Harvest Moon Forever: Chicken

Showing posts with label Chicken. Show all posts

Thursday, September 4, 2008

The perfidious Wild Dog in Island of Happiness

Well, I have been forced to eat my words with respect to the Wild Dog in Island of Happiness. With only a stone pen but with my dog at 10 hearts, I had been able to leave my chickens outside overnight throughout the Summer season without one incident where any of them developed the telltale stress signs that indicate 'damage' from an attack. Now, however, to my dismay, I have experienced betrayal from my canine pet.

It was a sunny day yesterday and all my chickens sunned themselves in their pen throughout the day, falling asleep peacefully at night as usual...

I went fishing in order to keep my shipments of fish at a level that would keep all the Fishing characters on the Island, returning home only at 11.40 p.m.

There had been no barking to indicate the presence of the Wild Dog anywhere, but when I entered my field, I saw the creature slinking about silently near the Chicken Pen.

The Chickens continued to sleep peacefully... but then I found my DOG sleeping as well! He could not be roused to do his duty either. I picked him up, but as soon as I put him down, he fell asleep again, ignoring the continuing threat of the Wild Dog!

I equipped a tool but by now it was 1.00 a.m., the time when the Wild Dog leaves of his own accord. He departed as silently as he had appeared.

This morning, rather to my dismay, I found that three of my Chickens were stressed. How could my Dog betray me so, after all the Pet Food, petting and holding I did to bring him to 10 hearts!

So I guess you can't count on your Dog to keep the Wild Dog at bay, even if he has done so dozens of times in the past. I must add here that my Dog certainly has demonstrated the ability to go after the Wild Dog. On many occasions, he has sent him howling from the field... so what happened last night???

In many Harvest Moon games, a pen made of stones or branches is not sufficient to protect chickens or livestock. Perhaps Island of Happiness is the same. I simply didn't have the heart to rebuild the pen with better materials, as it takes so long to position each item on the ground in this game.

The other possibility is that the Dog is not fully trained until his title reaches that of Gold Medal Dog, which would occur when he has participated in three Dog Contests. (Apparently, an animal does not have to Win the Contest to gain a higher title. A Chicken who lost the first Chicken Contest nonetheless was given the title of Copper Medal Chicken. When she won the 2nd, she was given the title of Silver Medal Chicken. My Cow who won her first Contest was given the title of Copper Medal Cow, even though she won first prize. So the title depends on participation rather than winning, evidently.)

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Natsume Contest for Harvest Moon Art!!!

Natsume is running a contest for fans of Harvest Moon. From the official Press Release on 2 September:

Natsume Hosts Drawing Contest in Honor of Harvest Moon's 10th Anniversary

Submissions will be judged by Natsume; 20 winners will receive Harvest Moon 10th Anniversary prize packages.

Natsume, a worldwide developer and publisher of family-oriented video games, announced today that in celebration of the 10th anniversary of the award-winning Harvest Moon franchise, the company is holding a Harvest Moon Drawing Contest.

Over the years, a variety a different characters and animals have appeared in the many Harvest Moon installments; now it's time for the fans to show Natsume who their favorite characters and animals are! To participate in the Harvest Moon 10th Anniversary Drawing Contest, participants must draw a picture of their favorite Harvest Moon character and their favorite Harvest Moon animal. Submissions must be received by Natsume no later than Friday, 17 October 2008.

All drawings will be judged by the staff at Natsume, and the 20 best entries will be selected. The 20 selected winners of the Drawing Contest will receive a Harvest Moon 10th Anniversary prize package that includes:

10th Anniversary DS Lite Kit,
official Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility Strategy Guide, (written by Freyashawk)
official Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness Strategy Guide,
10th Anniversary plush Harvest Moon Cow,
10th Anniversary plush Harvest Moon Chicken,
and additional goodies!

In order to qualify, all drawings must include the following:

1. At least one character from any of the Harvest Moon games over the past 10 years.

2. At least one animal from any of the Harvest Moon games over the past 10 years.

3. The size of your drawing should NOT be bigger than 8.5 x 11 inches (letter size paper).

4. On the back of the drawing, participants should include their name (first and last), age, and mailing address. For those who do not want their real name posted if they win, please be sure to include a nickname. (For winners who do not include a nickname, only their first names will be posted.)

5. Entries should be sent to:

Attn: Harvest Moon 10th Anniversary Drawing Contest
Natsume Inc.
1818 Gilbreth Road, Suite 229
Burlingame, CA 94010

6. All entries must be postmarked by or before October 17th, 2008.

The winners of the Harvest Moon 10th Anniversary Drawing Contest will be posted on Natsume's website on October 31st, 2008!

Please note:

Any submissions that do not meet the requirements will be automatically disqualified.
Only one submission per participant.
No submissions via e-mail.
For more information on the Harvest Moon Drawing Contest, please visit www.natsume.com or http://www.clevercomm.com/Natsume/.

About Natsume

Natsume Inc. is a worldwide developer and publisher that specialize in unique and family-oriented interactive entertainment software for a variety of platforms. Most known for publishing Reel Fishing and Harvest Moon, Natsume is dedicated to producing quality video games. For more information about Natsume Inc., visit www.natsume.com

End of Press Release

The little note to the effect that the Tree of Tranquility Guide was written by Freyashawk is NOT part of the official press release, by the way. I wish I were more talented at drawing. I dearly would love to make a successful entry. Too bad there is no contest for stories about Harvest Moon. In any case, I urge all fans of Harvest Moon to enter this wonderful Contest.

The photograph posted here shows one of the items that the winner will receive. It's a DS Lite Kit created in honour of the 10th Anniversary of Harvest Moon. I believe it is available for purchase as of today at Amazon and Gamestop and other retail outlets. According to the description of the kit, it includes the Protection case for the DS itself, 3 Harvest Moon game cases for DS cartridges, 12 interchangeable and customisable graphics featuring Harvest Moon characters, a Harvest Moon stylus with enhanced grip and a '2 in 1 wrist strap and screen wiper'.

Apart from the Strategy Guides and the DS Lite Kit, the two very special Harvest Moon plush animals the winner will receive is further motivation to enter the Contest. Show your support of Natsume and Harvest Moon!

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For all Harvest Moon fans and players

As Freyashawk, I have written about 150 guides for games, most of which have been guides for Harvest Moon games. These are published on IGN. IGN has given me the title of 'Mistress of Harvest Moon' and I strive daily to earn the right to maintain that title. Although there is a link page on IGN that lists all the guides published there, they are not organised by game, but rather given in alphabetical order. I therefore created this page in order to provide links to the guides I have created for each Harvest Moon game. If you access the General Guide for any game, links should be included to all other guides for that game in a section at the end. I will try to add links to ALL guides as time permits, but until I do, you always can refer to my user page at IGN for the complete list.

I wrote the Official Strategy Guide for Tree of Tranquility for BradyGames as well.
Harvest Moon Forever!

How to Use my Guides

I write three different basic types of game guides. I usually write a General Guide for every game, which is fairly comprehensive and deals with all aspects of the game. It may or may not be in the form of a Walkthrough, dealing with game aspects as they occur. My Innocent Life General Guide is an example of a General Guide that is organised as a Walkthrough.

After writing a General Comprehensive Guide, I often write a Calendar Guide giving birthday and festival dates, with additional information that may be helpful, such as favourite gifts for each individual. For all Harvest Moon games, I usually write a number of 'mini-guides', such as Events Guides for each year of gameplay, or Recipe Guides that give all recipes one can make. Fishing, Mining, Shipping or Item Value Guides are other mini-guides that can be very useful when playing Harvest Moon. Character Guides give detailed information about every character in any specific game. My Courtship and Marriage Guide is devoted to all aspects of Courtship and Marriage, including schedules of Heart Events, Rival Heart Events and the likes and dislikes of every Eligible Girl and/or Bachelor.

Although this site is devoted to Harvest Moon, I have included links to game guides for other games. I created a separate link section for Animal Crossing Wild World as well, because I wrote more than one guide for that game.

N.B. All my game guides are published by IGN. This webpage has been created simply to allow players to find links to all my guides more easily.

Copyright Infringement Warning

It is really sad to discover that there are individuals who are willing to steal my guides and to attempt to publish them under their names. Fortunately, there are many players who recognise my guides when they see them anywhere on the internet and who are willing to alert me when some one tries to steal my material. I want to thank all those players for their help in these cases.

Some one stole one of my guides and tried to publish it on Gamefaqs under his/her name. The guide has been removed and the poster has been banned. I now have a contact in the Legal Department at CNet. I spend many months sometimes writing a guide. They are available for the private use of any individual without cost, but they are not available for theft!
If you want permission to include a link to one of my guides on your site, please contact me directly.

Friends of Mineral Town and More Friends of Mineral Town

You will notice that I wrote far more guides for More Friends of Mineral Town than I did for the original 'Friends of Mineral Town'. At some point, I would like to publish more specific Events Guides for Friends of Mineral Town, but players should be aware of the fact that ALL Calendar Events Guides for MFoMT can be used when playing the original FoMT. The Events are the same in most cases in both games. If, therefore, you are playing FoMT and you wish to know the events that can be experienced in the third year of gameplay, refer to the 'Third Year Calendar Events Guide' for 'More Friends of Mineral Town'.