I am not a good videogame player.
I've been in Webkinz nearly two years (it's two years next week) and played innumerable games of Cash Cow and Candy Bash 2 and Go-Go Googles (which I find the most manageable) until my eyes hurt and my wrist wouldn't respond anymore and have never won one stinking trophy. Never, ever, ever. I rejoiced in Webkinz Day since I finally got a trophy just for being around.
Then came Eager Beaver Amusement Park, which is based on a favorite, Bookworm, and it has a trophy. It's a bear to play, though, because it's harder than Bookworm. There are a lot more consonants than vowels, and at a certain point, when you get the fiery tiles that break through the other letters (when they get to the bottom, you've burned down the park and lost the game), you have to make your words with a certain number of letters. Since they don't give you a lot of vowels, this is a right pain in the butt.
But tonight I kept playing, and wangling, and scrambling...and oh my ears and whiskers, see what I did:
You even get to see the park completed (the last thing you build is the roller coaster).
Once you win the trophy, however, you can still play the game, but no additional trophies are forthcoming.
Gobsmacked!
Branch by Branch
I have a new favorite Arcade game: Tropical Troubles. This involves the monkey from "Bananza," which I've always had trouble managing, jumping from branch to branch collecting bananas, avoiding deadly spiders and insects, and knocking over pineapples and cocoanuts to possibly roll on the deadly spiders and insects, which gains you extra points.
I can't say I'm really good at it—I think my highest score has been 22—but I really enjoy it because it reminds me of the old Jumpman game—and if the monkey falls, he doesn't get killed the way Jumpman does. :-)
I do hate that one bug, though, the one with the big eyes that pops up and follows the monkey. The other bugs just wander at random, and the spiders just crawl up and down branches, but you either have to scramble to avoid the big-eyed one, let yourself get bitten, or hit it with a cocoanut or pineapple to get rid of it. It's a pain in the neck.
Sigh...Just One Trophy, Mr. Scrooge? Please?
I'M terrible at the games compared to everyone else, and this shows because some people have roomfuls of trophies. One person is even making a chess game setup with his trophies.
Unfortunately they don't give trophies for mini-golf and Quizzy's word challenge.
So I'm still trying for a Go Go Googles trophy. I hit my highest score today, 18,001. Still pathetic compared to everyone else. Ah, well. Excelsior and all that.
Home Before Dark
THIS is the new game that premiered today on Webkinz World. The object of the game is to get your pets home before the sun rises. It is a version of James' old favorite, Rocket Mania, on PopCap's game site.
Many, Many Things Going On
WEBKINZ World has been a busy place. First came this piece of news from Webkinz Insider, passed on to them directly by the folks at Ganz:
• There will be some Cheeky news in the new year, but no, we are NOT re-releasing the retired Cheeky Dog. Once retired, a pet stays retired.
• A major new area will be opening in Webkinz World in two weeks. It will be for everyone. It's not feature code related at all.
• Secure trading is on the way. No more KinzPost trading.
This sounds as if there may be some other Cheeky animals (the Cheeky Dog and Cat are presently retired, but the Cheeky Monkey is still in release) or perhaps a Lil Kinz Cheeky Dog or Cat).
The trading is a big step for Ganz. They have said in the past that they did not want any trading on Webkinz, but the fans have done it themselves via KinzPost. Unfortunately some people have been scammed, although many places have set up what they hope are secure trading sites, with traders getting reputation points when they participate in a good trade and being blacklisted if they cheat someone. I suppose they figure if Webkinz users are going to trade anyway, they will help supervise it. I have several things I would love to trade, but am still wary.
Yesterday WW was down until after 10 a.m. When it finally reopened, a new theme was unveiled—the first half of the "Atlantis" theme which is done in dark blues and golds, which I assume is preparatory for the marine pets coming out in November (the penguin, the seal, and the turtle)—and also a new tab was added to the dock area where your items and food can be kept: Actions. You can make your pet do three actions: smile, giggle, and wave, plus you can "record" these actions into repeatable sequences.
Also, in the "W Shop," you could see the exclusives that are supposed to come with the Pet of the Month.
This last was particularly interesting because for a while the items had prices on them and folks could buy them. Some people bought one of everything and several of one or two things before someone at Ganz realized the glitch and shut the site down again. When people returned, the exclusive items were gone and their KinzCash returned—except for a few folks who seemed to have escaped the purge by having the items enroute in KinzPost.
Several of the items looked pretty interesting, especially the snow-making machine—I'd really like that myself! I'm hoping that the two older animals I bought and put away may be POTM in the future so I may have it and also the crystalline pond and perhaps the star-making machine. Maybe it's even worth adopting my virtual frog pet for. :-) James is holding a bear for November and wants the outer-space window from the Dex Dangerous game (it has spaceships flitting around occasionally).
The second statement, about the new area, is particularly interesting because there is a user on one of the Webkinz forums who knows the particular programming language that Ganz uses for the website and also knows how to access the site. This person has discovered, for instance, the new avatars for the upcoming Webkinz and what looks like ideas for another theme (Japanese!). Some animations have been found online which closely tie in with the new "actions" and it looks like there will eventually be eighteen of them, including "dance" and "jump."
But this person also found some images referencing what looks like it is possibly the new area premiering in two weeks: it will be some type of school where the Kinz learn skills and earn more KinzCash. You can even hire a tutor. Perhaps the actions may be used in this school?
Another item is something a user on WI found one day while doing daily KinzCare. An extra screen was visible. Recently, WW upgraded to a full-screen format. Instead of having the games and rooms be full screen, little "advertisements" for other games on WW appeared at the side of the screen. Some of the advertisements were PSAs, telling the kids playing to brush their teeth, eat fruit, go outside and play, etc.
On the page this person saw, there was a box you could check to get actual advertisements for real products in the spaces where the Webkinz World ads were. If you accepted advertisements, you would get an extra gift at the beginning of the month.
I know many parents like Webkinz because there are no advertisements for other products. I know at least one parent who cancelled his child's account due to the WW advertisements now appearing on the right. I'm wondering how this move might go over with parents. Will the kids ask for the ads just to get the free item? Will enough parents allow it to make it feasible?
For my part I don't know if I would check the box or not. A free item sounds tempting and I rarely pay attention to advertisements anyway. Most television commercials go right over my head unless they are clever, and then I remember the commercial and not what it's advertising, so I'm a dead loss to advertisers! I'd be more worried that they would be loud or slow down Webkinz World.
Tiny Bubbles...
I'VE been playing a new (for me) game today: Zingoz Pop, which was the "Game of the Day" that gives extra points. Bubbles of different colors hang from the top of the screen and slowly move downward as time progresses in the game. A Zangoz (the big goofy orange monster who swings clubs at the Zingoz in "Zacky's Quest," "Wacky's Bullzeye," etc.) shoots a water cannon of different colored bubbles at the advancing bubbles. When three or more colors match, the bubbles pop and little Zingoz float down to earth on parachutes, reducing the advancing bubbles. Clear all the bubbles before they reach the "fall line" and you go on to the next level. If you complete the level quickly, you get an additional time bonus. Actually quite fun.
Shoot! (Shoot Again! And Again...)
ONE of the games that shows up on the daily events every two or three days is something called Quizzy's Blast. It's a dart board. You toss a virtual dart and it lands on a spot on the board that is assigned a certain value, high or low depending on what the power meter is on at that second.
The trick is that the values constantly change every second, from +5 to -5 and the different blocks also change color as well. Each color is a different subject. If you land in that block and then answer the trivia question correctly, you get that number of points. If you answer incorrectly, you get no points. However, you can still answer correctly and get no points. The correct answer itself is worth 5 points, but if you land in it when it is at -5, you get nada. On the other hand, if you land on it at +5, you get ten points.
Quizzy's Blast, like Balloon Darts, suffers from hiccups. Sometimes instead of five darts you only get one. Or you get no points or something locks up and then you can't go back in.
Tonight was the opposite problem: you went in and it said 0 darts. Nuts, malfunctioning again! You try to get out and it says, "Wait, if you get out you can't use the rest of your darts! Do you still want to leave?"
If you answered no, suddenly you had five darts and took your turns.
Except after you tossed a dart it still said five darts. It still said five darts after tossing five darts.
I tossed darts for 40 minutes and earned W1406, and all the time it said I had five darts left. And even though the play hour was up, it would have let me keep going. Weird. It finally got boring and was moving like cold syrup because there were so many flash darts on the screen.
Good For a Giggle
IF you hit Wacky just the right way, he trumpets "Zingoman!" as he flies through the air.
Strut That Stuff
IF you had fun doing Chef Gazpacho's Chef Challenge, you might want to try Webkinz Supermodelz. I have no interest in clothing, but this is as equally fun as the Chef Challenge. You pick a model, then take your pick of one of several choices of hats, pants, and tops. (The advice I read on Webkinz Insider was to not match outfits; in general the judges' attitude is "the wilder the better.") This is where the fun factor comes in, because you model may end up in a Pilgrim hat, and Santa jacket, and multicolor polka-dotted pants. Too funny!
I'll Never Be Emeril
EXCEPT perhaps in a game.
One can simply go to the W Shop and purchase different foods and feed them individually to your pets. Each food adds a different combination of happiness and health points and points toward assuaging the pet's hunger. (You can even purchase a food that is specially made for your pet, but it is usually expensive, about W25.) You can also grow vegetables using the new gardening feature.
Elubin's website has a nice table of each food, how much it costs, and how much of a boost you get from each food. (If you notice, when you eat junk food like fudge your health actually goes down a point! LOL. There's a positive lesson in there somewhere.)
However, there's a wrinkle for the creative among the membership. You can buy a stove, a blender, or a sandwich maker, and each of them has "recipes." To make a recipe, you take three foods and put them "on" whatever cookery item you own and click the cook/blend button.
If you've used foods that actually make a new food, it will appear in your dock. Unfortunately, no matter how good some combinations look, they only make something called "gak" or "blech." Your pet will eat it, but it doesn't make him happy.
My attitude to this has been pretty blah. It seems to me that if you blend three foods with a certain point value together that the foods should be worth that combined point value, but they aren't. To me you pretty much waste the food values just to be creative.
YMMV!
The Webkinz Insider site has a nice list of Webkinz Recipes for all three devices including a picture of what your creation comes out to be.
If you want to have some fun combining food without losing points, you can go to the tournament arena and play Chef Gazpacho's Chef Challenge. You have to use three of the six sometimes unlikely ingredients (a cupcake, carrots, root beer, an apple, chicken soup, and a hamburger) to make things with unlikely names like "Gersplitz Garbleblaster." The three judges are all Webkinz host or game characters and they will treat you with pithy comments about your cooking skills (or lack of same). First contestant to make three good recipes wins.
Roll, Webkinz, Roll!
I dropped W10,000 on a rare purchase for my game room yesterday.
I bought a bowling alley.
Yes, you really can bowl on it; it's not simply a decoration. Previously I had only used the bowling alley at the Tournament Arena and I really needed something to practice on.
Bowling alleys bring back all sorts of warm fuzzy memories to me, although what I purchased is the classic ten-pin bowling type, and my memories have to do with duckpin bowling. My parents bowled in a Sunday couples league all during my schooldays (all the teams were named after mixed drinks; I still get nostalgic when "Grasshoppers" are mentioned) and Dad also bowled in a summer league. After he retired, at least one day a week he would go down to Legion Bowladrome on Park Avenue and keep score for the retired men's leagues that bowled on weekday afternoons; if someone didn't show up he sometimes bowled as a substitute. (After Mom retired, she told him she married him for better or for worse—but not for lunch.)
I wasn't much of a bowler, even when I bowled with Jeannie and Don, two other kids who accompanied their parents to the Sunday night league, and used to spend most of my time at the table behind the alley area writing stories. If I was really bored I might go into the ladies' room and act out a story when the place was empty. I watched almost all of the first run of Get Smart on the television that was in back of the checkout counter/shoe rental counter. It was very hard for me to ask the clerks behind the counter to change the channel, because I was so shy, but all of them were friends of my dad and they usually did as I asked, unless there was a hotly contested Providence College Friars basketball game on. I still hate basketball! :-)
The one thing I have noticed about the personal bowling alley vs. the one in the Tournament Arena is that the latter seems to have more "action" in its ball (if a ball in a virtual Shockwave program can be said to have action!). I can get more strikes and spares playing in a tournament than I can back in my game room.
Maybe that's a good thing because I need all the help I can get. :-)
Fore!
ONE of the best things about having joined Webkinz Insider and also checking out the mini-golf advice on Elubin's website is that my game has improved sooooo much.
I was stymied initially playing the game because Hole 17 has a saddleback on it that seems insurmountable. I'd use up the ten shots they give you on each hole trying to land my ball on that ridge of land. Then one day in June I accidentally landed in the sand trap. Eureka! If the ball gets trapped in the sand, it stays on the ridge!
There's supposed to be a trick shot that bounces the ball off the wall and up onto the ridge as well, but the sand trap is very dependable. I can usually make the hole in par now.
Make a Wish
THERE'S been a new Wishing Well, Wishing Well 2, for the past few days. This one doesn't give you as much of a chance to make Kinzcash. Now there are only three rows of three; the figures "bob up" from under the water of the well. If you get two or three matches in the center row, the score triples. If you get three Wishing Wells in that center row, you have your choice of lots of Kinzcash or an exclusive item.
I noticed this one day when I was reading in the Parents Area, under the question "Are the Wheel of WOW and the Wishing Well gambling?"
Webkinz does not endorse, nor condone gambling. Webkinz does not contain ANY gambling. Gambling requires that a player put in a wager to play, and hence have the chance to lose that wager. Webkinz members can not lose KinzCash playing any of our games. There are no wagers involved at all.I guess they finally bowed to the pressure about the slot machine aspect of the original Wishing Well.
While the Wishing Well and Wheel of WOW use visual metaphors that are sometimes associated with gambling, there is no gambling involved. They are merely a method of giving out random prizes to our members. They are our version of giving out a door prize, a thank you just for showing up. As kids love getting free prizes, naturally these features are highly popular on our site.
A Hard Job at Last
THIS one's called KinzPost Helper and involves processing packages at the KinzPost Office. You are given three empty piles of a certain amount of boxes. Each pile must add up to a number indicated above the pile. Packages marked with different numbers come rolling down a conveyor belt. You must make certain combinations of these numbers to make the total. For instance, the number above one pile is 11. You must make three packages add up to that number...2, 6 and 3, perhaps. Or 2, 2, and 7. etc.
It's harder than it looks. :-)
"Be Wery Quiet, I'm Hunting Clydesdales..."
NO Clydesdales yet at Love Street, Hallmark, or Planet Me, a small shop in the Smyrna Village. I did buy a few packages of cards. Mostly I seem to get Kinzcash, which is fine with me. I have also received some medieval furniture, which I put into my game room, and a Webkinz studio.
The Webkinz studio is a blast. They give you two generic actors (a boy dog and a girl cat) and a grassy background. You can buy other sets like the deck of a pirate ship, a haunted house, the surface of the moon, a fairy castle, etc. and appropriate actors to go with them, including a "Froggenstein" and a good and a bad fairy from the Tulip Trouble game. Then you pick a particular setting, a time of day, and two actors, and in fifteen scenes create a story. I've only tried one, which involved a brave knight encountering a featherheaded young miss who turned out to be Paris Hilton transported in time. :-)
Games Other People Play
NOW that I've become reasonable proficient in Mini-Golf I have been making regular forays into the Tournament Arena. You receive the money you would receive from the game, plus any winnings if you finish in the top place or places.
There are two types of games there. The first is a one-on-one game play. You can either challenge someone on your friends' list or the game will find you an opponent. Mini-Golf is of the other type. You enter a pool of so many people competing in a tournament. You play your game and leave. Later an icon pops up to show you your standing in the tournament.
Now that I've conquered that 17th hole I'm starting to come up in the money.
Most of the Tournament Arena games can also be played in the arcade. Here are the games that are unique:
♣ Trading Card Challenge
You can play the Trading Card game online with a friend or random challenger.
♣ Dogbeard's Bathtub Battles
This is Battleship with sailing ships as befits Captain Dogbeard (a pug). This game can also be purchased in the W Shop and placed in your room.
♣ Farming Frenzy
Be the first to collect the winning amount of tomatoes and sell them at market. Differently colored tomatoes' prices rise and fall as the game proceeds. This game can also be purchased in the W Shop and placed in your room.
♣ Kinz Pinz Bowling
Self-explanatory. The bowling alley is also a rare item and shows up occasionally in the Curio Shop to be purchased and put into your room, but it's expensive, W10,000.
♣ Quizzy's Whiz Kinz
Answer Quizzy trivia questions against an opponent.
♣ Rock Paper Scissors
Just what it sounds like. An old-fashioned game in a new medium.
♣ Webkinz Chef Challenge & SuperModelz
I haven't played these yet. I gather it is a competition of recipes and of clothing combinations.
♣ Zingoz Switcherooz
Have no idea. Looks like it might be a version of Othello.
The rest of the games can be purchased in the W Shop for placement in your room. You earn Kinzcash from them as well. On some of them, you can invite people on your friends' list to come into your room and compete with you.
♣ Air Hockey
Self-explanatory.
♣ Billiards
Ditto.
♣ Jigsawz Breaking News
Jigsaw puzzles at three different levels, with increasing KinzCash rewards.
♣ Skunk Sweeper
This is a version of the arcade game that can be played in your room.
♣ Go Fish
The card game.
♣ Checkers
The board game.
♣ Link'D
Otherwise known under the trade name "Connect Four." :-)
There is one other game at Webkinz World you can play: DiceKinz. This is a virtual dice game only; a roll gives you the ability to move or bump an opponent from the course. To be honest, I don't understand the game well. You get some dice you can play with, but you can also buy additional dice in the W Shop.
Acing the Arcade! Part 2
HERE'S the rundown on the rest of the Arcade games:
• Lily Padz. Use the arrow key and the space bar to hop a frog home. As his energy runs down, you can leap up and catch bugs. A pleasant diversion.
• Dex Dangerous and the Lunar Lugbotz. Asteroids with better graphics. You, as courageous Dex, a spacefaring lion, must defeat the enemy ships trying to get your asteroid. Fast moving and fun.
• Lunch Letters. This is Webkinz' version of my favorite "Letter Invaders," the Space Invaders-like typing game that comes with Typing Tutor software. As letters fall from the sky, you must type them to get rid of them before they hit the ground. The grumpy goat janitor complains if they do.
• Operation Gumball. I have yet to understand this game. Something about gumballs and numbers. Headache time.
• Picnic. More ants looking for food. Played once or twice. Eh.
• Polar Plunge. You must jump the polar bear on the sled over various obstacles like trees, snowmen, etc. as he careens downhill. I never make it very far, but love trying.
• Pumpkin Patch Protector. You must direct the farmer's jet of water to drive off the crows raiding his pumpkin patch...but don't use up all the water! The fewer pumpkins stolen, the higher your score. An okay game.
• Quizzy's Word Challenge. Ah, my other favorite. You must form ajacent letters on a square grid into words, and achieve a certain point goal on each level. You get the most points if you use the center letter last. Usually the center letter is something like B or H. Fiendish and wonderful for logophilists.
• Stack 'Em Up Solitaire. Self-explanatory. I've never played this.
• Tile Towers. It's MahJongg with Webkinz denizens instead of bams, cracks, and other Chinese characters. Also fun.
• Tulip Trouble 2. For the very dexterous in later levels. Bad fairies have invaded the tulip patch and confined all the good fairies in the blossoms. You must click on a good fairy when it appears in a blossom to free it. If you free a bad fairy you lose time and she laughs evilly at you. Those little critters move fast...click faster, you fool!
• Wacky Zingoz. This is the Webkinz version of a Flash game that was passed around the Web at Christmastime where a penguin drops from a cliff and you as the polar bear whack him at exactly the right time to send him out the longest distance that you can. To be more animal friendly the penguin is now a funny blobby yellow masochistic critter being batted the distance by an ogre-critter, and he giggles when he's hit. (If you hit him the correct way he warbles "Zingoman!" and strikes a Superman pose, which is good for a giggle.)
• Wacky's Bullzeye Batter. Same two critters, but this time you're going for accuracy on a target, not distance. I find this one difficult.
• Where's Wacky. It's like the old game "Concentration." You flip cards over and must match two. As the levels progress, there are more characters to match. Sharpen your memory on this one.
• Zacky's Quest. Frogger with a little purple version of the yellow Zingoz in the Wacky games. Zacky must cross rivers, roads, ponds, floating logs, etc, and avoid monsters with clubs and birds who pluck him off the ground to find pieces of a treasure map. To gain more lives, he must eat the multicolor vegetables along the way. I love this one, but I was a Frogger fan from way back.
• Zingoz Bounce. Another game I haven't figured out how to work.
• Zingoz Pie Throw. They will toss pies at you...hit them with a pie first! They come faster and faster, of course, as you progress, and then start throwing them from above. Gotta move fast on this one.
• Zingoz Pop. Only tried this one a few times. You have to aim a big gun to pop the Zingoz. Wasn't very good at it.
Acing the Arcade! Part 1
WELL, not really. The only game I'm really good at is golf. I've never been quick enough at the mouse to be that good at videogames.
However, I am enjoying some of the games quite a bit, some I don't like at all, and some I keep plugging at and am plain no good.
• Cash Cow. The instructions are "Click on a group of 3 or more matching bottles to sell them. This adds money to your truck." Larger groups earn more money. More bottles come as you progress through levels. I like this game but don't do well at it.
• Cash Cow 2. "Click on two or more bottles of matching color to remove them; the larger the group, the more points you get." Again, I enjoy this one, but I usually tank on Level 3. (I know, that's pathetic.) By some miracle, a couple of times I've reached Level 5.
• Ant Mania. (Picnic 2) Your ant must avoid spiders and red ants while collecting food. Sorry. I'm not playing any games with ants in them.
• Bananza. You must guide a monkey through leaves and vines to collect bananas while avoiding falling coconuts and poisonous spiders. I still haven't figured out how to get up the vines to certain levels. Heck, I haven't left the first level without falling victim to the spiders.
• Zingoz Bounce and Burst. Zingoz are bloblike creatures of various colors that live in Webkinz land. In this one, explorer Livingston the Lion tickles blue bouncing Zingoz. They split. If a Zingoz hits Livingston, you lose a turn. I find this game...impossible.
• Candy Bash. Pancho the chihuahua bounces a big jumping bean from his sombrero, trying to break open pinatas lined up above him. You must bounce the bean in a Pong-like movement without dropping it and also collect the candy to earn points. I wasn't bad at Pong. I'm terrible at this.
• Candy Bash 2. This is one of my favorites, although I never have gotten more than 50KinzCash out of it. Pinatas drop from the sky and Pancho shoots up a jumping bean to break them. You collect the candy in his hat. You must not let the pinatas hit the ground; after three you're out. Every so often a cat flies overhead and you must shoot him to get a special treat: a chile pepper, a firecracker that pops all the pinatas on screen open, a taco. If you're down on lives what you want him to drop is a pear; the fruit gives you an extra life. See! Fruit is good for you.
• Color Storm. You need to direct different color raindrops into groups of four so that they disappear. If they touch the ground you lose. Eh.
• Go-Go Googles. Googles are little ducklike white creatures that inhabit Webkinz world. One Google must push another up into a tree to eat the googly flowers while also swatting the butterflies that the tree is allergic to. If you let too many butterflies land on the tree, it sneezes and the game is over. You have to juggle the Google to get it into the tree. Oy.
• Goober's Lab. Basically Bejeweled...absent minded scientist Goober has a rack of differently colored atoms in his lab. You use an instrument to shift the atoms so that you get three or more in a row. You must be quick at seeing the patterns or time will run out and the lab will explode. How well I do on this one depends on how awake I am.
• Hide'n'Skunk. I don't think I've ever played this. It's "Minesweeper" from Windows with a skunk instead of a mine.
• Hungry Hog. Pac-Man with a pig instead of Pac-Man and bees instead of Inky and his pals. The pig gains points when he eats junk food, but moves slower; if you eat good food, it adds more food you have to eat to clear the board. The bees can sting you unless you eat a power tablet that only lasts for a few seconds. A fun game, but then I always loved Pac and his Ms.
• Jazz Monsters. Haven't played this much. You must click on the musician of the same color as the monster attacking to vanquish him.
Yes, I'm Hooked
I stopped at Love Street again to check out their collection of Webkinz. Nothing much new, but while I was there, I also bought a few packs of the trading cards. You can use these cards to play a challenge game which might be fun for games night, but also each pack of cards comes with at least one (and up to four) "Feature Code" and a "Virtual Trading Card Code." You can collect virtual cards as well and play the challenge game online. The Feature Codes get you more stuff, whether it be more Kinzcash, food, clothes for your pet (you can sell it back to the W Shop if you don't want it), or exclusive items which are not sold at the W Shop, like Webkinz card furniture, or furniture in themes which are only sold intermittently at the Curio Shop, such as the Egyptian theme, the Medieval theme, the Farm theme, the Scientist theme, etc. There are also little vehicles for the pets to ride in and strange things like disco balls and exclusive beds (including a Bookworm Bed that looks like an open book!).
Having just a few cards has whetted my appetite for more codes...I mean more cards! Cards to play the game! Each person who plays needs to have seven challenge cards at least... LOL.