Rating Pukaland For Fun And Profit

After I finished yesterday's post, I cracked straight on with this one but - surprise, surprise - it ended up running a lot longer than I planned. I wrote most of it last night, then some more in the morning and I finally finished it in the afternoon. Was it worth it? Let's see...

The first thing I did yesterday, to save me the trouble of logging back into the game for the umpty-umpth time to check for myself, was to ask Gemini to give me the names of all the rides and attractions in Pukaland. It gave me the following list, which as we've come to expect from AI isn't entirely accurate. It's correct as far as it goes but a few are missing. 

The thumbnail descriptions seem about right, though, and it's a handy template so I used it. I kind of wish I hadn't now but too late for that now. It didn't save me any time in the end, either. I had to log in several times anyway, to check details and replay some games to see exactly how they worked. I also watched a bunch of short YouTube videos to refresh my memory of some of the others. 

Then, as I was writing the post, I realized that while I remembered the rides and games well enough, I didn't have a very clear picture of the Pukaland Travelogue event, and it seemed silly not to cover that at the same time, so I spent a while looking at it in detail. 

It's in three parts. One section's called Spooky Adventures, another's called Dreamsnaps and the third doesn't seem to have a name. 

Dreamsnaps is all those big rides you just sit on and go round and around or up and down. Each of those, you only have to do once for the event rewards. This section also includes the fireworks display replay, Where Wishes Bloom, and the gambling tent, Magic Spin, for some reason. 

Spooky Adventures is the Maze, Punchulum, Pixies, Candy Jar, Gold Rush and something called Spooky Cookies, which isn't in the game yet. 

The third, unnamed, section is everything else.

 

 

Here's how Gemini laid it out: 

Scenic Rides & Attractions

Lavaton Gold Rush: A minecart roller coaster that races through a chocolate volcano.
Punchulum Ride: A thrilling swing/pendulum ride located along Puka Avenue.
Candy Jar Raid: A water-based teacup ride where you pilot a cup equipped with a harpoon and cannon to gather treasure and fight off octopus tentacles.
Dreamland Tea Party: A classic spinning carousel-style tea party ride.
Puka Wonder Wheel: A large scenic Ferris wheel.
Pearl Cloud Odyssey: An atmospheric scenic ride.
Pixies Waltz: A spinning or waltz-style ride featuring the Pixies characters.

Mini-Games & Activities

Flora Maze: A large snow/hedge-themed maze where you race against the timer and look for cakes to extend your countdown.
Candy Carousel: A candy-themed rotation challenge.
Plushie Shootout: An interactive shooting gallery mini-game.
Star-Struck: A dart-throwing/timing mini-game.
Whack-a-Puka: A Pukaboo-themed whack-a-mole style game.
Pukaboo Stack: A skill game where you knock down stacked cans/objects. 

Missing from that list are Secret Match, The Magic Spin, the Cloud-Chasing Tour and Where Wishes Bloom. I don't think the way they're split up in the Travelogue makes any more sense than how Gemini has done it so I'm going to stick with the AI version for convenience and just feed the extras in where they seem to fit best.

 

As far as I can tell, everything on the list is in the Travelogue and therefore required but for lots of them you also need to get all the grades (S, A, B, C) from those activities that award them and fulfil four specific criteria on top of that for each, if you want to max out the rewards and get completion for the event. I am not about to write a full walk-through for all of that. There's a decent one here if you need it. 

 

If you just want to farm Stars, you don't need to do any of that. You can just pick your most efficient option and grind it 'til your arms fall off. But the event does hand out huge quantities of Stars, so you'll probably want to do at least the gimmes. And there are plenty of those. 

 

What I'm going to do here is give my impressions of all of the rides and activities in terms of a) how much fun they are and b) how productive they are for earning Puka Stars. It's entirely subjective and if you do it, your experience may be totally different because you may be good at things I'm bad at and vice versa. You'll certainly have different ideas on what is and isn't entertaining.  I've graded them using the same grading system the game uses.

 

With all that in mind... 

 

 

Lavaton Gold Rush - There's a Wild West mining town in Pukaland with a ride that's basically a roller-coaster. You get in a mining cart and race around the track, running into gold coins as you go. The track splits often and comes to dead-ends a lot. You have to hit the directional keys to jump tracks or hit space to jump the car up to hit hanging coins or dodge obstacles so it's one of the most active events. 

 

And it's... alright. Very easy to understand, which is good because none of the rides or attractions come with any kind of instructions and some aren't at all intuitive. Fun once or twice, I'd say. I found it a bit jarring and jangly on the nerves and I wouldn't want to do it too often, which makes it a pretty close analog to a real roller-coaster, I guess. Rewards didn't feel great for the time it takes, though. Generally too much effort for not enough reward.

 

Fun - B

Efficiency - C

  

Punchulum Ride - Speaking of things that aren't intuitive... I had to go look this up online to figure out what the hell I was meant to be doing. It's a big mechanical arm with a cabin you sit in and it swings and turns. It moves automatically and the idea is that you look at the big targets ahead, figure out what directional arrow is on them, then hit the appropriate WASD key as you get there. 

 

All good so far, until you learn there are three colors of targets and they require different key-presses. The Pink ones you just press the key, the blue ones you press and hold and the orange ones you hammer the key repeatedly. How you would ever know that if you didn't look it up out of game I have no idea, although maybe it's all in that Tutorial book I never remember to open. I guess someone must have figured it out somehow, or there'd be no guides.

 

Once you know how it works, this one's good value. I could reliably get an A reward although S remains out of my skill range for now. A is 600 Stars for a two-minute ride, though, which is excellent.

 

Fun - C

Efficiency - S

 

 

 

Candy Jar Raid - Another very unintuitive one. You sit in a teacup and go round in a big circle while giant tentacles pretend to attack you. There's no way to get hurt in any of these rides so it's all just for show. In the water around you, you'll see dozens of floating treasure chests and some piles of gold bars. You have a thumping great harpoon. Off you go!

 

First time around I shot at the chests and got nothing. Second time I shot at the giant octopus in the middle. That didn't work either. Third time I accidentally winged one of the tentacles and it took dama ge and popped a health bar so I took the hint and kept shooting at those. That seems to be the idea. You get points for killing them anyway. They take two hits each to kill. Shooting the chests sometimes seemed to give points, sometimes not. Couldn't figure out what made the difference. 

 

I didn't find this one much fun. It took a long time and felt chaotic. I can't remember how many Stars I got but I know it felt like a poor return on time spent. Might be better if i understood exactly what to do but I kinda doubt it.

 

Fun - C

Efficiency - C

 

Dreamland Tea Party - As far as I recall, this is just a ride. Fun if you're five years old or want to pretend you are. No rewards. 

 

Fun - A

Efficiency N/A 

 

 

 

Puka Wonder Wheel - A modern take on the classic Ferris Wheel, with pods that close rather than open cars that swing. Another pure ride that doesn't get you any Stars. As noted by Nimgimli in a comment, the wheel goes sooooooooooooo slooooooooooowly...... 

 

I get that big wheels do turn slowly so people can get a good view but not this slowly. And the view isn't even that great either because the structure of the wheel gets in the way. I tabbed out for most of the ride and caught up on some blogs. Flora was at the door, waiting to jump out the second they opened. If I hadn't needed the full ride for the tour credit, I'd have mapped out long before - assuming you can use the map from the pod.

 

Fun - C

Efficiency - N/A 

 

Pearl Cloud Odyssey - Do not do this directly before or after Puka Wonder Wheel, unless you need a nap urgently. It's not as dull as the wheel but it's not what I'd call a thrill-ride. You get on a boat much the same as the one you can buy and your invisible butler-turned-boatman sculls you around the lake for what seems like forever. There's not a lot to look at and I made the mistake of going at night, which meant there was even less. 

 

Again, I only stuck it out for the whole thing because you have to do it once for the credit.

 

Fun - B

Efficiency - N/A

 

Cloud-Chasing Tour - This is the one where you go up into the stratosphere in a teacup-balloon. I have a whole post coming about it. For the purposes of the Event it's just a simple ride but as an addition to the game in general it's awesome!

 

Fun - S
Efficiency - N/A 

 

 

 

Where Wishes Bloom - I didn't really understand this one. It's a shop where you can go and get them to replay a memory of the firework display, if you missed it. The fireworks happen every night at a set time but apparently you can do this at any time and see them again. I tried it and nothing seemed to happen. I don't think I got credit for it in the Travelogue either. I guess I did it wrong but I don't care enough to find out for sure.

 

Fun - N/A

Efficiency N/A 

 

Pixies Waltz - OMFG! What even is this?! I had not the first clue what was going on from start to finish. I did it three times and it never even began to make sense. 

 

You're in some kind of gondola that goes up a pole. There are arrow keys to press that do... something and then suddenly you fly up into the air and all hell breaks loose and stuff starts flying around you and you shoot at the stuff and then you crash back down and it all starts up again. I hated it. 

 

Then I watched this video on YouTube, which at least gave me a rough idea what I was supposed to be doing. I hadn't even figured out the arrows were fuelling you up until then. Once I knew what I was meant to do, I still couldn't do it and I still hated it.

 

Fun - C

Efficiency - C

 

So much for the rides. On to the sideshows.

 

 

 

Flora Maze - It's a hedge maze. A big one. All you have to do is find the exit. Out of competition, which is where I took the screenshot above or else I wouldn't have been able to climb on top of the hedge, there's a way out in all three sections, which are themed by season - Summer, Autumn, Winter. Once you pay for a ticket and the timer starts, two of those gates are locked. You have to find the one that's still open.

 

You get two minutes but there are power-ups all over the maze in the form of cakes that add seconds to your timer. I managed to stay in there for over ten minutes once and still didn't find the exit. You can't see over the hedges or climb them and none of your esper abilities work so you have to do it properly.

 

All the exits have some bright red bushes on top, though, and you can jump high enough to catch a glimpse of them to see which general direction you need to go. You also get a few seconds at the start when all the hidden features of the maze - exits, cards and NPCs needing to be rescued - light up so you can see their outlines through the foliage. And there's a pair of magic glasses you can use to repeat that, although it knocks a big 12 seconds off your timer every time you use it and it has a cooldown.

 

At first I thought I hated this one. I generally dislike mazes in games and I was finding it frustrating. It had that "one more try" thing going for it, though and I kept at it, mostly just blundering about randomly until one time I fluked my way to the exit and got 900 Stars. That's a huge payoff and it motivated me to keep trying.

 

I watched a video and read some comments and I started to figure it out. After a while, I realised that if I just focused on making sure I knew which Season the door was in, which I could do by carefully watching the reveal at the start, I could pretty much guarantee finding the exit. Eventually. Once I was able to do that, I started enjoying myself and making plenty of Stars.

 

There's also a full set of playing cards scattered around the maze and they don't repeat, so you only have to find each of them once. That kept me interested because I got one on most runs even if I didn't find the exit. I don't know what you get for the full set. I still have two to find. I hope it's something good.

 

I have to say I enjoyed the maze a lot more than I thought I would at the start. I kept doing it long after I found more efficient ways to earn Stars because I found it weirdly compelling. I'll keep at it until I have those last two cards and even after that I might do it some more for fun.

 

Fun - A

Efficiency - A

  

Candy Carousel - Wait, what? What is this? I don't remember it at all.... Okay, I just watched it on YouTube and I've never done it. I don't recall seeing it on the event schedule either. Talk amongst yourselves while I log in and check...

Ok, it's there alright. I just missed it. But I've done it now and I didn't miss much. There's a carousel with large clamshells going round on it. They open and close. You have to toss a round ball into the open ones and a star onto the closed ones. You can change your ammunition from ball to star with the R key. You can also make the carousel revolve the opposite way with Q. You have a limited number of both balls and stars, with a lot more of the former than the latter.

It's fine. I was terrible on my first go but after half a dozen rounds I could get an A rating easily. Couldn't get S though. Of all the games of its kind I'd say it's the least fun but it's still fun enough.

Fun - B 
Efficiency - B

Plushie Shootout - Classic fairground rifle-range. You shoot at two-dimensional targets that are supposed to be plushies as they move across the stage in front of you. They're in several layers from front to back and they move at varying speeds. They hide behind things, too.

I  usually like games like this, both on a screen and at an actual fairground. This isn't a particularly great example but it's fine. The rewards seemed a bit stingy from what I remember but it was one of the first ones I tried and I've forgotten exactly how much I got. Can't have been that much, though, or I'd have gone back  before now.

Fun -A
Efficiency - C 

 Secret Match - There are some cans on a board in front of you. They lift up to reveal some pairs of objects underneath. Then they get covered up again and you have to pick the pairs. As the game goes on the number of objects increases and the cans get moved about like in Find the Lady.

It's a pretty basic version of the old memory game. I'm hopeless at anything that involves remembering anything but even I could do this one. If you're good at pelmanism you'll walk it.

Fun - B
Efficiency - B

 

Star-Struck - Despite the misleading name, this is a darts game. You get five darts and thirty seconds to throw them. You're trying to get the highest score but anything over 150 is S-Class and 100 gets you A so the bar is quite low. 

The way you throw the darts is simple: there's a reticule that moves slowly and erratically about. You control it with WASD and when you have the center over the number you want to hit, you release the dart. Do that five times and you're done.

This was the first game I tried and I loved it. I played it over and over and enjoyed it every time. It took me a long time to realise that where the darts display as having landed on the board isn't where they land as far as scoring is concerned. Once I figured out the only thing that matters is where the central dot on the reticule is when you let the dart go, it got a lot easier.

After a while, I could get S about 80% of the time and A 100% of the time. And I could do it it in under ten seconds. The individual rewards are very small but if you like the game and you can play as fast as that, it becomes very efficient indeed.

Fun - S
Efficiency - S

The Magic Spin- Flat-out gambling. You bet Stars and the wheel spins. You can win double or even ten times your stake or you can get your stake money back, or half of it, or nothing. There's a chance of a 50k jackpot, too. I gave it a few spins, came out even and stopped. If it's anything like the Catzebo, it'll just slowly drain your wallet until you're broke. Best avoided but gambling is fun....

Fun - B
Efficiency - C

 

Whack-a-Puka - I like the way we're supposed to know what a Pukaboo is. Or, for that matter, how Pixies figure into things. I get the strong feeling the real citizens of Hethereau, the ones who were born there and grew up in the city, are as familiar with the Puka mythology as we are with Peter Pan or Winnie the Pooh. 

Of course, Zero aka the Appraiser aka Flora is almost as ignorant of the society she finds herself in as we, the players. It's quite important to remember that while playing. The whole "I woke up not knowing anything about the world I'm in" trope is extremely useful in allowing the player-character to act as an agent on behalf of the player, rather than an independent actor. It's probably the main reason it's so commonly employed. 

In this case, Pukaboos are gophers you hit on the head with a mallet. There are probably some subtleties (Hah!) to Whack-a-Puka that I'm missing, but there was no hope I'd figure any of it out while I was trying to whap the little buggers. I just hit them and hoped. It was about as fun as these things usually are. I kinda like whack-a-mole games myself but I can see why some people don't. I don't remember making all that many Stars, either but it wasn't a waste of time.

Fun - B
Efficiency - B

Pukaboo Stack - By chance, Gemini has left the best 'til last. This can-shoot is a lot of fun and it's also by far the fastest way to get Stars. 

It uses a slightly odd mechanic for a shooting game. In front of you are some very traditional pyramids of cans on platforms. Your goal is knock all of them off. 

When you hit them, they roll about quite convincingly with some pretty good game physics, bumping into each other, spinning round, flipping over... I found it entertaining to watch. There's also an element of strategy involved in that you don't want to leave orphaned cans on the platforms after you remove most of the stacks because you only have six shots (And a time limit, although that never really comes into it.)

So far, so standard for a knock-down-cans game. The part where it gets weird is how you aim and fire. There's some sort of gun that swings slowly across the screen in an arc, back and forth. You can't control its speed or direction but when you hold down the left mouse button, a dotted line rises from the end of the barrel. It looks like you're using a garden hose. When you get the end of that "stream" where you want it, which is in the middle of the stack at the bottom, you just release the mouse button and a ball shoots out of the gun to hit the spot you've targeted.

It's very tactile and weirdly satisfying in the same way aiming a garden hose at something is. That sensation, coupled with the unpredictable ways the cans fall, meant I found it probably the most fun of all the games. It's just sugar on top that it's also extremely rewarding in terms of Stars. After only a little practice, I could guarantee an A result every time and pretty often it was an S. I imagine with more practice I could get it to S about 90% of the time, which makes it as efficient as the dart game but with much bigger payouts.

Fun- S
Efficiency - S

Pukaboo Stack, then, is the clear winner. If I need to farm Stars, that's where you'll find me. But I'm not at all sure I do need to farm Stars any more. Thanks to the massive rewards from the new event, I already have the boat and the plane and several thousand Stars left over. I'm not sure there's anything left in the store that I want.

There is one more game still to come. Currently greyed-out on the event program is Spooky Cookies. That's going to take place in the Haunted House, which is currently closed. When it gets patched into the game I'll try to remember to come back here and add my thoughts about it, just for the sake of completionism.

Until then, I think we're done. Go and have fun!