Rachel Stark, the author of Frontier Tycoon, is the first player to have crossed all the 100 levels of the Zynga game ‘FrontierVille’ on Facebook. In this book, she exposes the secrets which helped her to get this fame and encourages the reader to duplicate her steps and legally dominate the frontier and make more progress in a few days than was possible over a much longer time. She has spent many hours observing how other successful people play and gain success, befriended many such players who have played for her and helped her to unlock the secrets which have boosted her levels. Using simple strategies, she managed to get ahead and stay ahead of the others and within a week had tripled her coins, crossed many levels and recruited high reputation neighbours to help her. By testing and tweaking the tricks she had learnt, she devised even better methods of playing the game and became the first player to cross 100 levels and have all the collections. The book – Frontier Tycoon – is born out of an idea to share her information and help other enjoy the game while spending more time with family and friends.
FrontierVille is a Facebook game by Zynga which has given Farmville, Mafia Wars and CafeWorld to the users of this social networking site. Like players have been hooked onto these games, FrontierVille too promises to capture the interest of the gaming addicts and keep them glued to it.
The book begins at the basics of the game and takes a look at the interface of the game through screen shots, Every inch of the screen and every item of it is covered in great detail so that even the novice is acquainted with the different options and icons of the screen. Not only does the basic section tell you what the icon stands for, it also provides you with tips of its effective usage so that at the start itself, you know what to keep in mind and what to look out for. For example, item 3 is wood – “This is the amount of wood you currently have. As you harvest trees on your land and neighbor’s land, you’ll gain wood.Also, as you complete collections, some will reward you with wood as well. You’ll need wood to build buildings, fences and buy certain things in the market’ (pg 5). For each item, in the same manner, the book elucidates the use of the icon, how to acquire more of it and the use it is put to.
The next section is on the fundamentals of the game. It tells the users the main objectives of the game and how to achieve them. It is broken down into easy segments like energy, crops, quests, buildings, animals, clearing the land, trees, varmints and collections. These segments are further divided into ways and means by which each segment can be optimised. For example, the energy segment is further divided into the items that can increase the energy level like food, horseshoes, colections and visiting neighbor’s farms, the crop segment details how to plant crops such that there is always a crop ready to be harvested and replanted so that more coins and experience are gained and more collections can get completed without going into any cheat programs. Useful tips like “except for the white geese – they actually will cost you money to raise and sell, so do this only for a quest’ (Pg 9), tell the user which animals are worth buying and keeping, and which must be avoided or sold off.
The Walkthrough section is a detailed one giving the reader a thorough picture of the various quests and colllections in the game. Quests that pop up have to be completed to finish the chains that follow. Each quest will spawn off other quests that make up the chain. The book details each of these quests giving the quest, the description of the quest, the reward, the posting reward and a hint on how to do it in the most optimum manner and the other quests that are opened by finishing this quest. The Walkthrough section also details the collection list. Each collection has a number of items that have to be turned in or used in the quests. This segment details the collections that FrontierVille offers and also gives the tricks and hints to ensure that you keep the items you need for quests so that you can level faster. For example tips like “The Bear Skull is the hardest to come by here and can easily be traded for items that you need for quests. The Animal Ready Boost is an excellent way to instantly be able to harvest all your animals without waiting for their timers to be up. This can be used to get quests completed faster” (Pg 41-42). Each collection has a note which tells you which ones to turn in and what each collection can do for you. Keeping this in mind when trading in will go a long way in helping you to level up.
The next section tells you about neighbors and what they can do for you. The most important thing is to get good neighbors and the book gives you a number of weblinks to get people who play FrontierVille regularly as neighbors. The Using Neighbors to your Advantge details various ways in which your neighbors can help you to get coins, energy and increase your levels. The most important thing is that the book gives you a link which will give you instant access to a number of neighbors who will greatly enhance your chances of clearing the levels.
The tips and tricks section details different ways to stay ahead in the game. Planning what crops to plant, questing in earnest and keeping track of the wish list are some of the tips in this section. The Advanced Tricks section is a blessing for players who are wanting to come up with the best frontier town. It even suggests which browser to use for the quests and how to utilise gifts effectively.
Frontier Tycoon is a book that has completely legitimate tips to help the beginner and the advanced player to play the game as it should be played – without stress – while at the same time, making the player gain respect and popularity as a player of repute. This book makes a great partner while playing the game of FrontierVille.
Visit the site: http://www.frontiertycoon.com.
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