Harvesting Directions

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The minigame for harvesting in style="font-style: italic;">Free Realms
requires players to match at least three consecutive identical items in
a column or row. It feels a bit like style="font-style: italic;">Bejeweled except
that the player draws a line through the matching items and that line
can go both horizontally and vertically as long as it is a continuous
line. In the picture above, a gamer could draw a line through four
Gummyfruits (the ones that look a bit like slices of watermelon). Below
is a picture from harvesting action showing how the line of connecting
items can wrap back and forth so long as it is continuous. We have
added a bright green line to make it clear.

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Each match adds some of the harvested item to a basket and
fills up
a meter below the basket. Once the meter fills completely, the player
has harvested one bundle of that item. The vertical bar on the left
indicates how much time is left in the minigame. The bar drops a little
each second. Big harvesting matches will add more time back to the bar.

Harvesting Power-Ups and Hazards

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The longer the harvest minigame goes on, the more likely the
player
is to enter some Power-Ups. Early on, the most common ones are the
tornado and the bomb. The tornado, which shuffles the tiles on the
board, is useful for those times when no matches are left. The bomb
destroys a few tiles in a line, which can remove that one
Rainleaf that is blocking a whole set of Gummyfruit from being
connected. The dynamite destroys several tiles in the immediate area,
which is handy for altering one section of the board without creating
unintended consequences on the whole board. Finally, the star firework
creates stars tiles on the board, but what the stars do is unclear at
the time of this publishing.

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The Power-Ups that appear over time become more critical
because of
the addition of Hazards. Hazards serves to make play more difficult
just as time as winding down. Mud blocks fill a tile that normally
would be filled by a harvestable item and cannot be matched. Bombs are
the best way to remove them. Locks appear over a harvestable item. When
you match a lock item, the lock disappears but the item remains, often
leaving behind one of a kind to block a new match.

Cooking Strong Arm Stew

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Players begin the cooking minigame by clicking on a cooking
table and selecting which recipe to make. The required ingredients
appear on the screen, and the checkmark to begin cooking will only show
up if a person has all of the necessary ingredients. To make Strong Arm
Stew, a player needs 4 Bate Meat, 4 Gummyfruit bundles, 4 Rainleaf
bundles, and 4 Spice servings.

Different recipes will call for varied ingredients and an
array of
cooking minigames. Expect to see some chopping, slicing, smashing,
tenderizing, frying, dropping, pouring, and stirring as you whip up
your culinary masterpieces. Each minigame has shortcuts that can help
shave time or increase efficiency. We have noted these whenever
possible.

Chopping and Smashing

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The recipe for Strong Arm Stew calls for some chopped
Rainleaf, so
that is the first minigame in the cooking process. Rapid mouse clicks
chop the leaves as fast the player can move. It's very possible to keep
this step at three seconds or less if you need to reduce your process
time to hit a secondary objective.

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The
second step in creating Strong Arm Stew is to smash Gummyfruits. A
meter that looks a little like a baster fills up to three levels
ranging from Weak to Good to Perfect. A single Perfect smash can hit
two and sometimes even three Gummyfruits at the expense of the time it
takes to fill the meter. Two whacks in the Good zone will properly
smash any Gummyfruit, and it is very possible to get in four clicks to
smash two Gummyfruits while the meter fills the Good zone. A common
secondary objective of cooking recipes calls for no Weak level hits, so
be mindful of that if you want the best bonuses possible.

Tenderizing and Slicing

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The recipe for Strong Arm Stew calls for some tenderized Bat
Meat,
so that is the next minigame in the cooking process. The tricky part is
that the morsel moves around on the cutting board. It's possible just
to mouse around while clicking and score enough hits, but a frequent
secondary objective in recipes is to never miss the meat. Watch the
meat closely as it often moves in a reliable pattern. In Strong Arm
Stew, the meat will shoot across the board one way and then immediately
dart diagonally back across. After the second move, it pauses for about
two seconds, during which scoring hits is easy.

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With the Bat Meat properly tenderized, it's time to carve it.
The
slicing minigame requires the gamers to hold down the left-click while
sliding the mouse forward and backward to simulate the slicing motion.
Fast, sweeping movements can produce the required number of slices in
no time. For Strong Arm Stew, it realistic to get all five slices in
three seconds or less.

Pouring and Dropping

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With the ingredients for Strong Arm Stew prepared, it is time
to pour the broth. The pouring minigame asks the gamer to pull the
mouse down to pour broth up to the green lines in the pot. The first
dark green line marks the lowest acceptable layer of broth. The striped
line in the middle represents the perfect amount. Finally, the dark
line on top indicates the most broth that can be added without pouring
too much. Players can take a slow and sure approach by barely pulling
down. A faster method involves a sharp tug down on the mouse and
requires a little guess work on when to push teh mouse back up and stop
the pouring.

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The next step in preparing Strong Arm Stew is to add the
ingredients to the broth. The player uses tongs to pick up the
ingredients in the order they appear on the scroll to the left of the
screen. For Strong Arm Stew, players add the sliced Bat Meat, the
smashed Gummyfruit, and the chopped Rainleaf. Some ingredients look
similar to the ones you need, and the scroll only reveals the
ingredient you need next, making it hard to plan ahead.

Stirring and Finishing the Job

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The final minigame in the process of making Strong Arm Stew is
stirring. This requires smooth circular motions in a counter-clockwise
motion. In the picture above, we stirred clockwise and were still able
to complete the process but with a lower score (Good instead of
Perfect).

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When you have completed any cooking job, Free Realms will
display
your score for all of the minigames combined. You'll get points for
completing your primary objective of making the recipe, but you'll also
get a chance to collect bonuses for secondary objectives (like not
missing the Bat Meat during the tenderizing stage) and completing the
task under specified time limits. In the picture above, the player
collected enough points to level up in cooking!