Not a Paid Endorsement: Wallabee
Feb. 18th, 2019 09:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sorcyressA little over a year ago, mom got me hooked onto one of the (many) geo games she plays. This one is called Wallabee, and it is a geo-social digital trading card game. I've been playing it fairly reliably since, and enjoying it as a nice way to waste a little (or a lot) of time while I'm out and about, and figured I'd give y'all the spiel in case it's something that sounds interesting to you.
The core mechanic of the game is filling out "sets" of cards. Each card has multiple copies, but every copy of the card has a different number --when a new copy is generated, the number increments by one. This leads to a fun variety of ways to play the game, because not only can you focus on trying to complete your sets with all the different cards within them, you can also try to collect the lowest number possible while you do it, or acquire many cards of a certain number or pattern.
New cards can be generated by purchasing them in the store with honeycomb (the in-game currency) or randomly "foraging" at different locations. Older cards can be acquired by trading with other players or by picking up cards stored at those same locations. Mixers are a way to get either new or old cards --combine two mixers and you will get either a new card from any set, or an older card from the mixerpool.
Each player may store one of each card in their sets. You may also hold cards in your pouch, or store them in your lockbox if you have locks (there are some in-game ways to obtain locks, but the easiest/most common way is with real-life money). If you want to have more cards then that --duplicates, or interesting numbers, or what-have-you, you have to leave them at the locations near you. However, locations are totally open for anyone to pillage, so be careful!
The store is constantly generating new cards --nine will appear, each for a minute or two before disappearing and being replaced. Two (or more) players can buy the same card...but whichever player purchases first will get the lower number! This leads to a race when a new card is released (announced via twitter in what's called a "boing") as people rush to the store and try to buy the earliest card they can. Getting a TD (three-digit) card is a special challenge --you better catch the boing in the first few minutes or you're out of luck!
Gameplay comes from exploring locations as you travel and seeing if you can get better numbers for your sets, or fill out missing sets. Additionally, those early numbers you got from the store (or picked up in the world) can be used as bait for trading with other players. If you collect a specific number, you can often entice it away from another player by swapping them something lower...as long as they're not collecting that number too! There's also a player market where you can sell your specific numbered cards for the price you set, and a forum for setting up trades and auctions.
You can get in-game currency by "foraging" at different locations --every time you forage, you get a small amount of honeycomb (money), a random item, or occasionally "nothing". You can spend real money on honeycomb as well, or on locks, or on pouch space (the default pouch size is 30, you can grow up to 150 slots). I benefitted from having a mom who plays, so she grew my pouch for me, but it looks like it's a max of $32 --and the company has sales a couple times a year. I've gotten about a hundred locks so far from various in-game things, and haven't used them all up yet, and see no reason whatsoever to purchase honeycomb, as I'm sitting on a cool half-mil from foraging. I appreciate that it's a game with the option for microtransactions but absolutely not the need for them.
The game very easily scratches the itch of 5-30 minutes mindless entertainment needed on the bus or waiting in line. I'll occasionally play for a couple hours at a stretch, but I find it pretty easy to set down if I need to. I've completed all my sets (new goal: Get as many perfect numbered items as possible! 496 and 8128, here I come!) and it's a nice bit of mindless to check in when I'm somewhere new and see if there's anything lower I can swap for.
I have no idea if this is the sort of thing you're interested in, but it's been satisfying for me to work on. I'm Sorcyress roundabouts there --lemme know if you try it out, and add me as a friend!
~Sor
MOOP!
The core mechanic of the game is filling out "sets" of cards. Each card has multiple copies, but every copy of the card has a different number --when a new copy is generated, the number increments by one. This leads to a fun variety of ways to play the game, because not only can you focus on trying to complete your sets with all the different cards within them, you can also try to collect the lowest number possible while you do it, or acquire many cards of a certain number or pattern.
New cards can be generated by purchasing them in the store with honeycomb (the in-game currency) or randomly "foraging" at different locations. Older cards can be acquired by trading with other players or by picking up cards stored at those same locations. Mixers are a way to get either new or old cards --combine two mixers and you will get either a new card from any set, or an older card from the mixerpool.
Each player may store one of each card in their sets. You may also hold cards in your pouch, or store them in your lockbox if you have locks (there are some in-game ways to obtain locks, but the easiest/most common way is with real-life money). If you want to have more cards then that --duplicates, or interesting numbers, or what-have-you, you have to leave them at the locations near you. However, locations are totally open for anyone to pillage, so be careful!
The store is constantly generating new cards --nine will appear, each for a minute or two before disappearing and being replaced. Two (or more) players can buy the same card...but whichever player purchases first will get the lower number! This leads to a race when a new card is released (announced via twitter in what's called a "boing") as people rush to the store and try to buy the earliest card they can. Getting a TD (three-digit) card is a special challenge --you better catch the boing in the first few minutes or you're out of luck!
Gameplay comes from exploring locations as you travel and seeing if you can get better numbers for your sets, or fill out missing sets. Additionally, those early numbers you got from the store (or picked up in the world) can be used as bait for trading with other players. If you collect a specific number, you can often entice it away from another player by swapping them something lower...as long as they're not collecting that number too! There's also a player market where you can sell your specific numbered cards for the price you set, and a forum for setting up trades and auctions.
You can get in-game currency by "foraging" at different locations --every time you forage, you get a small amount of honeycomb (money), a random item, or occasionally "nothing". You can spend real money on honeycomb as well, or on locks, or on pouch space (the default pouch size is 30, you can grow up to 150 slots). I benefitted from having a mom who plays, so she grew my pouch for me, but it looks like it's a max of $32 --and the company has sales a couple times a year. I've gotten about a hundred locks so far from various in-game things, and haven't used them all up yet, and see no reason whatsoever to purchase honeycomb, as I'm sitting on a cool half-mil from foraging. I appreciate that it's a game with the option for microtransactions but absolutely not the need for them.
The game very easily scratches the itch of 5-30 minutes mindless entertainment needed on the bus or waiting in line. I'll occasionally play for a couple hours at a stretch, but I find it pretty easy to set down if I need to. I've completed all my sets (new goal: Get as many perfect numbered items as possible! 496 and 8128, here I come!) and it's a nice bit of mindless to check in when I'm somewhere new and see if there's anything lower I can swap for.
I have no idea if this is the sort of thing you're interested in, but it's been satisfying for me to work on. I'm Sorcyress roundabouts there --lemme know if you try it out, and add me as a friend!
~Sor
MOOP!
