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Mini Guide to Treasure Keepers


by taviela

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Why play Treasure Keepers?

Many people play for the Neopets site theme that can be obtained by completing the tutorial. Further advances in the game may earn you neopoints, items, shop upgrades, and perhaps more! Others are simply addicted, but hey, if you have nothing better to do, it wouldn’t hurt to kill some time, right? ;)

Getting Started

There are essentially two things you will be doing throughout most of the game – exploring and managing your shop. When you start off, you will be guided to the basement of the shop that your father has left for you. Here you will play through the tutorial, which is also your introduction to the basic game play. When you complete the tutorial, you will receive a code that you can exchange for a beautiful Neopets site theme.

In this game, you have 3 skills – reflex, puzzle-solving, and combat. Your level in each skill is shown at the top whenever you are on an adventure. The higher the level, the easier it is to get through a tile that involves the corresponding skill. Petpets have a unique ability that allows them to automatically succeed at any skill check: thinkers will solve puzzles, growlers cut down an enemy’s health by 1, and sniffers will help you pass a reflex skill check. Note, however, that each petpet can only use its skill once per day – that is, unless you purchase a Petpet Treat (requires Facebook credits) which will restore a petpet’s ability.

There are also luck points which may be used, and are similar to petpet abilities. These let you succeed at a skill check.

The Adventure

As you move around, you will land on different tiles. Note that landing on tiles that involve a skill check will bring up a wheel – spinning it will determine whether you have passed or failed the skill. Special tiles have different functions:

4-way cursor: May change your direction of movement or the number of steps taken during your next turn.

Chest: Landing on this tile will let you find items or gold.

Trap: You will be faced with a reflex skill check; failure will result in the loss of health.

Puzzle: You are faced with a puzzle which may determine your direction of movement if encountered at a crossroad. If you cannot solve it, it will block your road and you will be forced to take the other path.

Eye: Similar to the puzzle tile, except you will be “searching for treasure”, and failure to solve it will not block off your path.

Enemy: Can range from a statue to a live Slorg – when you run into one of these tiles, your combat skills will be challenged. Each time you “lose” a combat round (i.e. land on the red part of the wheel), your health will be decreased. Each time you “win”, your opponent will lose one health. The battle continues until you die or withdraw, or your opponent dies.

Question mark: Any of the above (except combat skill check) may happen.

Your goal of the adventure is to reach the end, marked by a black-and-white flag. It is important to withdraw from the adventure (by clicking the “return to shop” icon at the bottom left) if you are low on health. If you die during an adventure, any items or gold gained in that adventure will not be rewarded.

Your Shop

Okay, so now you’ve collected items, gold, and experience throughout your adventures. What do you do now? After each adventure, you will be brought back to your shop. By default, your shop opens automatically whenever you return to your shop, but you can control when it opens by pressing the sun/moon sign at the bottom.

Click on your vault (next to the sun/moon sign) and you will be shown a list of the items that you have gathered. Price these items and place them onto tables in your shop, and simply wait for customers to purchase them! You also have the option to haggle or sell the item to your friends.

Haggling

When your customer wants to buy an item that is set to haggle, a “Haggle!” button will appear at the bottom left corner. This is temporary, and if you don’t click on it fast enough, it will disappear and the item will be sold at the listed price.

The haggling process is a tug-o-war using your mouse. You are shown two hands on the screen, and your goal is to lure the right hand farthest to the left. How far left you get determines the final selling price. The point at which the two hands shake corresponds to the selling price – you do not want to shake hands at a point lower than the listed price.

The higher the listed price, the more you will potentially get from haggling. Expensive items have a larger cost range than cheaper items.

Decorating Your Shop

We’ve got the items covered – what do we do with the gold?

With the gold, you can purchase things from the shopshop (the house icon at the bottom). You may buy decorations, wallpaper, furniture, ads, petpets, and lots more. Now’s the chance to make your shop look pretty! :) On top of that, you may upgrade to a larger shop and buy more tables so that you can put more items up for sale.

Quests and Achievements

From time to time, you will get a popup within the game that tells you to gather certain items – these are quests. Upon completion of a quest, you will gain experience and receive gold/items as a reward. To collect quest items, visit Portal City and click on any location. A page will pop up listing the available adventure maps; the ones showing an exclamation mark are the ones in which you will find the items required to complete your quest.

By clicking on the ribbon icon at the bottom right, you will open your achievements page. There are many achievements with different completion requirements and often the prizes are well worth it. Sometimes the rewards will be linked with your Neopets account – for example, a site theme, a shop upgrade, neopoints, or items.

In fact, you may also earn an avatar from Treasure Keepers! The Number Six avatar may only be obtained on the Neopets site by carrying a certain number of millions of NP. Of course, not many of us are millionaires, and sometimes it may take an astonishing 9 million neopoints! With Treasure Keepers, however, you may earn this avatar by carrying exactly 12,986 gold at any time.

Leveling Up

The exp you get throughout the game will contribute to your level. Currently, the maximum level is 20. Leveling up has several benefits:

  • Some items in the shopshop can only be purchased if you have reached a certain level.
  • Reaching certain levels will unlock some adventure maps.
  • By leveling up, the maximum number of customers at any point in time is increased.

The best way to level up is to explore as much as you can – by this, I mean you should play as many adventures as your health will allow. The most efficient way is probably to work on maps with higher levels of difficulty if your health is full, then work your way down to the easiest levels. This way, you will earn the most items and gold within the shortest amount of time possible.

Once you’re low on health, you should have plenty of items to put on sale. While you’re in your shop, make sure your character does not move; by staying still, your health will slowly regenerate. Don’t worry, you are not expected to stare at your character. :) You could be haggling or placing your items on tables and still be healing. Remember – when your items sell, you will also gain experience!

I personally leave my game running unattended only if I have cheap items for sale – this is to ensure that any haggling will not be missed while I am away from my computer. I hope this guide helped, and I hope you enjoy the game as much as I do! :)

If you have any questions, please feel free to neomail me! :)

 
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