There are hundreds, perhaps even more, so-called 'free' games for mobile devices now. They vary from Role Play to simple slot machines, to tetris-type games, to farming simulation and finally, creature-breeding and tending. Then there are puzzle games, word games and solitaire games... think of a type of game and it probably exists somewhere, whether good, bad or indifferent in quality. Some claim to be 'free' but basically force you to spend real money if you wish to make any progress. Others actually are free and only tempt you to spend real money, usually by offering to speed the course of events or give you rare varieties of creatures. I ordinarily tend to like farming simulation games but since I had two operations last year that left me less than wholly functional physically, I discovered the joys of breeding creatures.
The attraction of all these Frismos breeding games for me is a characteristic that some other gamers may not like much. These are games that do NOT require a player's constant involvement or presence. In that sense, they are relaxing games. You basically perform a few housekeeping actions, collecting coins and rewards, then choose subjects for your next breeding experiments.
Note here however, that often there are special seasonal Creatures both in Creatures of Olympus and in Age of Pyramids that you MUST buy or breed within a set time period or you will have lost your chance to obtain them.
In Fish Adventure Seasons and Birdland Paradise, the 'Featured' department in the Market offers breeds of fish/birds for a week or fortnight that usually cannot be unlocked until you reach a high level. With the creatures, you sometimes find a theme for your aquarium/cage that likewise usually is available only to high level players. Different from Creatures of Olympus and Age of Pyramids in that the actual Fish/Birds and Themes/Decorations do not disappear from the Market after the limited period expires but you no longer will be able to buy them irrespective of your own level in the game.
All four of the Frismos games are FREE. You can play them without paying any real cash to do so. There are special offers that give you opportunities to buy seasonal, rare or high level Creatures, but you can play the game without ever purchasing anything. You will be given premium cash randomly by completing Goals in each game and randomly in gifts from other players. They are quite honestly free games but the player who desires every type of Creature probably will have to pay some real money for that.
I think that more players should understand the reason why the game offers special inducements to invest real cash. After all, every game complany has employees who must be paid somehow. On the one hand, players demand new options, new creatures or whatever but it sometimes is these same players who complain about being asked to invest a little money in the game.
The secret really is WHERE to spend your money in any 'Free' game. In my guides, I make suggestions as to where your money best can be spent and when you should NOT spend real money on an option.
Fish Adventure Seasons
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Fish Adventure Seasons basically is an Aquarium simulation game, although it includes some fabulous creatures such as Mermaids and thus is not entirely based on reality. The graphics are really marvelous and breeding appears to be based primarily on the rules of the colour wheel, which makes it more challenging in a way than a totally random result would be. You can breed different colours of any breed of fish to achieve a new type or you can add an Elixir to create a new colour scheme. The basic Elixirs are Blue, Red, Yellow and Green. When you reach Level 10, you unlock a colour Slot Machine that allows you to wager with your basic Elixirs to try to obtain rare colours of Elixirs including 'magic' colour-change Elixirs.
In Fish Adventures Seasons, you own virtual aquariums where you can breed your fish. You will need two of any type of fish that you wish to breed. You will not achieve a hybrid as you can in Egypt or Olympus. Instead, your goal is to create new colour combinations. The game is made more interesting (and more beautiful!) by the addition of Magic Elixirs that allow you to create colour-change fish that flash when they move through the water.
The number of tanks that you can own depends on your Level of experience. You can have a maximum of 30 Fish in any tank. As with most mobile games, there are two forms of currency. One is coins and the other is the premium currency in the form of Seastars. You can earn Coins by selling fish, visiting neighbours and by opening gifts. You can obtain Seastars through purchase, through the attainment of specific goals, by emptying coin shells and by opening Gifts. The game really is quite generous in the number of Seastars that can be found randomly inside a Gift.
New species of Fish must be purchased. Some have Coin prices but others are available only by using Seastars. Featured Fish can be new breeds of fish or fish that ordinarily are available to players only at high levels.
You can play this game without ever spending any money, although there always are 'Featured' Fish as previously indicated that have a price in premium cash (Seastars) that would be available only at high levels otherwise. It is a temptation but not a necessity. Another temptation is that of speeding the hatching of a new fish or reviving a fish that has exhausted itself in breeding faster by using premium cash. Again, though, this is temptation rather than a necessity.
Note here that our club in Fish Adventure Seasons is Harvest Moon. Look for it and join if you wish to participate in special contests based on different holidays and seasons. We encourage our members to create special tanks in specific colour schemes for different festivals such as Lunar New Year, St. Patrick's Day or Easter.
Birdland Paradise
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This game is more like Fish Adventure Seasons than Age of Pyramids or Creatures of Olympus.
Breeding can be accomplished only by having a male and female of the same species, as it is with Fish Adventure Seasons. The main difference is the Wheel. All breeding is random, based on the spin of a Wheel. A spin on the ordinary Wheel can bring you to a special Rainbow Wheel where you can obtain colour-change rainbow flashing birds or better results in terms of achieving a new colour combination. Unlike Fish Adventure Seasons, the special colour-change birds cannot be bred.
Of all the Frismos games I play, this one is the most dangerous in the temptation to spend real cash either for the 'Feathers' that are the in-game premium cash or to purchase coins required for breeding any birds' as breeding results depend solely on a wheel that has to be spun. You can refresh the wheel to obtain a better chance of a rare result ONLY if you are willing to spend premium cash. That does not mean that you must spend real money to play the game but it is more aggressive in encouraging players to do so. As with any Frismos games, the graphics are absolutely beautiful and the sound of the different birdsongs is quite attractive as well If you do not grow impatient and allow your eggs to hatch in their own good time, the games can be relaxing and need not beggar you at all.
Ancient Egypt: Age of Pyramids
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Ancient Egypt: Age of Pyramids is very different in many respects although ultimately it is a breeding game as well. In Fish Adventure Seasons, your Fish once hatched still need to be fed on a daily basis and the tanks must be cleaned but if you neglect them, they will not get sick nor die. You can decorate your Tanks but essentially each is rectangular.
The Ancient Egypt game essentially is a microcosm of an Egyptian city. The graphics are amazing. You build different Habitats for each type of creature, build farms on which to plant food, build ships to send down the river for food and stone supplies and then cross-breed species in order to obtain rare hybrid creatures that vary from household pets to gods. It is quite compelling, indeed addictive once you understand the system.
Again, you need not spend any real money on this game but there are temptations. You can purchase rare creatures using 'Diamonds' (premium cash) instead of waiting to create them naturally. Cross-breeding in this game is somewhat random, although there is a specific list of creatures that can be obtained from every type. The game is quite large in its options and there are mini-games, such as races in an amphitheatre that can be unlocked at specific levels.
What I do need to stress here is that the special promotional offers for rare Creatures are a time when one SHOULD spend real cash if you actually would like to have that Creature in your Kingdom. Other seasonal Creatures can be obtained through breeding WHILE they are offered in the Market, but once they are removed from the Market, you will have lost your chance to obtain them through breeding. Frismos is generous, however and sometimes a Creature offered one year as a 24 hour promotion will be offered the next year as a Seasonal (breedable) Creature. Nonetheless, the 24 hour promotions are the time to spend your money!
Knowing that a Seasonal Creature will be removed from the Market after a specific time period is the time to use premium cash for speed-ups as well. My guide for the game giving the breeding combinations for every Creature as well as breeding time should allow any player to know the result of his/her breeding experiment as soon as it begins. If you are running out of time and still have not succeeded in breeding the special Creature, that may be the time to spend premium cash!
Our club in Age of Pyramids is Freyashawk where you can find help to speed up your tasks as well as any help you need with the game.
Creatures of Olympus
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This game is based on the mythology of Ancient Greece and predates Age of Pyramids, its Ancient Egyptian counterpart. As it is an older game, the number of Kingdoms and the total number of different Creatures that can be obtained is far greater, making the game more challenging in a way but certainly not less rewarding than Age of Pyramids.
My guide for Creatures of Olympus is incapsulated within my Guide for Ancient Egypt. In both games, the most important guide information usually is the Breeding List. I try to keep my Breeding List for both games up to date.
Friends and Neighbours
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In all of these games, visiting neighbours to leave gifts and having them visit you is a way in which you can obtain premium cash randomly as well as other items. You can create a 'nickname' for yourself that is unique or simply keep the one generated by the game, which is player with a series of numbers attached to it.
This is wherein the value of joining a Club in the game lies. When you join a good club, you will find other active players who visit daily (one hopes) to leave gifts for you.
Frismos Games in general
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Generally speaking, I definitely would recommend these game creators and their games over most others. I now have played a number of them and although some are better than others, they all offer something unique.
I have played Lovely Pets as well but do not play that one regularly. The other four are games that I play on a daily basis and I have written guides for all of them.
My favourites probably are 'Ancient Egypt: Age of Pyramids' and 'Fish Adventure Seasons'. The graphics are breathtaking but beyond that, gameplay is rather compelling. If you look for games in order to vent your aggression and rage, you will not like the Frismos games I have listed. They essentially are relaxing games that focus on crossbreeding different creatures. What makes it exciting is the fact that results are random up to a point. In the case of Fish Adventure Seasons, it is essentially a matter of breeding for new colours. You cannot mix species in this game. In the other games, however, you CAN crossbreed species and although there is a list of types that can be obtained through crossbreeding, the list is fairly extensive, and there are 'secret' types that are not listed, which gives an added element of surprise.
Help in-game for Frismos games almost always is found in a 'Goals' Menu which takes the place of a guide. One might think that everything is self-explanatory, but it is NOT, as in my visits to the lands or aquariums of other players, I often find that even those who have played for weeks sometimes have neglected the most elementary principles of the game.
Basically, as previously indicated, most of these games rely somewhat on visits to neighbours or friends to obtain items, coins and XP. Whenever you visit a friend, you should leave a Gift. In some of these games, like Fish Adventure Seasons, Birdland Paradise and Lovely Pets, the Gift repository or box is supplied automatically but in the case of Ancient Egypt and Creatures of Olympus, you have to purchase a Gift Statue in the Shop and place it before you will be able to receive Gifts.
Why are Gifts important? Well, for a start, you can obtain quite hefty amounts both of Coins and Premium Cash randomly from them. You often can obtain Decorations as well that otherwise would be a premium cash purchase. In a game like Fish Adventure Seasons, however, it is through Gifts that the all-vital Elixirs are obtained. The only way you can obtain Elixirs is either by emptying a Coin Shell or inside a Gift. It is the Elixirs that facilitate the creation of new colours in breeding, although you can breed without Elixirs.
When you first download and open any of these games, you have to go to the Social Tab and then Community to find Friends in order to be able to visit others. There is a Club option, however, that is unlocked quite early in the game. It is here that the system really could use a guide because, for an active player, one usually adds the maximum number of Friends immediately in order to be able to obtain the maximum number of benefits. The reason for a Club primarily is to obtain Friends. Ideally, you would make friends with all of your Clan or Club members and then reciprocate in terms of gifting and visits. This is seldom the case, however, in my experience.
I have created clubs now in ALL the games I play. You will find them either under the name of Freyashawk or Harvest Moon.
The first club I created myself was in Fish Adventure Seasons where I created a club named Harvest Moon after a rather sorry experience of joining various other clubs where no one ever reciprocated with gifts or game tips. With my own club, I met an extraordinary player from Germany who calls herself Shadowfish. I made her a co-owner in all the clubs I have. We gradually have gained members who visit and gift one another. In Ancient Egypt, I randomly found a number of players who do visit and reciprocate in terms of gifts but in the Birdland Paradise, Creatures of Olympus and Lovely Pets games, I never received Gifts from any of the Friends I visited and gifted. I joined Clubs in both games and still never obtained a gift from any members! Finally, when I created my own Club, that all changed. Of all the games, however, I have found Creatures of Olympus the most frustrating where my club is concerned. Unlike Age of Pyramids, where you actually can help other club members shorten times for breeding, food production and so on, in Creatures of Olympus, a club simply exists as a venue for chat and a list of other players whom one hopes are active.
I believe the problem in many cases is the lack of a guide. However simple a game may appear to its developers, people tend to be lazy and opt for the easiest course of action, especially when the game is on a mobile device and playing time may be fairly limited. Yes, players may log into the game repeatedly in the course of a day but they may not remain there for more than a bried time period. I have created guide sites for all four games now. Here are the links:
Age of Pyramids and Creatures of Olympus Guides
Fish Adventure Seasons and Birdland Paradise
Here are the general principles I have discovered that apply to all of these games:
The actual game is free and there are few necessary items that require premium cash. When you first begin to play, there always is an initial offer that includes premium cash, coins and food if food is needed in the game. Accept that offer! You will never receive a better one. It gives you a good headstart and usually does not cost much.
All games will attempt to persuade you to fritter away your premium cash on what are known as 'speed-ups'. There are many different types of speed-ups. You can speed a building plan or the hatching of a new creature. RESIST!!! The only time to use them is when the Creature you are trying to obtain is seasonal or time-limited. THAT is when you may wish to use speed-ups if you know the creatures you have bred are not going to produce the desired result and you need to clear your breeding nest or nursery for a new attempt. In all other cases, it is far better to spend your premium cash on a creature that cannot be obtained any other way or something else that cannot be obtained otherwise. However excited you may be to discover what the results of your breeding may be, have patience! Using my guides for Age of Pyramids or Creatures of Olympus, you always should be able to discover what the results of any breeding combination with its time will produce!
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