Halloween 2012: Week Two
by Kassadee Marie, HSM team writer
I think of this week’s Home update as the weird, the wild and the wonderful.
A lot of the third-party developers have really gone all-out for us this year, and there are a plethora of items to choose from during this Halloween season — especially new costumes. There’s the return of some older favorite items, too, and if you missed them previously, here’s your chance to pick them up. Also, there are more items that are available all the time, and that you might have seen but will want to look over again.
Juggernaut gave the Cutteridge Estate another update, and this one has a twist: because now you can buy games to play there and win rewards from them. You may want to consider buying the $10.99 bundle that includes four games and fourteen demonic furniture items. These are active items with low furniture slot counts, but a little higher than normal. This furniture may look somewhat familiar to you, but their animations won’t. You’ll especially enjoy the entirely new possessed portrait, and the tentacle throne is new as well.
The furniture bundle by itself is also available for $6.99 without the games, and each piece is individually available for $1.49. If you just want the games, the four-pack, called the Ghost Stories Bundle, is $6.99 for some very spooky fun. After purchasing, go to the library and read the “mysterious libram” and then look over the estate for these games: Clara’s Kitchen, Jasper’s Field, Jessamine’s Diary and the Ritual of Unbinding.
Last, but not least, they are offering a new companion for $1.99, called the Ghost Companion — and I believe this little ghost-girl’s name is Jessamine.
There is also a new personal estate from nDreams for $5.99, called Savage Manor, that is very dark, eerie and a little morbid. This estate is not your usual Home fare, and you’ll want to visit, view and consider before buying. Some of you will love this theme, I’m sure. Basically there are three rooms besides the entryway, and I think of them as the dining room of weirdness, the kitchen of horror and the endless library.
Of particular note, there is a riddle here at the rate of one per day for twenty days, available only to the owners. What happens when all 20 riddles are solved is yet to be fully revealed. Quite an excellent touch to keep consumers revisiting the estate on a frequent basis.
Konami’s Halloween store offers the Werebat and Death Knight for the guys this season. Both are $3.99 and come with custom animations and color or style choices. For the Werebat, choose between brown, blue, black, green and red — and for the Death Knight, choose between the regular style, the specter form or a glowing style.
The ladies also have two new costumes for $3.99 that come with custom animations and color choices. The Mermaid comes in orange, green, purple, black and pink and floats in the air. The Succubus comes in red, black, blue, green and white and each one has a unique hairstyle, except the green and black. You can change the hair color, by the way.
nDreams offers the Morbids this Halloween season. The ladies can choose between various styles and a bundle for either the China Doll or the Sad Clown. The one-piece styles for $2.99 are offered in Gothic and silhouette styles, and for $6.99 you can pick up the limited-edition (gold) styles. The bundles are $3.49 for the full-body outfits, plus the items in three or four pieces. This option has the best value, but you do not have a style choice.
The guys also have two costumes with identical pricing and style choices: for $2.99 you can pick up either the Plague Doctor or Scarecrow in Gothic or silhouette styles, for $6.99 you can purchase the limited edition, and for $3.49 you can buy the bundles of one full body costume and either four or five pieces in the regular style.
Meanwhile, Digital Leisure is offering seasonal costumes for Oktoberfest. For $2.99 you can purchase the Lederhosen bundle with Tyrolean hat for the guys, or the barmaid bundle with a braided hairdo for the ladies.
Heavy Water has come out with two new sets of Pin-up girls this year, and they are offering a lot of choices with them. Both sets are offered as separates for $.99 for each piece, and as full-body outfits for $3.99 in various colors, including black and orange for the season, and two hairstyles.
A unique detail for these full body costumes is that you can change their expressions by using the “weight” setting under the “body” tab in the character portion of the wardrobe. One set is called the Bomber Girls, and these one-piece outfits have a custom idle animation, two walking animations depending on speed, and two custom pin-up poses. The Sexy Assassin is offered at the same price with the same animations, but you can also change her hair color.
Heavy Water also offers seven $8.99 bundles in various colors and styles, which include two full-body costumes and all the separate pieces, including two hair styles. They’re also offering additional new items this week: the Animated Bleeding Wall for $2.99, the Skeleton Hand Lantern, and the Metal Grate with Chains for $.99 each.
From Lockwood, Gallu the Ghoul has been brought out of x7 and is now available for all us for $3.99 in the Lockwood store, as are the $.99 black ghoul gloves for females or males. They also brought back the Cauldron of the Sunless Kingdom at $2.49, and the two male and female $.99 crowns with hairdos which can be upgraded with this game. Please note that this is an active item that takes up 22 furniture slots, and that not all rewards are offered to guests. However, the game is quite fun, especially for a Halloween party where several people are competing for the items that are added to the cauldron to make rewards. The rewards are really great seasonal items, also.
Lockwood has also added Vathek the Shadow to the gift machine for 256 tokens, and the white ghoul gloves for males and females for 128 tokens. There you can find the new Petrified Pete item and two Jack O’Lanterns (Menacing and Mirthful styles) for 64 tokens. If you are feeling very generous, you may want to send the Felicia “Bad Cattitude” outfit to a friend for a total of 640 tokens.
Another item that is perfect for this season and can really spook you and your guests if you haven’t seen it before is the Mysterious Doll for $2.49, found in the Sony Originals store. I won’t spoil the fun, but there is an aspect of this item that can really startle you. If you want to know more, you might want to ask HSM special guest contributor deuce_for2, who created the Mysterious Doll.
Be sure to check Sony Originals as well for the Guillotine, for $1.49, as a decoration — and the Enchanted Cauldron or Magic Cauldron for $1.99 as a party game. If you’re looking to add atmosphere, consider one of the nDreams smoke machines for $2.99 in white, blue, red or purple, and the Novus Prime Stereo for $1.99 from Hellfire Games, also.
We all love to have choices, and this year we are being offered a lot of costume selections. We can decide between old favorites, especially in classic Gothic styles, and a superfluity of new styles, with color and style differences. We are also getting new animations with some of these costumes, which is wonderful. I also love the items that some of the developers are coming out with, but I hope to see a lot more before the season is over.
October 19th, 2012 by Kassadee Marie | 2 comments
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.
My friend VioletWinds just showed me the mermaid, she not only floats, but “swims” in the air when you move! It looks really good, too. Fun, fun!
Great list! Hope there’s even more to come next week.