Go Digital Leisure on a Budget
by Kassadee_Marie, HSM team writer
Digital Leisure, Inc. is a Canadian company formed in 1997. Their original purpose was to acquire and re-master classic video-based arcade games using DVD technology for finer video and audio quality. When Sony released the Playstation 2 in 2000, Digital Leisure used this opportunity to market their games as PS2 compatible, since the PS2 would play both DVD movies and video games. This was a great success for them, and led to a relationship with Sony that is still going strong today.
The least expensive personal estate that Digital Leisure offers on Home is the complimentary hotel room, of course — which currently has a small electrical wiring problem. They also offer a space for $4.99 called The Dragon’s Lair, but its unusual style and coloration may not suit everyone’s taste. This space was part of the Welcome Back package last year, by the way. So at $6.99 for either, this leaves a choice between The Old West Saloon and The Space Station. What a dichotomy! There’s a lot to recommend in both of these estates, so it really comes down to a matter of personal taste. Both estates offer free furniture packs, fun games, and rewards for the owner and guests, and that makes them both a great bargain.
The Old West Saloon has three great games — Darts, Liar’s Dice and Blackjack. There are five wall spots for picture frames or other wall items, a large bar area with seating, a game room, kitchen, storage room (where the blackjack game is located) and four completely decorated rooms upstairs. The furniture pack includes an “oil lamp” light, a wooden table and chair, an ornamental stack of chips and cards, a non-playing player piano, a large stuffed bear, a spittoon, and two wall items. One of these is a cow skull and the other is a picture frame that looks like a wanted poster. The owner also receives a truly “wild” western outfit, and Digital Leisure recently added more rewards for guests. Just for visiting you receive an oak barrel and a cowhide.
The Space Station has a fun and increasingly fast game, called Station Defense, with a nice reward for the owner and guests. The owner also gets a space helmet and a UFO companion when they first enter the space. The furniture pack includes a chair, work table, sofa, and microscope. There are a lot of interesting details there, like a map of the space station on one wall. This space has eight wall slots for your pictures or wall items; 10 large windows — plus two tiny ones — with beautiful and colorful space views, including a view of earth, of course; a “command center” where you can open and close the shutters; a hydroponics garden; a research laboratory; a decontamination center; a trash shoot, which has a funny little animation and where you receive your own stuffed trash bag and garbage cube; and personal quarters.
Digital Leisure offers two companions in addition to the reward UFO from the Space Station. These are the Dragon’s Lair dragons for the standard price of $2.99 each. If you enjoy pets with a more cartoon-like style, you’ll love the form and the antics of the green Singe or purple Giddy Goon.
Before the casino arrived, Digital Leisure had two main store tabs based on their popular games, Dragon’s Lair and Space Ace. Under these tabs in the furniture store, you can find some unusual and enjoyable items, from movie posters for $.49 to two of the largest ornaments to be found on Home, Singe the Dragon and Daphne in a Snow Globe for $1.99 each. Either item works well in a number of personal spaces, especially the Wizard’s Den. Another two items from Digital Leisure that you might have fun with in a sword-and-sorcery setting are the Gold Coins seat and the Magic Sword in a Jewel for $.99 each. Check under these tabs for other items you might enjoy.
Digital Leisure offers almost all of their clothing items in bundles. When simple dresses can cost $1.99, hairstyles can cost $1.49 and swim suits can cost $1.99 apiece, bundles with discounts make more and more sense. The least expensive clothing bundles from this developer are the Card King and Queen packs, the Casino Hostess and Host packs, and the new Oktoberfest Barmaid and Lederhosen outfits. Any of these six bundles can be purchased for $2.99 each. For the ladies, the Card Queen has a bright red, blue and gold floor length gown, a crown and a scepter; the Casino Hostess has a black dress, shoes, a ponytail hairdo, a bracelet and earrings; and the green and white Barmaid outfit includes a braided-hair hairdo. For the guys the Card King outfit includes a crown and a sword; the Casino Host outfit includes a suit, shoes and a fedora; and the Lederhosen outfit includes a Tyrolean hat. All of the guy’s outfits match the lady’s in color and style.
If you like retro games or are curious about them, please note there is a cabinet version of Space Ace for $1.99 that only takes up one furniture slot and is called the “Dedicated Space Ace Arcade Machine”.
We’re very lucky that Digital Leisure and Sony have a relationship that allows us to enjoy the casino and all the great games there, such as video poker, slots, black jack, and craps and the tier rewards, such as ornaments, clothing items and even personal spaces. Digital Leisure has been very generous with free items, including weekly casino chips; fun changes and upgrades to our free hotel room; and they are very responsive to their customers. This is one of the third-party developers from which I look forward — with eager anticipation — to seeing new items and furniture, more estates, clothing and costumes.
October 31st, 2012 by Kassadee Marie | 1 comment
Home is endlessly entertaining to this California girl. Kassadee has been in Home for about four years, and loves almost everything about it (with a few notable exceptions). She spends way too much money there, and perhaps too much time... Someday she will travel the world and write about the people she meets and the places she sees.
Great job as always Kass. You are very good at giving everyone an overview of developers products.