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style="font-style: italic;">Learn the ways of harvesting
well. You'll be doing it a lot.
My journey as a chef in
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/287"
target="_blank">Free
Realms began in the tutorial area known as
Sacred Glade, and the passage my avatar, Ralsu, took from level one to
twenty carried him all over the accessible globe and gave me a story
with a little more depth than I had ever imagined I would find in a
browser-based game aimed at teens. Instead of the usual, Have fun
grinding your trade skill to the level cap, chump! that I am
accustomed to in MMOs, Free
Realms gave me a passable story to keep me motivated all
the way to level twenty, the current cap. Id like to share that story
with other players to encourage more people to pursue the culinary
arts. Feel free to reference the
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/67516" target="_blank">
style="font-style: italic;">Free Realms map
to see where I traveled along the way.
Learning to Cook at the
Precious Party (Level 1)
When Ashley Lightwings asked for my help in dealing with the
robgoblins that had invaded her birthday party, she listed two ways I
could help. The first was the typical hero business of running in to
bash heads and ask questions when the dust settled. Since his humble
D&D beginnings, Ralsu has never been the straightforward
fighter type, so Ashleys proposal that he could help her get rid of
the robgoblins without fighting was an appealing option. Ashley asked
me to learn to make a stew for her so that she could grow big and
strong and clobber the mischievous party crashers herself.
I went to meet Cookie, who taught me to harvest the
ingredients I needed to make a dish. A fun minigame that is similar to
style="font-style: italic;">Bejewled,
harvesting involves connecting three or more adjacent items to get a
match. Each match adds a bit of the harvested foodstuff into a basket.
When the baskets meter fills up, youve got a bundle (or bushel or
whatever is appropriate). Harvesting in
style="font-style: italic;">Free Realms is
active, which beats the experience offered by most other MMOs: run back
and forth between nodes mindless for hours on end. See my guide
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/67234" target="_blank">here.
Ingredients on hand, it was time for me to cook my first dish,
the stew Ashley Brightwings requested. Cooking was a separate minigame
that consisted of chopping plants crushing nuts, tenderizing and
slicing meat, and adding components to broth or frying them in a pan.
Each portion of the cooking experience worked a bit differently.
Chopping required rapid mouse clicks to try to shave cooking time.
Crushing entailed timing hammer strokes with a power meter to crack
nuts efficiently. Tenderizing involved hitting a moving target. Slicing
needed accurate mouse movements. Finally, adding and frying asked for
mousing around and clicking the right items.
I delivered my fresh batch of stew to Ashley, who promptly
devoured it and nearly doubled in size. She ran into the picnic area
and swatted around the robgoblins like they were gnats.
Ralsu was the hero and he hadnt even broken a sweat. This
cooking thing was going to work out after all!
Assistant Needed (Levels 1-4)
Ralsu arrived in Crossroads once he left Sacred Glade. After
meeting some of the townsfolk at the behest of Samantha, I was able to
ply from her the fact that the local chef, Simone, was looking for an
assistant to keep up with her frequent orders for spiralmint steak.
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Everything
you do, you do it for Cloo.
Simones killer steak recipe owed its popularity to some
secret spices. She was able to teach me to make it, but her latest
shipment of supplies had been hijacked by robgoblins. She asked me to
head northwest to Queenfields to find the postal worker Jonelle.
Jonelle was a bit frazzled when I found her. She had succumbed
to the robgoblins but felt certain they had dropped most of her
packages in the surrounding area. She gave me five minutes to round up
her parcels and then rewarded me by suggesting I go meet Honey farther
out in Queensfields. Honey, she said, knew the world-renowned chef
Bordon Cloo was in search of bumbleberry and gummyfruit. Helping Honey
could give me some leverage for acceptance in Bordon Cloos prestigious
culinary academy.
Meeting the Reputable Bordon
Cloo (Levels 4-8)
Ralsu delivered his bounty to the famous chef in Sanctuary,
who immediately issued a challenge: I had to cook some savory
spiralmint soup for him. This recipe was the first to require a
consumable ingredient that could not be harvested. I needed to buy some
broth from the local vendor.
I proudly completed my dish and server it up to the
gastronomic genius, who proclaimed my entrée had very little flavor.
I was not ready for his prestigious school yet, and he felt the best
cure for my deficiencies was to study under Chef Jarvie in Merry Vale.
My instructions were to harvest gummyfruit and stainberry.
The master chef failed to mention that Merry Vale had its own
fields for harvesting that would help me get stainberry faster, so I
spent a lot of time harvesting bumbleberry in Queensfield. The minigame
awarded one stainberry bundle for every three bundles of bumbleberry. I
could achieve this once every harvesting minigame. After nine
harvesting games and 45 minutes straight dedicated to the task, I felt
like I was grinding.
Thankfully, Jarvie taught me to cook his mystery pot roast as
soon as I met him in Merry Vale. I needed to buy some mystery meat to
make the dish, but now I was level 8 and eclipsing the green cooks who
only made the occasional goulash out of leftovers. Jarvie said that if
I wanted to reach the next echelon, Id need to practice all that I had
learned.
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style="font-style: italic;">The woman, the myth, the legend:
Perry!
Getting over the Hump
(Levels 8-12)
Jarvie refused to teach Ralsu anymore until he reached chef
level 10. I experimented with a few of my beginner recipes, learning to
perfect techniques to achieve quicker results and meet minigame
milestones. I splurged and bought a recipe for a dessert that required
starnut.
I traveled northeast to Perrys Pasture to get the starnut and
then wandered into Highroad Junction to prepare the ice cream treat.
In Highroad Junction, I met Auguste Frydaze, the local cook,
who was waiting on an order from Perry. Auguste supposed that his
shipment might have been delivered to Ranger Ricardo at the station to
the east. Why Auguste would assume that eludes me. Perhaps their mail
had been mixed up before, or maybe there is more to the story.
I found Ranger Ricardo easily, and he admitted that he had the
shipment bound for Auguste. He refused to simply turn it over, though.
Some of the local youth had carelessly left fireworks strewn about, and
the safety-minded ranger couldnt concentrate until all of them had
been collected. I offered to do the errand for him if it would help him
focus, picking up five bunches of fireworks in less than two minutes.
Once I had returned his ingredients, Auguste suggested I go
introduce myself to Perry. I had already handled the farmers starnuts,
so I felt a proper introduction was the least I could manage. It turned
out that Perry needed a hand with some more harvesting, so I pitched
and was rewarded with a shiny spatula.
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style="font-style: italic;">Wugachug is the most festive
place you can imagine.
Finally chef level 10, I returned to Jarvie in Merry Vale. He
wanted me to meet Cook Yumtumlot in Wugachug to the north, so I headed
out right away.
Wugachug turned out to be a festive, carnival-like town
nestled in the mountains far north of Merry Vale. Snow flurries were
falling as I entered the town, and raucous music filled the air.
Chef Yumtumlot was a...something. She might have been a yeti,
but suffice it to say that even a playboy like Ralsu wasnt thinking of
putting the moves on this female. And praise from Jarvie was not enough
to impress her. She challenged me to perfect her rainleaf wrapped
dumplings, a plate no one could get right.
At this point, I found that I needed to sell some of the extra
goods I had harvested. I was running low on money. Cooking is a cash
sink because the consumables eat up money rapidly, and successful
completion of a recipe seldom covers the cost of a single consumable
item.
Despite the hardship, I impressed Yumtumlot with the dumplings
and even garnered a delicious. The cook from Wugachug said that I was
ready to face a real food reviewer and told me to head for Snowhill to
meet Chef Lucca DeFlor. I was finally on my way!
Meeting the Critic (Levels
12-15)
If Wugachug was cold, Snowhill was colder. The small village
north of Highroad Junction was completely encased in snow, and Ralsu
would have to hunker down for a long winter to meet the approval of the
finicky critic.
Luccas first task was a double dog dare to serve some fried
starnut sticks and spicy vegetable stir fry. To get the ingredients, I
spent some time harvesting in Perrys Pasture again and then traveled
east to the fields near Lakeshore.
Once I had gathered all of the necessary components I slaved
over a hot stove to make the food. My persistence paid off because
Lucca described my cooking as decadent and praised me because
halfway through the starnut stands out and the food had a nice,
minty aftertaste. I was a step closer to impressing Chef Bordon Cloo!
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Glerga
is not exactly honest about how she acquired her recipes.
Lucca wanted me to practice more before sending me back to the
academy in Sanctuary. He advised me to reach chef level 15 before going
to meet his former mentor, a robgoblin named Glerga.
Family Recipes (Levels 15-20)
Glergas camp was northwest of Lakeshore, and she was a very
entertaining teacher. Shed heard Luccas review of Ralsus talent and
was eager to share some of her family recipes, which she mistakenly
slipped she had stolen from someone else. This wasnt the time for
moral dilemmas, though. If her knowledge would help me get into the
academy, I wanted to pick her brain.
Glerga charged me with making fried dumplings and gourmet
goulash, which I did as fast as I could. I had to sell some of my old
chefs clothing and utensils to raise the funds for the large
quantities of butter and sugar needed in her recipes.
When I had finished her tasks, I got the sense that she really
didnt know how to cook at all and had duped me into making the dishes
for her so that she could profit from them. Why a seemingly upright
citizen like Lucca would associate with a thieving robgoblin escaped me.
In the end, all was well. Glerga knew one of Chef Bordon
Cloos personal favorite dishes and offered to teach me the recipe when
I reached chef level 20. It seemed the path to culinary greatness did
lie with a robgoblin.
Parting Thoughts
Reaching the level cap as a chef in
style="font-style: italic;">Free Realms came
easily for me because of the overarching theme of trying to get
acceptance into a famous cooking school. The story and minigames
propelled me forward, but the periodic needs to grind out a few levels
were disappointing. Having already hit the level cap as a card duelist,
I knew Free Realms was capable of delivering an experience from level
one to twenty that focused solely on story. A final warning, Glergas
quest at level 20 required a paid Free
Realms account to complete.
Despite my gripes, the minigames involved in cooking keep it
pretty fun. I had a deadline for this guide and probably pushed myself
to grind more than I would have on my own, but it wasnt nearly as
painful as harvesting nodes all day long and then dropping items in a
pot and hitting the combine button that we see in so many other MMOs.
All in all, I look forward to pursuing the next set of cooking quests,
and I hope to see some of the plot holes I highlighted in my tale
filled in with later quests.
To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Free Realms Game Page.
