potato/Berrican + Egg + RC 07 (150G -> 180G)
Omelette: Egg + Butter (200G -> 240G)
Rootbaisse: Carrot + RC 23/24 (125G -> 150G) 

Desserts:

Carrot cake: Carrot + Egg + Milk (150G -> 180G)
Grilled Yam: Yam (75G) 
Veggie Cake: Tomato + Egg + Milk (150G -> 180G) 
Sweet Potato: Yam + Butter + Egg (150G -> 180G) 
Pound Cake: Milk + Egg + Butter (175G -> 210G) 
Fruit Juice: Milk + Peach + Grape (50G) 
Rich Juice: Star Milk + Banana + Peach (75G) 
Cocktail: Phuju + Melotoma (190G -> 228G) 
Love Cocktail: Watermelon + Grape (200G -> 240G) 
Sweet Cocktail: Gehju + Oraphu (200G -> 240G) 
Fruit Punch: Any 3 fruits (150G -> 180G) 
Peach Tart: Peach + Egg + Butter (125G -> 150G) 
Strawberry Cake: Strawberry + Egg + Milk (190G) 
Kashry Ice Cream: Kashry + Brown Milk + Star Milk (150G-> 180G) 
Ice Cream: Brown Milk + Star Milk (110G -> 132G) 
Dhibe Cake: Dhibe + Egg + Milk (1675G -> 2010G) 
Dancing Dessert: Apple + RC 10 – 13 + RT 01 – 09 (350G -> 420G) 
Juice DX: RC 01/06 + Carrot + Orange 
Super Yam: RC 16 (400G -> 480G)

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Harvest Moon: It's a Wonderful Life, SE - Animal care and Milking guide

Animals in the game can be obtained in many different ways though usually through breeding or purchasing them from the ledger. Whilst some animals are your pets they are mostly there to provide you with a source of income in the form of different produces such as eggs, milk or wool.  Your animals can get sick and may die if you mistreat them but by simply ignoring them you can also severely reduce the quality of produce that they can give you so it's important to look after them well. To start off with, let's look at some basic care tips so you can get the most out of your farm animals.

Basic care tips:  

• Don’t leave animals out in the rain, only dog and horse don’t mind. 
•  If animals are inside feed them twice a day by putting enough food in troughs 
• Hug and talk to cows, when they are awake, twice a day; morning and afternoon. 
• Don’t wake any animals up by brushing/hugging etc.  
• Milk cows twice a day, collect eggs from chickens once/twice a day 
• Buy the brush and brush animals twice a day alongside usual care. 
• If animals are visibly dirty then wash them outside, by the trough, with the brush. Otherwise they will get sick.  
• If animals get sick buy the medicine from the ledger, they won’t get sick if you look after them properly.  
• Don’t just give cows good fodder – this will make them ill, ensure field is fertilized so you don’t run out of fodder. 

 

Dog: 

You’ll get a choice of two dogs at the beginning of the game. It gets its own doghouse outside your house and a bowl but you don’t need to feed it. It will continually love you and never die or get sick from a lack of food. If you want, you can give it wild plants as it all turns into dog food once it’s in the bowl. You can train it which uses no in-game time and, apparently, it can later herd your cows in and out of a milking room which I’m unsure of. I’m quite sure it’s the cows themselves that learn how to do it, but feel free to train him if you want.

Cat: 

Obtained from Romana, it’s a black cat and is like the dog in the sense that it doesn’t do much and doesn’t need to eat either. You can’t get different coloured cats unfortunately but I like having it around as cats are awesome.

Horse: 

You will get the horse in Summer, it’s a free gift from Takakura and he’ll bring it around midday. I recommend you ship something i.e.: ship 1 milk on the night of the 10th of Spring so you receive the horse on the 1st of Summer. If you don’t ship anything for the entire month then you could end up getting it as late as Fall which isn’t very efficient, so try to ship something either on the 10th of Spring or very early Summer. 

The colour of the horse you get is random but could be either: white, tan or dark brown. If you don’t like the colour of your horse you can reload your save before Takakura gives you the horse and get a different colour. It is not down to which slot you are saving your game in, it’s just random. 

You can ride your horse to get places faster whilst using less energy, so you don’t tire out so quickly and can do other things. You can brush it, hug it and feed it but it will never die and it’s not an essential thing to do. Your horse will get dirty like all animals so wash it when it does with the brush by the drinking water area outside. Sometimes the horse will roll around on the ground while it’s idle, this can be annoying, wait until it’s finished so you can hop on its back. Later, feed it apples when you get a fully grown apple tree. Horses like apples; fact.

Cows:
 
You start with a single, adult normal cow but in the ledger you’ll find you can purchase several different cows and bulls. You’ll see there are four different types; normal, brown, marble and star. Brown and Marble cows cost the same because they produce milk which sells for the same, however, if you check below at the butter and cheese prices you’ll notice the difference. Turns out, brown cows give slightly better value when it comes to cheese and butter.

Bought for:
 
Normal Bull – 3000G 
Normal Cow – 4000G 
Brown Bull - 4000G 
Brown Cow - 5000G 
Marble Bull - 4000G 
Marble Cow - 5000G 
Star Bull - 6000G 
Star Cow - 7000G

Cows are an essential resource on your farm and, generally, I wouldn’t recommend ever selling them unless you’re upgrading to a better cow. Bear in mind that before you can get milk off of a cow you will need to wait until it is mature and has given birth. Times may vary by a couple of days, but this is generally how longs certain things take:

Bulls: Take 25 to 30 days until they are adults. This is from the moment they arrive on your farm. If they were born on your farm it will take longer, by about 10 days, as they start out smaller. Once they are adults you can ‘milk’ them which gives a green heart, bulls don’t give uh, milk, so I wouldn’t recommend you do that.

Cows: Take about 30 days from when you buy them to when they are adults, same as the bulls. It will again take longer if your calf is born on your farm by roughly an additional 10 days. If you don’t know whether your cows or bulls are adult yet you can try milking them, if they’re too young it’ll just be a question mark. You may also notice the height difference by measuring yourself up against them and then an adult cow.

Pregnancy: Cows are pregnant for between 15 and 20 days and still give you milk whilst they are pregnant, so don’t be afraid to impregnate them early on in the year. They only stop giving milk very close to the birth when they go into isolation, approximately 9 days after first becoming pregnant.

After they have given birth they will give mother’s milk, which you feed to the calf, for about 4 or 5 days. After they have stopped giving mother’s milk they will return to regular milk. The first time your cow is pregnant you’ll be shown how to deal with it, after that, you’re on your own. If you can’t remember what to do you simply go into the tool shed alongside the barn and activate the isolation cage at the back, by the cupboard. This will put the cow in isolation. You’ll know when to do this because you’ll notice your pregnant heffer’s udders have turned a painful looking red colour. Around this time, she’ll stop giving milk entirely. Probably because it would really hurt. Cows remain inisolation for approximately 6 days and will often give birth in the morning. If you don't like the gender or breed of your calf then you can reload your save to try and get a different one.

Milking: Since milk is going to be one of your most prized commodities I’ll give you a breakdown of everything there is to know about the stuff. To begin with, you can milk your cow twice a day as long as you’re doing it with several hours in between. A good example of when to milk your cow is when you wake up, as long as the cow is awake, so around 7am, and then again in the afternoon at about 2pm. Before you milk your cow you should talk to it, nuzzle it and brush it providing you’ve bought the brush from Van already. Never wake your cows up, it’ll decrease their affection for you so just wait until their eyes are open. You should also not milk your cows when they are eating. If your cows are dirty then you should wash them by using the brush on them whilst they’re near the trough outside. You can’t wash your animals inside the barn. 

Your cows will give milk throughout the year and the quantity and quality of the milk depends on how well you are caring for them. When you first start the game you’ll be getting 2 cans of B grade milk, which is poor quality milk. If you are really on board with hugging and talking and making sure they stay outside in the nice weather you can get to 4 cans of A milk by the end of the first day. As long as a red heart is showing then you’re getting affection points for it, once you get the red heart don’t bother trying again for a few hours as you’ll just end up irritating the animal. When it’s Summer you may notice your milk quality drops back down to B or the quantity will reduce; this is normal, annoying, but normal. Something else to bear in mind that as the year goes on your cow will give less and less milk as they’re ‘running out’ so to speak and it’s a sign to get them pregnant again.

You can milk your cows with either your hands or the milker tool; there is no difference except I find the milker to do it more slowly, especially as you have to get it out of your inventory. Truly, the only difference there is is that later on in the game it will affect your child’s interests in either rancher or scholar.

Milking room: From the start you will notice in the ledger that you can purchase a milking room for a rather hefty 60,000G. You’ll have plenty of time to make that money but when it comes to it you’ll have to judge whether or not it’s worth buying it. The milking room is a means of having all your cows milked at once, making light work of the job. Your cows will eventually go into the milking room by themselves once they have done it often enough, although it may require your dog to be trained for him to herd them inside. I’m unsure of the criteria. I don’t find milking to take that long but, if you have the money, go for it.

You’ll notice below I’ve put all the milk prices for all the different types of cow you can get. To get A grade milk some basic animal care will get you there pretty quickly, especially if you keep on top of all the hugging, talking, brushing and so on that I keep telling you to do. I’ve been able to get A grade milk by the second day by keeping up with it and it’s worth it in terms of price. S grade milk is trickier and don’t expect it to come any time soon. You can feed your cows a good fodder now and then and it will bump up the value, but you have to pay for the good fodder and too much will make your cows sick. If you have maxed out hearts on your cows they’ll give you S milk automatically. You’ll also see down below that there are options for cheese and butter. These are made when you buy a food processing room, very expensive and you likely won’t get one until the second chapter, which is no big deal. 

Milk prices:

	B grade	A grade	S grade
Normal	75g	115g -> 138g	150g -> 180g
Brown	115g-> 138g	175g	225g
Marble	115g-> 138g	175g	225g
Star	270g	405g	540g

Mother's milk: 75G


Cheese prices:

	B grade	A grade	S grade
Normal	225G	225G	300G
Brown	225G	300G	300G
Marble	225G	225G	300G
Star	300G	300G	300G

Mother’s cheese: 115g

Butter prices:

	B grade	A grade	S grade
Normal	225G	225G	300G
Brown	225G	300G	300G
Marble	225G	225G	300G
Star	300G	300G	300G

Mother’s butter: 115g

Milk processing room: A building you will get later on, it costs 30,000G from the ledger and it will take several days to build. Once it is built you can individually put milk into either machine and get out one piece of cheese or one slab of butter. The quality and appearance of the cheese or butter will depend on the quality of milk put into the machine. It can be a time consuming process but many recipes require these enhanced items. As you can see from the chart you may as well use B grade milk from a star cow, as it makes no difference in the price of the produced item. Don’t waste your S grade milk on butter and cheese. Alternatively, buy a cheaper, Brown cow as A grade milk is a much more common commodity than Star cow B grade milk.

Breeding: Now, to breed the cows you’ll need an adult bull and an adult cow but when you buy them here they’ll be young and will take some time to grow up. When you breed your cows you can either breed them with a ‘miracle potion’ or with a bull you have on your farm. In the long run, buying a bull is more affordable because once he’s grown up you can use him over and over whereas with a miracle potion you have to buy one for each pregnancy. 

Cost of miracle potion:

Normal - 2500G  
Brown - 3500G  
Marble - 3500G  
Star - 5500G
 
You can interbreed the different variations of cow that are available and I find this is an affordable way of getting star cow calves. If you buy a star cow and a normal bull and breed them there are four possible outcomes; a normal female cow, a normal male bull, a star cow and a star bull. The outcome is random so if you get a normal male bull then you can reload and find yourself with a star cow instead. It’s a lot cheaper to go to a little effort rather than fork out an additional 3000G buying a star bull. After all, all that essentially matters is that your female producing cows are high quality so you get the best price for your milk and dairy products.

If your calf is born a male I’d recommend a reload as you want as many milk producing cows as possible with only one steer. Keep in mind that your barn space is limited, so use it wisely.

Chickens:

Bought for: 
Hen: 900G 
Rooster: 900G 

Sold for: 
Adults: 450g 
Chicks: 150g 
Egg: 40G 
Fertilized egg: 50G 
Golden egg: 300g –> 360g 

Chickens are bought from the ledger and to begin with I recommend you just buy one hen or one hen and one rooster. Your hen will lay one or two eggs a day and, if you also have a rooster, there is a chance they will be fertilized. Your chickens will wake up around 5:30am in the morning and the females will lay their eggs shortly after waking. You’ll know they are laying an egg because they’ll sit down and not get up for a bit whilst rocking back and forth slightly. When an egg has been lain you’ll know if it’s fertilized because it will be slightly pink in colour and will say that it’s fertilized once you pick it up. 

If you get a fertilized egg stick it in the incubator at the back and, after 5 days, it will hatch into a fat, fluffy chick. Alternatively, if you already have an egg in the incubator, you can just leave it on the ground. If you pick up a fertilized egg you won’t be able to put it back down so check whether it is one first by holding a chicken over it and clicking ‘check’.

The chick will be either male or female and they will say which at birth, if it’s a male it’s essentially useless but you should still wait until it’s an adult before you sell it as you’ll get more money for it. If it’s a female then you should keep it as you’ll get more eggs and they are good for recipes, gifts and general food. You feed your chickens by putting bird feed in the centre of the chicken coop which will last several days depending on how many chickens you have. You should hug your birds morning and evening but talking to them has no effect on their affection, although putting them back down again does.

During the Spring and Summer you can carry your chickens outside and put them in the field. This way, they’ll forage their own food and won’t use up the bird feed. They may also prefer being outside in the sunny weather, after all, what chicken doesn’t want to be free range. Just like the larger animals though you shouldn’t keep them out in the rain as it may make them sick. 

Chicken yard: Later on in the game you can purchase a chicken yard for 10,000G. It’s basically a fence that encloses an area next to the chicken coop in which you can put your chickens. Essentially, it’s a waste of space and money but if you want to add things to your farm then you’ll probably end up buying it. You will still have to carry your chickens out one by one as there’s no handy button. 

By looking after your hens really well they’ll eventually start to lay a golden egg now and then. Chickens will start to lay golden eggs at around 8 or 9 hearts. You can check how much they love you using the diary by your bed. Golden eggs are worth a lot of money so it’s worth lavishing attention on your chickens for this additional income.

Ducks:

Sold for: 
Adults: 500G 
Ducklings: 200G 

You can only get ducks by purchasing the duck pond for 2500G in Chapter 1. They cannot be bought but, once you have them, they can be bred. In around Fall time of Chapter 2, you should sleep in so that your wife wakes you up. She’ll inform you that you have ducks in your pond. You can keep them, there’s one male and one female, but they don’t lay any eggs and are there to add a little variety to your farm. Now, even though they don’t lay eggs, you can still get ducklings. The logic of this is pretty screwed up but basically; your hens will lay eggs and there is now a chance that one of them will hatch a duckling. I am quite sure that the ducks should be housed with the chickens to do this so they can get on with their inter-breeding activities. 

Goat:

Bought from Van for: 4500G, it can be haggled down to 1200g 
Sold for: 1000G through the ledger

Goat milk: 115g -> 138g 
Goat cheese: 155g 
Goat butter: 150g  

Thankfully, the special edition (PS2) version of this game means that your goat can be sold but in the original game version, it could not be, leading to lots of angry gamers having to slowly kill off their goat just to get rid of it. Your goat will always be female and you can only get one so you can’t breed goats at all. You can however get goats milk from them, eventually your goat will run out of milk and you can then sell it to free up space in the barn or keep it as a cloven hoofed companion.
 
Sheep:

Bought for: 1500g
Sold for: 750G

Dirty Wool: 75g
Wool Grade B: 115g
Wool Grade A: 300g
Gold Wool: 600g -> 720g
 
Like the goat the sheep cannot be bred, you can only get male ones. Unlike the sheep it can be bought in the regular fashion; from the ledger. When deciding whether the sheep is an investment or not it’s important to bear in mind that you can only shear him once a month and, in that space of time, you could get a lot more money from a cow. However, a variety of animals is nice and if you want your child to be a rancher then having different animals helps influence that career path. You’ll notice above I put a rather attractive price on ‘gold wool’, gold wool behaves in the same way as golden eggs; it’s only from really healthy, happy animals. Brushing, hugging, talking to and keeping him outside in nice weather is essential to have your sheep produce golden wool. As long as you hug and talk and so on twice a day, every day, you’ll get gold wool in no time.

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The 5 Worst Game Controllers Ever Created - Offbeat post

Game companies are always striving for innovation when it comes to their console and its accessories because, sometimes the decision we make on which console to buy is determined by the appearance, function or design of the machine. Controllers are a large part of what makes a console good or bad because if something is difficult to handle then it’s going to affect your gaming experience tremendously, with that in mind here are five of the worst ever controllers ever created in gaming history that are usually extremely difficult to use or just plain bizarre in nature. By the time you’ve read this you’ll be thankful that loose triggers are all that’s wrong with your PS3 controller or that the Xbox One controller feels a little odd in your hands compared to its predecessor.

5. Nintendo 64

To start off with let’s look at something very familiar for a lot of people that, whilst not the worst controller, was surprisingly bad for something so popular. Now, I’m not sure what kind of target audience the Nintendo 64 controller design team had in mind when they posed the concept of a trident shaped controller, but I’m sure it didn’t involve human beings in any way. This three pronged, button strewn lump of plastic was actually responsible for the rise of the analog stick now present in modern controllers and belonged to such a successful console that its actually confusing as to why it was so poorly designed. The excessive number of buttons meant that few games managed to incorporate all of them whilst the shape of the controller itself meant that, no matter which way you held it, you were never going to be able to access all of the controls unless you levitated the thing in front of you and just went at it. This is perhaps due to the fact that we, as humans, only have two hands and a limited reach on our frantically reaching fingers, though I accept that little details like not having three hands do tend to get lost in translation when it comes to getting the product out there and on the shelves.

As if things weren’t difficult enough already the rumble pack at the back of the controller that was added later on was such a hefty beast that it put the entire thing off balance. This made it even harder to handle due to all the weight now, helpfully, dragging the controller backwards. To round it all up, what was possibly most disappointing about the Nintendo 64 controller was its excessively flimsy and fragile analog stick that was tiny, easily damaged and generally defective as quite often it would become completely unresponsive to user input. As far as mainstream consoles went this is possibly the worst controller out of all of them due to the actual real need to grow an extra limb just to tackle your way through the simplest of games.

4. Atari Jaguar

Now onto something a little more… obscure. Looking at this, you wouldn’t know it was a game controller due to the fact that there’s nowhere to grip the mammoth 6 by 5 inches square of plastic and that it also looks considerably like a security pad that’s somehow fallen into your life. Why a 12 button number pad is essential for this console is completely unexplained as, unless you’re typing in long series of numbers , it literally has no purpose. Sure, you can open up menus using the tiny buttons but there’s a good reason why you don’t see number pads for menus on modern gen consoles. Its oversized and bulky form overall contains a D-pad, the ever useful 12 button number pad, three massive red buttons and your usual start and options button. Due to the positioning of your primary gaming buttons, the D-pad and the red buttons, you had to do all the work at the top of the controller and essentially ignore all the chaff uncomfortably positioned between you and where the action was. 

The three red buttons, at a time where controllers were becoming more complex, was far too few and games just could not be played on this controller leading to very few games being released and, if you were one of those rare Atari Jaguar fans, a disappointingly modest game library. A pet peeve for many gamers also revolved around the need for overlays which, for a controller with so many buttons, was essential to know which button did what. The overlays often fell off of the controller due to its flimsy design leaving you completely alone in how to operate this cryptic bit of equipment. The Atari Jaguar never really got off the ground as a console and, despite the console itself being alright in terms of performance, the limitations that the controller posed meant that games were few in number and difficult to play. Basically what I’m saying is I blame this abomination of a controller for the failure of an entire console.

3. U-Force

‘Don’t Touch’ was the, uncharacteristically accurate, advertising campaign for the unusual but futuristic NES controller ; the U-Force. You’ve got to applaud the inventiveness of whomever came up with the idea of a hands free, sensor controlled device that would allow users to play their games in a sort of early Kinect fashion. After all, it takes guts to be this dreadful. Supposedly the U-force responded to your every command which quite literally made you the controller. This is now a concept we’re now accustomed to but you can just imagine how ground-breaking this must have been, how promising this would have looked. If only they knew then what we know now. You’ve got to admit, for something released in the late 80s this was incredibly innovative, but unfortunately it was a notoriously disastrous attempt at motion control gaming. If you believed that this ginormous slab of equipment, produced in 1989, for the NES, could accurately capture your movements and communicate them seamlessly back into the game then you’re either extremely optimistic or excruciatingly naïve. 

In theory it read your hand movements as you glided your palm across the two screens which were then translated into actions in the game, in reality it detected basically nothing. And I mean, nothing. You would pay $70 for something which 9 times out of 10 simply refused to work. Anything it did manage to pick up was completely random and for what it was worth you may as well have been smashing the thing against the pavement rather than waste your time trying to reason with it. Maybe this sounds a little dramatic but these days finding a U-force controller is incredibly rare not only because of their age but also because of how many became… uh, inoperative. If you were one of those incredibly talented people who managed to get the thing to detect your movements then you were then faced with what I’m sure the developers referred to as, phase 2; get through an entire gaming session with it. Even with a working controller I challenge you to play a NES game as it was intended to be played using the U-Force. It does make you wonder whether the designers simply hoped that consumers would be able to get it to work when they themselves had failed so miserably during testing.

2. Sega Activator

Continuing on with our theme of motion gaming we have another delightful addition to the world of futuristic gaming controllers, this time from Sony who, thankfully, have improved on this subject by now. Sega Activator was released in 1993 and the basic premise is again motion control only this time, full body motion control. Essentially the ‘controller’ was an octagonal black shape that you put on the floor, plugged into the Genesis control port and the wall before standing in it and preparing yourself to became the master of kung-fu moves shown to you in the incredibly awesome TV commercials. You can see what’s coming; 1993, kung-fu kids in adverts, an octagonal plastic ring on the floor of living rooms everywhere… Yes, you’ve guessed it; what proceeded would have been a lot of desperate lurching and jumping about before the combined disappointment of thousands of children rolled across the country resulting in many, many calls to customer services from angry parents wanting refunds and/or replacements. 

The Sega Activator was supposed to work by shooting infra-red beams from each segment up to the ceiling which then bounced back and, when the player interrupted a beam with a flailing arm or leg, this interruption would be communicated as one of sixteen inputs including not only which of the eight beams was interrupted but whether you’d hit it up high or low down. This is where things got confusing; each of the sixteen inputs corresponded to one of the Genesis controller’s buttons leading exhausted gamers to be flailing in every which direction trying to play at the same speed they would with their fingers. Now imagine trying to play Sonic the Hedgehog with this thing. Exactly. Worse, the Activator was incredibly inaccurate and basically impossible to use for any continued length of play as you’d have to repeatedly perform actions to have them recognized that not only screwed up your game but which left you panting on the floor whilst the ‘Game Over’ menu haunted your screen. On a positive note it could likely have been used as an intense fitness regime for the more health conscious of gamers. Is that positive note? I don’t know, but there’s got to be some selling point.

1. Fairchild Channel F

Faced with these I honestly have to say I wouldn’t know what to do with them. Are these controllers, joysticks, some sort of shoe buffer? Where are the buttons? Is that an analog stick? Why is that bit all ridged, is it so I don’t drop them? Why are there two, do I hold them both or is it for two players? If you’d given these to me and told me to play a round of bowling or baseball you’d likely see me start waving them about like a Wii remote but nothing would happen because, shamefully, these are actually a form of joystick. The odd triangular top bit is moved about allowing you eight ways of directional control and can also be pulled up or pushed down as an unnecessarily bizarre trigger-meets-analog-stick combination. The easiest way I can describe the action of using this controller is to imagine trying to open a particularly stubborn jar of pickles and you’ll get the idea. 

Despite the controller looking like a single handed type scenario you do actually use two hands; one grasping the bar of the controller whilst the other clasps the triangular cap where you can then twist, push or pull it depending on what you want to do. Some games will also require you to turn it either clockwise or anticlockwise alongside your regular pushing it about in eight directions and the slamming it down then awkwardly pulling it up again which, I imagine, is difficult to do with just the palm of your hand. As if things weren’t bad enough already, the actual console to which these things are attached to looks like an old voice recording machine. Upon being given this I would have been seriously confused about what I was looking at and, more importantly, what you wanted me to do with two shoe buffers attached to a voice message machine.

For another of my Offbeat posts check out this, The 4 Most Unbelievable Rip Off Games Consoles including a Chintendo Vii and a Polystation 3. I mean, really guys?

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Octodad: Dadliest Catch - Full Review (PC/Mac/Linux and PS4 game)

It doesn’t take much to appreciate that this is an exceptionally unusual game, though in all the right ways. 'Octodad: Dadliest Catch' puts you in control of an octopus who is pretending to be a regular, ordinary human citizen. Already I’m sure you can see just how much potential this game has. 'Octodad: Dadliest Catch' exists as a revamp of the freeware student game, ‘Octodad’ that you can download here, with many locations being identical only now in a much higher quality.

Developer: Young Horses Inc
Genre: Adventure
Release date: January 30th 2014
Platforms: PC, Mac, Linux and the Playstation 4.
ESRB: E - Everyone

Story and gameplay

Octodad is a father to two children, somehow, and husband to a wife who’s beginning to suspect that something’s amiss with her burbling, sagging husband. Now, the problem about being an octopus on land is fairly apparent, apart from the whole breathing thing; you have eight legs, none of which have bones in them. Stuffing your tentacles into a pair of trousers and trying to parade around upright is just half the battle, the real problem comes with actually trying to manoeuvre around the place. Cursed with suckers that stick to everything they come in contact with and the need to coordinate yourself whilst not appearing unusual to people is incredibly awkward. Due to this, the game plays similar to other ragdoll physics games like ‘Qwop’ or the excellent ‘Surgeon Simulator’ series only in a more adventure game setting. 

 

It’s difficult not to laugh as you try and guide Octodad through one area and into another, desperately trying to remain undercover as a sentient sea creature whilst also trying to complete your domestic duties. Suddenly, simple tasks like turning off an alarm clock, shopping in the mall or taking your kids to an aquarium become something akin to gentle torture as you attempt to flail each individual limb in a vaguely appropriate manner. Each leg is controlled individually and you can switch control from your legs to your arms at the press of a button; you cannot control both at the same time. When you go to grab something you can move your tentacle arm in almost every single direction which makes aiming quite difficult although, helpfully, objects you are targeting acquire a subtle green glow so you know what you’re about to pick up. With this bizarre premise in mind you should now prepare yourself for what turns out to be a very entertaining but frustrating game as you frolic through ten levels and six different environments.

As if things weren’t hard enough already, a meter at the bottom of the screen indicates how much attention you’re drawing to yourself. Octodad gets nervous whenever he’s aware that he’s bumping into things, dropping things, flailing tentacles in people’s faces and climbing up and over children without meaning to. As his anxiety level rises Octodad produces ink that splurts everywhere and rapidly increases the detection meter, when the meter is full then it means he has been discovered and you must restart the level. It’s fair to say the game is by no means difficult, but there are areas that will trip you up because you can be instantly detected if you are seen just once. Due to this a large portion of the game is dedicated to stealth especially when it comes to pesky ‘Marine Biologists’ who know an octopus when they see one, which is fair enough I guess. Luckily these moments tend to come later on in the game when you’ve got a very good grasp of the controls and are able to do more ‘complex’ moves like actually walking in a straight line without tripping over yourself. 

The game has a small amount of re-playability after completing what turns out to be a fairly short main storyline, it won’t take you much longer than 4 or 5 hours, as it introduces collectible items, freeplay mode and local co-op play. In each individual level there are 3 collectible ties to find, usually pinned in hard to reach locations or hidden somewhere in the environment, by collecting all 3 of any given level you unlock a tie that Octodad can wear. Freeplay mode allows you to revisit any of the locations in the game and pick up any ties you missed or just mess about if you bombed through the storyline too quickly. The co-op play is particularly interesting and introduces something akin to a three-legged race as each player controls an individual limb with support for up to four players. This in itself is pretty funny but to make things even more haphazard you can enable ‘roulette mode’ where, each time an objective is completed, the limb or set of limbs you are in control of changes to something else entirely. There’s no indication of what you’ll be controlling and it is completely random so whilst a moment ago you were controlling the left leg, now you’re controlling the right arm. It seem as though the co-op in this game is designed to be as frustrating as possible and if you aren’t shouting orders, eye-rolling and cursing then collapsing into laughter then you’re not doing it right. Perfect co-ordination between you and your friends would be pretty boring and despite the arguments it’s a brilliant co-op game, requiring real teamwork and communication that’s oddly quite a rarity in multiplayer games.

Graphics and environments

Whilst there are not many levels in the base game, with many of them being variations of the same ‘theme’ the ones which are original from one another are fantastic. Each level is very well designed and with plenty of little Easter Eggs and references to indie games like ‘Minecraft’ and ‘Super MeatBoy’ which are a nice touch for gamers to appreciate. Whilst some may describe the graphics as simplistic and nothing particularly noteworthy I instead found them to be perfect for the tone and overall feel of the game. Cartoony, fun, vibrant and beautifully shaded the game is not so much about next-gen graphics and is more about bringing an aged student indie game into the modern era. Quite often there are some mechanical issues like getting stuck on the environment and very minimal clipping but it happened rarely and mostly occurred because of the complexity of Octodad’s limbs and your ability to move them in any which direction. With the additional levels, available for free for all platforms, my disappointment at how soon the game ended was quickly wiped away and instead replaced with an eager anticipation to play some more. 

Music and audio

First things first; the custom made theme song that is sung during this game is both tragic and hilarious. It’s so bad that it’s good and, in all fairness, it’s just there for a bit of fun. When I first realized that the deep male singer, Ian McKinney, was singing lyrics like ‘Octodaaaddd… Nobody suspects a thing, OCTODAAAAAD’ I almost died. I’m not totally surprised that the song is becoming something of a cult hit on the internet but, this aside, the general music and audio of the game is good. The voice acting, Octodad included, is brilliant and some of the things the children say are brilliant. There’s a great deal of wit in the dialogue and I found that the voice actors really rose to the occasion with plenty of personality and humour. Nothing is left out and nothing sounds particularly odd, as is often the case where you can manipulate objects. Unfortunately there can be a fair bit of repetitiveness in what the characters say, though only when you’re standing idle in one area for a long time. Often, particularly in the stealth levels, you’ll be forced to repeat an area over and over and it is here that the limited set of lines the characters will say becomes apparent, which is a great shame. 

Performance

When me and my partner played this I’ve got to say the only times we stopped laughing were when the game lagged out tremendously in a couple of specific areas. This led to a very frustrating hour of trying to play with an extremely low frame rate and the seemingly impossible goal of scaling a huge children’s playground. The lag returned for a couple of other levels as well, both of which required very accurate timing and movement, on the bright side this is an acknowledged problem and will likely be patched for all PC users. 

Overall

The great thing about this game is its potential to go really far as there is a huge amount of storyline that could be easily added along with levels and objectives. 'Octodad: Dadliest Catch' is a huge improvement on the original game and it’s a great way to spend an afternoon or two as it’s such a friendly and engaging game and very easy to get into. The humour is priceless, the objectives varied and the storyline endearing. Whilst I don’t usually play ragdoll physics games I found this one to be irresistible and apart from its teething issues its great fun and with a fair bit of re-playability due to the collectible ties found within each location and, of course, the freeplay mode where you can revisit all the levels. With the upcoming DLC the developers appear to also be aware of how much further this game can be taken and, whilst some may find that the gameplay loses its novelty, I personally cannot wait. 

The Good:

• Free DLC adds additional levels.
• Best theme song of the year.
• Great co-op play.
• Innovative, funny gameplay.
• Good storyline with great potential for more.
• Variety of objectives keeps things fresh.
• Nice, detailed environments.

The Bad:

• Some lag in certain areas.
• Occasional clipping. 
• Short length. 
• Too much stealth.

The Score: 8/10 

Last thoughts: "I cannot wait for the DLC! This game ended far too soon for my liking.It's a shame about all the lag as my system should have had no trouble with this game." 

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