Fire God Mountain Adds New Depth To Treasure Isle

We talk about an awful lot of MMOs here at Lore Hound, but there’s one category we’ve been remiss to mention at all: social web games. Sure, the way you interact with other people is almost entirely passive, but in some ways, that’s what has made them such wildly popular attractions on Facebook. I did my time in Farmville for awhile, but the only one that has consistently hooked me is one of Zynga’s more recent offerings: Treasure Isle.

It’s a game that is deceptively simple and goes a long way towards tickling my desire for instant gratification through grinding and “phat lewtz” when a normal MMO just doesn’t satisfy. Basically,you visit various islands, click on squares to dig, and hope you find treasure. You get bonus points for completing sets, fully exploring islands, and a few other things. But the game has ways of impeding your progress with special “gates” activated by gems you either have to get from friends or dig up (you do get a gem tree of your own, but it’s a single color and can only be used once a day). It’s the other mechanic, though, that turns Treasure Isle into a game of subtle strategy.

You only get so much energy to spend on digging at a time, and while there are items that can replenish it, once you’re out of those, you have to wait for it to regenerate at the rate of one per every five minutes of real time. This means that, while there’s a little bit of luck involved, progressing through the game is largely a matter of how well you manage your energy. Different types of tiles require different amounts of energy to dig on, but the game will give you hints when you are either one or two squares away from a potential treasure. On top of that, every level you gain adds one point of energy to your maximum, and the moment actually gain that level, your bar is filled entirely (which makes it prudent to whittle down your energy as low as possible when you’re about to rollover so that you don’t lose out on what you had left).

But enough general strategy talk. I bring up these core mechanics because they figure prominently in Treasure Isle’s newest thing: a series of “challenge maps” collectively known as Fire God Mountain. The goal is to progress through all levels of the mountain to reach the very bottom and prevent the Fire God from blowing the volcano’s top (in theory, scattering devastating ash all over the world), but there is, of course, a catch. As opposed to other maps in the game, each stratum of FGM only has a single treasure, which means you need to use a little bit of luck and a little bit of skill to triangulate its position using the hints I mentioned above. Finding that treasure unlocks the next area, but the competition aspect comes in the form of completing each level (and the entire dungeon) in the fewest number of digs possible. Doing so will not only allow you to brag to your friends, but the better you perform, the higher the reward you will receive.

Though doing “alright” will give you some extra Lava Mangoes (special, energy-giving fruits only usable in Fire God Mountain) or Map Fragments (used to replay other maps), achieving gold rank allows access to several game-changing treasures:

• Rain God Statue — Alright, not a “game-changer,” but still a major find. It’s part of the Tiki Statues treasure set, one of the very first you encounter in the game, but by some fluke of programming, the Rain God Statue was literally impossible to find. Way to shove a stick in the craw of completionists, Zynga! But now hope of finally finishing it exists (just at the bottom of an active volcano).
• Small Garden — Everybody gets two plots on their island where they can grow fruit right from the beginning of the game. Winning the Small Garden adds a third plot, giving you a slight advantage over your peers.
• Lava Java — Using this allows you to permanently adjust your regeneration rate by 10 seconds, making it one energy per 4 minutes and 50 seconds, as opposed to the initial 5 minutes. It may not seem like a big change, but the more energy you have, the more saved time you will accrue, which does give you a beneficial edge in the long run.
• Magma Energy — This raises your maximum energy by 5 points, which is basically the equivalent of earning five levels at once (but without the prestige).

Now, I’m not sure yet if you can earn these particular rewards multiple times, but you can revisit Fire God Mountain by begging your friends for SPF-3000. You need five tubes to take another run through the dungeon (they give you six off the bat, so your first time is free), and that means the opportunity to both improve your score and obtain more swag for your island (which is all unique compared to what you can purchase through the in-game store).

Fire God Mountain has been a long time coming, both on the world map since the game was released in early April, and teased by Zynga for the last 3-4 weeks, but now that it’s here, I’m happy to see that both the mechanics present and the competitive nature it fosters between you and your Treasure Isle-playing friends adds a much-needed dimension to a game that would otherwise burn people out all too quickly. So what’s next on the slate? I think they’ve about exhausted the two existing tilesets used in the game (Tiki and Mayan islands, respectively), which means it may be time to move onto something more interesting. Egyptian Isles or Pirate Cove, perhaps?

Of course, there’s always that other special map that has remain locked since the game went live: Monkey Palace. If FGM is any indication, we can probably expect special, game-expanding modes for that map, as well.