MOONDUSTS COUNTY FAIR - IGM #12
TYPE OF IGM: Getting a Horse or Fairy; and small gains in Strength, Defense, Gold and XPs; other minor possibilities.
ENTRIES PER DAY: Once per Day.
MAJOR GOALS IN USE: Getting a Horse or Fairy; getting Gems for checking other players out or gaining Thief skills.
STRATEGY
This IGM is a lot of fun, with many things that do little in overall strategy, but are just simple fun. However, I'll concentrate on those areas that I find particularly useful in terms of Game Play. Go into this game with at least 100 or so gold at lower levels, 1000 or so at higher levels, just to make sure. The options I use most often here are:
1) Option E: This is where you can wind your way through trees and monsters to pick up Gems, gold, XPs, a Fairy, a Horse, Strength. or random gains in Strength, Hitpoints, or Defense. Each time you use your Number Pad to move, another tree or monster is added to the screen, so eventually you get blocked in and have to quit. There's a legend to tell you what the different symbols mean, but here's the major ones: (there's a lot of ASCI symbols, but I'll use rough translations here)
Purple F = Fairy; Brown H = Horse; Blue Diamond = Gem; Yellow S = Strength; Yellow E = Experience. There's also other colored ASCI symbols that might give more strength, defense, or hitpoints, but might also just result in making you sick, (and nothing happens), or making you so sick you have to leave that option and play no more in here this day.
There's also trees and monsters - you can't go through the trees, and of course, if you walk into a monster, you have to leave.
This Option is perhaps the most important for getting a Horse. Sometimes you really need a Horse in order to get to the Dark Cloak Tavern in the Forest, so you can check a player out, or change your Skill areas (Thief, Magic User, Death Knight). You can buy a Horse in IGM #1, but it costs 400,000 gold there. Here, you can get a Horse for cheap!
If you're going into this IGM and already have a Fairy, you'll usually want to Sell the Fairy at the Bank first, since you can't get more than one Fairy at a time.
2) Option H: If I don't get what I need in Option E, (like a Horse, or enough Gems to check someone out), I might use H, which is the Hidden Forest. This is similar to E, except that trees and monsters don't increase - however - after about 10 seconds to study the layout of where everything is, the map disappears and all you see are the trees.
I use this study time to find out where the items of my main desire is (like a Horse or Fairy), and lot my path there; and try to "finger the monsters in the general area I want to roam in. Yes, I go so far as to place a finger or two on the monitor and try to mark the general area to avoid. Use the trees as a general reference, and just try for the best; it can't hurt.
3) Option M: If you pay a ticket (a small amount of gold), you can drink a potion that will increase your Hitpoints significantly. Unlike Baraks House, this isn't a given amount (25%); but it's usually more proportionately. For example, at level 3 with 30 hitpoints, you might end up with 50 hitpoints instead of 37. This gain can be especially significant at the higher levels, and like Baraks, you might choose to use this IGM for special occasion when you need more Hitpoints. That has to be countered however by whatever advantage you might gain in saving it for after a kill to get a Fairy, Horse or Gems for example.
4) Saving the IGM: If I've got enough XPs to consider killing the Dragon, I won't use this IGM until afterwards. The small gains in strength/defense/XPs offered are pretty meaningless at higher levels; but significant at level 1 or 2. More importantly, assuming you had a Fairy when you challenged the Dragon, you might lose the Fairy in the fight - and using the Warriors Graveyard (IGM #7) to get another Fairy right away might not be possible since it takes 1,000 gold each time you try for that new Fairy. Yet... the IGMs where a new Level 1 player can hope for some gold are ones (like Freeworld, #6), where you really want to HAVE a Fairy before you play it.
Thus, you need a good dependable place to get one Fairy, that doesn't cost a lot of gold. This same theory goes for Horses, especially since Horse so often die when fighting the Dragon.
5) Selling Horses: This is a little out of character, since it deals with the interaction/use of this IGM and another one, but consider this: you've just killed the Dragon and still have a Horse. But you've pretty much struck out in terms of Gold - you didn't get to sell your Fairy in Freeworld, Seth didn't Have Magic Happen, etc...
If you go to the Market (IGM #1) and sell your Horse, you will pick up 200,000 gold. You can then go to this IGM, and get another Horse! If you're desperate enough, you might even want to sell this second Horse as well, but just make sure you've done all of the Research at the Dark Cloak Tavern you wanted to do, and don't need to go there to change skill areas.
Once you've started to get a fair amount of gold, you won't need to consider this, but when first starting out, that extra 200,000 gold can make a huge difference.
There's nothing here that you can't get elsewhere; but it's always worth playing on a daily basis for a slow but steady increase in overall stats. It's also very handy for getting those extra Gems, a Fairy when you're broke, or another Horse when you need one. Finally, don't forget the increase in Hitpoints for those special occasions.