THE POTATO PILE OF MERIDELL - Everyone gets excited when a new game is announced
on the New Features page. What kind of game will it be? Will I be good at it?
Will it award lots of Neopoints? When Potato
Counter arrived in Neopia, I thought, "Oooh. What an interesting name.
Will it be a challenging puzzle game like Neggsweeper? Or a game of chance?"
Well, Potato Counter turns out to be exactly what the name suggests. You count
potatoes, no more and no less. But before you decide to be disappointed, look
on the bright side! Here's a game that EVERYONE can play! It doesn't require
a fast computer or Internet connection. And when you get the hang of it, you
can win at least an easy 300 NP per day! (It won't take long to get the hang
of it, I promise.)
The keys to Potato Counter are pretty obvious: speed and accuracy. You need
both of these. If you rush through the spud pile counting as fast as you can,
you may finish really quickly, but you are also more likely to be off by one
or two potatoes. On the other hand, if you take forever counting and recounting
the pile to make sure you're right, you may answer too slowly to win a Neopoint
reward. The trick is to find your own balance. Count quickly enough to be efficient,
but not so fast that you lose track of where you are in the spud pile.
Here's a bit of strategy:
1) Make sure you won't be distracted while you are counting. Don't
play while you are talking on the phone or organising your sock drawer.
2) Be ready to count when you click start. The Potato Kacheek doesn't
fool around! As soon as the page loads, the timer starts running.
3) Devise a method to keep track of which potatoes are already counted.
Whatever works for you is fine. I prefer to count the potatoes horizontally
row by row, rather than moving around in lots of directions.
4) If you are good at basic addition, consider adding groups of potatoes
rather than counting them one by one. For instance, you could count the following
group of potatoes as "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12…"
But it's a lot quicker (and more interesting) to count by adding small increments
of potatoes together, like this: "2+1=3, +3=6, +4=10, +2=12…" and so on. You
will get better and better at knowing how many potatoes are in a small group
without actually counting each one. And you'll be a whiz at addition in no time!
The second day I played Potato Counter, I discovered a slight twist to the
game. Usually the Potato Kacheek asks me to count 100 potatoes or less. On this
day, however, I sat and waited for the game page to load for about three minutes
(I have slow dial-up). When the page finally popped up, there was an absolutely
MASSIVE pile of spuds waiting to be counted. I scrolled down to find the end
of it, and scrolled... and scrolled… and scrolled some more. Screen after screen
of innumerable potatoes. After counting to 90, I lost my patience and decided
there were a lot more fun things to do on Neopets than count a bazillion potatoes.
I gave up and made a random guess.
1897 potatoes. Wow! Perhaps the Potato Kacheek ought to consider opening a
French fry stand and putting some of those potatoes to good use!
They weren't lying when they said Potato Counter was addictive. You'll wish
you could count spuds more than three times a day. You'll be in the refrigerator
looking for other vegetables to count. You'll be counting the squidgy peas on
your dinner plate. This may not be a highly sophisticated game, but like they
say- with no TVs, computers, or video games, the residents of Meridell have
to be creative about their entertainment!
Ready… set… enumerate those tubers! | 
