How is Viva Pinata, hombre?

Something about the game's been bugging me for a little while and I think I have it figured out. On my 4x3 TV for some reason it looks like the game is trying to be widescreen but incorrectly filling the screen. Is anyone else seeing this?

[quote=Nei]

DevilStick wrote:

By the way, anyone would like to adapt a 12k hippo?

Send him right over!! We'll take good care of him! 8)

Kurrelgyre wrote:

Something about the game's been bugging me for a little while and I think I have it figured out. On my 4x3 TV for some reason it looks like the game is trying to be widescreen but incorrectly filling the screen. Is anyone else seeing this?

I have that happen on some cut scenes I think. It happens occasionally.

FWIW - I'm playing it on an 1280x1024 4:3 LCD monitor (one normally for a PC), using a VGA cable.

souldaddy wrote:

I agree, it feels a little cheap to spoil the game so much, but I'm working on getting all the awards and after 50 or 60 hours I'm only 70% through the game.

I've tried to use it as little as possible, but when trying to figure something out becomes tiresome I fire up the laptop. Perfect example is the Profitamole sour -- I transformed everything I could in my garden, grew some additional plants and poked Lefos so often I thought she might get a restraining order. Glancing at the Wiki, I would have never figured that out on my own - am I missing a hint somewhere?

Oh, and if you too are struggling with the Profitamole, you need to do the following:

Spoiler wrote:

[color=white]Have two Mushrooms, feed it a Red Flutterscotch... No seriously, how would I have figured that out?![/color]

DevilStick wrote:

DrunkenSleipnir, thanks for the flutterscotch (nice name "In ur garden...") and the coins. Chum, thanks for the flutterscotches. Between the two of you I now have three flutterscotches ready to romance. Now if they'll just stay out of their cage long enough for me to make them do the deed now... next session. ;)

Glad they showed up in one piece -- I stuffed an apple down their throats before sending them off. Did they show up "in the mood"?

My oldest daughter who is moderately into gaming (primarily DS) also races to get her homework done/room cleaned/whatever-I-want done just for the opportunity to sit, watch and play Viva. It's great.

Chum wrote:
DevilStick wrote:

DrunkenSleipnir, thanks for the flutterscotch (nice name "In ur garden...") and the coins. Chum, thanks for the flutterscotches. Between the two of you I now have three flutterscotches ready to romance. Now if they'll just stay out of their cage long enough for me to make them do the deed now... next session. ;)

Glad they showed up in one piece -- I stuffed an apple down their throats before sending them off. Did they show up "in the mood"?

That's good to know. I needed to feed them a piece of fruit to get them in the mood, so I guess there's not much point to prepping a pinata for romance before sending it. The recipient has to satisfy the romancing requirements all over anyway. That was easy enough to do though.

The hard part was getting them to stay out of their cage after feeding them. They kept wanting to go back and sleep off the fruit I guess.

I finally got them to hold still and romance right before leaving for work, so I've got my breeding stock going now. So soon I'll be ready to start feeding them to the Lickatoads and get the Lickatoads feeling randy.

Gorilla.800.lbs wrote:
Nei wrote:

By the way, anyone would like to adapt a 12k hippo?

Send him right over!! We'll take good care of him! 8)

Will do!

Chum wrote:

Oh, and if you too are struggling with the Profitamole, you need to do the following:

Spoiler wrote:

[color=white]Have two Mushrooms, feed it a Red Flutterscotch... No seriously, how would I have figured that out?![/color]

In your Pinata journal, the second you see ANY Pinata and that includes Sours, an entry will be made in your journal telling you exactly what you need to do to get them to join.

So, I guess the biggest tip so far should be... RTFJ!

I am guilty of not reading my journal enough. Or at all. Something like that.

In your Pinata journal, the second you see ANY Pinata and that includes Sours, an entry will be made in your journal telling you exactly what you need to do to get them to join.

As you progress through the game, though, many pinatas will have "hidden" requirements, where they don't tell you want to do in the journal until you actually do it. I'm almost certain that the sour profitamole was one such pinata.

The sours all show up based on your level, other pinata will have requirements that you have to fulfill before they "appear", which will add them to your journal.

Oh and anyone got some sort of list going as to who has/needs what?
Fairly soon I shall have a bunch of flutterscotches of variosu colors to send out since I am going for the master romancer on all of them.
I'm willing to send out just about anything I have that I don't need to flat out buy (the cluckles for instance and my most expensive: Bo Peep the Goombaa)
But I can send out:
Whirlm (though honestly these are a joke to get legit)
candary
Sparrowmint
Buzzlegums
Squizzels (squirrel things)
Jameleons
Moths
Raisants (more than happy to send these annoying buggers out,t hey keep fighting with my buzzlegums)

I'm working on the hawks and spiders right now, and working up to trying the fourheads.

live name: Nosferatu (send something about GWJ in the title, I keep getting friend invites from total strangers i haven't even played with before.)

I happily received Viva Pinata as a Christmas gift from my wife. I finally had a chance to play a bit on New Years Day. I made a point of grabbing my kids to show them the game on my first startup. Both kids loved coming up with goofy names for the Pinata. I was really impressed that my son (6) seemed to take an immediate liking to the game (he's generally only interested in sports games and is currently hooked on Madden). I played it with him helping me and giving suggestions/direction about what to try next. The excitement he expressed everytime a new Pinata visited or we leveled up was fantastic. It was really fun sharing this type of game for the first time with my kids.

Parsley, do you feel the game is too complicated for your kids? I remember you saying that your son (6 years old!) can beat you at Madden, so I'm thinking that a lot of people are underestimating kids when they say Viva is too complex for children.

My youngest is also six. She's picked up the basics herself and is enjoying it.

She sometimes asks for help, so I just hang out and give her hints.

zeroKFE wrote:

As you progress through the game, though, many pinatas will have "hidden" requirements, where they don't tell you want to do in the journal until you actually do it. I'm almost certain that the sour profitamole was one such pinata.

I'm usually pretty good about reading my journal - I'll check this afternoon as to whether or not they're listed for that sour (I haven't made it a resident yet).

souldaddy wrote:

Parsley, do you feel the game is too complicated for your kids? I remember you saying that your son (6 years old!) can beat you at Madden, so I'm thinking that a lot of people are underestimating kids when they say Viva is too complex for children.

I don't have any kids but Viva Pinata is definitely too complex for me. I'm afraid of ending up a hobo on a streetcorner, rambling about candy.

"The apple trees don't make apples, the apple trees don't make apples. Cat's on FIRE! Cat's on fire with the monocle monocle monocle!"

On hidden requirements: they seem to fill in when you've met the other given requirement(s) for a piñata step.

On complexity for children: my 5 year-old loves playing the game. I have to be careful encouraging him to achieve objectives without being a taskmaster, but he enjoys playing around his way. He's made it up to level 15 (or higher now) just tinkering around.

souldaddy wrote:

Parsley, do you feel the game is too complicated for your kids? I remember you saying that your son (6 years old!) can beat you at Madden, so I'm thinking that a lot of people are underestimating kids when they say Viva is too complex for children.

Yea - I'm not much of a match for my 6 year old in Madden. He has an insatiable thirst for sports and climbed the Madden learning curve very quickly. He spanks the AI on rookie now and is competing very competently at Pro level. He beat me straight up in a game Monday night by 2 points when I was trying my best to win. Keep in mind I have no experience with Madden - so he and I both started from the same grounding (with me having the advantage of understanding basics of football plays and experience adapting to new controller mechanics).

Anyway, I was curious how he'd take to Pinata since all he's played is sports stuff and Lego SWII. At this point I haven't handed him the controller yet and told him to go wild with his own garden. But given his excitement helping me with my first few hours in the game and his comfort level with the controller I don't think he'll have any trouble picking it up - especially if he maintains his interest level in the game. My daughter who is 4 loved the cutsie look of the pinata and enjoyed helping to name them but definitely isn't ready to play (she got bored and walked away after 20 minutes). I'm trying to get her into Nintendogs on her DS (Santa is so good to those kids) but I'm finding she's a bit young for the verbal commands in the early stages of training.

Arrrggg! I read through 5 pages of this thread and have found some info but not enough (and want to play and not read no mo!).

So, when you start... dont fight it? Just deal with a single species until its happy and then work on another one? My issue now is that Im a control freak. I got wirlms and birds and snakes and rabbits and mice(s) and frogs and all these other things but so much keeps happening at once. Gotta talk to the seed dude, gotta water the friggen plants, watch out for that stupid bat that eats stuff, whack the stupid black/white guys that eat my poor little pinatas, constant fights all around, sick pinata's wasting my money getting healed ARRGG!! Its like MOO3 w/out any AI helping (and that was a god awful game mind you).

Its intriguing though.. I cant seem to NOT put it back in the drive to try once more.

/takes deep breath

I realize this is a game for Kidz... and I feel .... well like I cannot open the damn medicine bottle

I've been to the wiki, Ive been to the forums. Right now I feel a huge need to nano-macro-micro manage this game and I get sick of it pretty quick (but always come back for more abuse). With all the praise for this game in here... what do I do!?

Help? Pretty please?

PAR

Like you said, deal with one species at a time, focus your efforts on suceeding at one thing. If you try to do everything at once, you will never get anything done.

Par, I think you have to stop micromanaging. I just floated along doing my own thing for the first dozen or so levels and if pinatas died or fought or whatever I just ignored it and patched them up with the doctor when applicable. You cannot have a "perfect" garden -- it really is an open-ended game that way. Your success is driven by whatever goals you set for yourself. You seem a bit clenched tight like you're forcing the enjoyment. Just have fun dude.

scrub wrote:

Par, I think you have to stop micromanaging. I just floated along doing my own thing for the first dozen or so levels and if pinatas died or fought or whatever I just ignored it and patched them up with the doctor when applicable. You cannot have a "perfect" garden -- it really is an open-ended game that way. Your success is driven by whatever goals you set for yourself. You seem a bit clenched tight like you're forcing the enjoyment. Just have fun dude.

Thanks.. just got done w/ B&W2 (bought it a long time ago just never played it) and really enjoyed it but it was big micromanagement to get things correct. Anyway... thanks for the advice.. going to sell all my stuff and start over.

So basically I just sit back and find out what each species needs and forget about the other ones until I get there? No zerging?

haha...

/release deathgrip on controller

Thanks!

PAR

That's exactly it Par. You cannot do something in that game that will permanently screw you, so ignoring the other species has no downfall at all. Take it at your own pace.

Nei wrote:
Gorilla.800.lbs wrote:
Nei wrote:

By the way, anyone would like to adapt a 12k hippo?

Send him right over!! We'll take good care of him! 8)

Will do!

Hippo shipped...!

Par, I actually redid my first garden because of an XBox Live migration thingie and the second time I completely fenced in an area about equal to the intial garden area. That made it a lot easier for me to keep the damn fudgehogs, syrupents and pretztails away from my breeding stock. (Except when I send one out to its demise.) I'm a bit of a control freak so this might help you too.

The only thing you have to watch out for is Leafos and Seedos opening gates. It seems like my bunnies love to rush the gate when it's open. I occasionally spend a little time coralling them back into the central pen.

Nei wrote:
Nei wrote:
Gorilla.800.lbs wrote:
Nei wrote:

By the way, anyone would like to adapt a 12k hippo?

Send him right over!! We'll take good care of him! 8)

Will do!

Hippo shipped...!

Thank you thank you thank you!!!!

This FAQ helped me tremendously. It has an opening "general tips" section that covers most of the basics you need to play the game. I read a few lines about things that were frustrating me when I first started playing, and suddenly I was having fun again.

Sent you and your kid something, Rilla.

Although, I'm not sure on the status of the 2nd Hippo I sent to G... but is there any limitations on sending Pinatas?

Thanks hombres!

However, pesky hippo just won't materialize I understand there should be a package awaiting for a pickup at the Post Office? There aren't any... There are also no alerts anywhere in the garden or the game's menus to that effect...

Are there, like, any tracking numbers available?

Gorilla.800.lbs wrote:

Thanks hombres!

However, pesky hippo just won't materialize I understand there should be a package awaiting for a pickup at the Post Office? There aren't any... There are also no alerts anywhere in the garden or the game's menus to that effect...

Are there, like, any tracking numbers available? ;)

I've noticed strange issues with sending things. I believe the game talks to a home server prior to sending anything out to your target player - as a result, I've seen things appear much later then it seems they should. I've had things returned, as well. Hopefully your mail shows up soon!