Go Juggernaut — On A Budget?
by Kassadee Marie, HSM team writer
It may be that you have noticed and/or even read a few of my articles about staying on a budget with one specific developer at a time. My own criteria for writing about any developer was that they have at least one personal space in the Estates store and offer at least three of other types of items, such as furniture, clothing, companions, games and musical items. This particular article was supposed to be, “Go Juggernaut on a Budget.”
I’ve been working on this article (and others at the same time, of course) for over a month, and I feel stumped. Here’s why:
For one thing, I can’t choose which Juggernaut estate to highlight. At first, I thought I would write about the complimentary MiniBots facility. You can’t go more inexpensive than free, and I love the inexpensive items in the stores there. Then I was going to choose Cutteridge Estate. I believe they did an outstanding job with their initial entry into the Home market, and they are still making changes, updates, and…well, just really good fun for this estate.
Then they came out with the Palace of the Seven Winds, and oh, my goodness!
You can fly there. And it’s so beautiful and different and awesome and you can change the colors, and the music and time of day and, well, I simply love it. So, at really low price of $6.99 each, I could recommend either of them, as I did with another developer (and, by the way, both of these estates are available as clubs, also).
But in the back of my mind, I think about them making an underwater estate soon to match the recent Nautilus packs or… who knows? Because, after all, this is arguably the most artistic and innovative developer on Home. If they asked me, I would love to see a mansion from India, or maybe a Taj Mahal estate.
For another thing: how do I choose furniture from them? The furniture and item packs matching both of their estates are multi-itemed, wonderful and so well designed and perfectly suited to their respective spaces. The Cutteridge pack is $6.99 for 19 pieces and the Seven Winds pack is $9.99 for 25 pieces. And have you seen the items that you can buy for yourself or friends at the Palace of the Seven Winds store?
There are also adventure packs for furniture, companions and clothing articles for sale like the Steampunk pack ($4.99 for five pieces and a companion, which is sold for $2.49 on its own) and the new Nautilus pack for $9.99 for eleven items. This latest pack may be even better, as there are active items with low furniture-slot counts included.
Now they are coming out with a 16-item Winter Adventure pack that includes twelve active items. I hope you have had a chance to see the promotional video. There’s so much to see in that video; I’ve watched it over and over. You’ll need to put some money aside for these must-have items. No, really. Do it or you’ll regret it.
As far as recommending clothing items: well, how? Have you seen the Cutteridge Crying Lady or Scarecrow full-body outfits, which are so inexpensively priced at only $1.99 and perfect for Halloween especially, or the five-piece palace outfits, of Scheherazade and Prince Ali which are only $2.99 in a bundle and just plain perfect. Or the $4.49 Sea Captain and Sea Nymph outfits in the Nautilus packs that have two different colors in each set? They are also available as individually priced pieces. The only complaint I have about this selection is that they don’t offer a female sea captain outfit and a male sea nymph outfit.
And for another thing, which companion do I recommend? Except for the Jessamine’s Ghost, they are all priced at $2.49 each, and I have to admit it, the idea of a little girl ghost makes me rather sad. Even if I narrowed it down to the “Mech Pets” – which I feel are the best of the best – I would have to choose between five of them, and I can’t. They are all fun, interesting and appealing. Choose Monsieur Love Machine for Valentine’s Day or Sprocket O’Cog for St. Patrick’s Day or Icebox the Abominable for winter or the Green Machine for summer or the Party Machine 9000 to party all the time.
I can’t think of any other items on Home like the “Essence of the Seven Winds” and “Essence of the Tides” orbs, that allow you to fly or swim in any personal estate to the limits (invisible walls, ceilings and floors) of the estates as they were designed. They are beautiful to look at as ornaments and fun for you and your friends to use. These items are sold for only $2.99 each and did I mention that they provide character animations as well? As far as free items go, I can hardly believe that the Seven Winds “genie” lamps are reward items. Look closely at these items, and you will see the care in the design that Juggernaut puts into even free items. I would have paid for each of them, but the Lamp of the Deluge is my personal favorite.
From their website: “Juggernaut Games is an independent game studio founded in 2011 in San Diego, California. Prior to forming Juggernaut Games, our talented team of artists, programmers, and animators worked together extensively on the Home platform and in the video game industry in a variety of roles. We united to form Juggernaut Games with the idea that the best games are ‘games by gamers, for gamers.’ Moving forward, we hope to be an integral part of the continued evolution of Sony’s PlayStation Home.”
All I can say to that is, “Me, too!”
December 7th, 2012 by Kassadee Marie | 3 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.
They are indeed doing well. Pushing the boundaries of Home is an important endeavor, and they’re now leading the pack in the interactive item category. I cant wait to see ( or use ; ) the new Christmas stuff once it gets here. But that leads me to a problem, I have the Winter Vacation space in EU ( courtesy of PS Plus -- thank you!) but spend most of my time in US… Ugh! Where to make my nest!?
And I’m further in Aroura in US than I am in EU, yet over there I did Xi, which will tie into Aroura! Aaaand now I’m rambling nonsensical gibberish…
Nice read Kass!
I simply love Juggernaut Games and their wonderful products. I have bought a slew of them, and I am sure I will continue to buy even more. I am waiting with bated breath for those Christmas items next week! I love the snowball fight one, it is going to be a fun winter in Home!
P.S. Kass, great job as always!