AlphaCat: Finding the End Game

The Friendly Necromancer is a long-time blogger who's been sharing his experience with games inside the Spiral and beyond for years. He was one of the first Wizard101 bloggers, and his experience and involvement in the community later led to a job as Community Manager for KingsIsle. Here he shares his tips and tricks for the company's latest mobile game, Alphacat.

AlphaCat is LIVE and available to play worldwide! Personally I played it to the ground when it first came out. I played it enough that I actually developed a hand cramp and had difficulty typing at work. In fact, my kids and wife got a bit mad at me about the amount of time I spent on it those first five days (whoops! Sorry!).

I’m 99% sure I hold the record internally within KingsIsle for fastest play-through post-world launch. I know Elie Akilian was disappointed when I told him a beat the last world in under five days real time . . . because he wanted to be the first and was only 2/3 of the way through. Hehe. 

How did I do it? I watched ads and kept playing. There are some internal metrics that I have access to, and after I was all done, I looked up my stats. I watched 64 ads from the time I started to the time I finished. That included ads from when I *almost* finished a level and used ads to continue my quest, and ads I used for free fuel when I was low.

What’s more, I haven’t stopped playing (but I have slowed down). I’ve been faithfully collecting my daily rewards, sending out hearts to friends, and finishing daily missions, which really brings me to what I want to talk about . . . why? Why if I’ve "beat" the game do I want to keep playing, and what do I hope to accomplish. Is there something more to AlphaCat than meets the eye?  

My answer is . . . 1- I certainly hope so! and 2- Why not?

The game, to me, has now put in front of me several (very soft) objectives at the end.

1- Can I level one of each color to 30? (Done – I have a legendary green to 30, an epic red to 30, an epic blue to 30, and a legendary purple to 30.) 

2- Can I collect all the crew members?

a. Commons (done)

b. Uncommons (done)

c. Rare (done)

d. Epic (6 out of 12)

e. Legendary (3 out of 12)

(Note: You can find your own collection status by going to the Crew Lounge and selecting the Clipboard icon at the top right corner of the screen.) 

3- (The goal of goals) Can I level all Legendary crew members to 30? 
4- Can I level ALL Epic crew members to 30? 
5- Heck, can I level ALL crew members to 30?

The real challenge to achieving these "end" goals is to not get bored along the way since there is no end content currently beyond 10-9.  

There does seem to be an efficiency trap that I’ve fallen into just for the sake of earning gems.

• If a daily quest says defeat Primary Targets, I hit world 10-5.
• If a daily quest says complete Find the Exit maps, I hit world 10-1.
• If a daily quest says rescue 6 cats, I hit world 10-2.

This grind gives me the best bang for the spacebuck in gem returns, and earning gems are just the best way to finding Legendary and Epic Crew Members. The 1,000 gem wheel is where I’ve found ALL of mine. I’ve never got one out of a random golden crew pod (YMMV).

If that does get too boring, then I’ll switch to leveling a couple crew mates to 30, and I think I’ll try to keep my companions at a leveling curve starting all the way back at world 1-1 and ending up in world 10-9, and just play through everything again.

From what I can tell, there is more to come with AlphaCat, so I look forward to seeing what the designers come up with. Until then, I’ll be happily playing my "end game" in AlphaCat.

Happy Dueling!

Guest post by The Friendly Necromancer. Thanks for reading and see you in the Spiral!