Hints:
To do well at Fairy Godmother Tycoon, you'll have to master the concepts of
supply and demand, and of buying low and selling high. The in-game tutorial
does a pretty good job of explaining the basics of how to play, but if you
want to win then check out our tips & tricks:
The First Turn
You start each level with a small amount of money. Before your first turn
begins, here's how you should spend it: 1. Buy 15-20 of each available ingredient. 2. Upgrade your storefront once (This is the equivalent to
free advertising, and also makes peasants slightly happier to be there). 3. Pay for the third tier of advertising: Flying Monkeys
(Anything less won't really get you the foot traffic you need). 4. Invest enough money in research so that you have between
10 and 15 days left to your next potion discovery.
Managing inventory
To avoid running out of potions during the day, keep a base level of
ingredients stocked at all times. This should be around 20 during the early
part of the game, but as you start to earn more customers and research new
potions you'll find that it needs to increase to 60, 80, 100 or more to keep
up with demand.
Be smart about restocking. If
each potion calls for 1 Fish Head and 2 Eyes of Newt and you estimate
needing 20 potions in total, then you need to stock 20 Fish Heads and 40
Eyes of Newt. If you can only afford to buy 20 Eyes of Newt, there's no
point in buying more than 10 Fish Heads because the extras won't be usable.
The exception to the above
rules is when potions go on sale. When a potion's price appears in green, it
has been significantly reduced. You should stock up on reduced price potions
whenever they appear - don't worry about all the money you're spending up
front because you'll make it back by not having to restock the potion (and
pay full price) for several subsequent turns.
Maintaining a minimum stock of
ingredients and splurging on reduced price ingredients when they pop up
means you'll hopefully never find yourself in the position of having to pay
for ingredients when they're overpriced (indicated by a price in red).
Research
Deciding how much to spend on research is a tricky balancing act. If
competing stores discover a spell before you do, then they have a
significant advantage because they can now provide a service to customers
that you can't. You'll have to turn away customers who want the new potion,
losing money and customer satisfaction in the process.
On the other hand, spending too
much on research early on can quickly sink your business because it's a
daily expense that generates no daily income in return (unlike advertising,
which brings new customers, or ingredients which create potions to sell).
It will typically take the
competition 12-15 days to research a new spell, so adjust your spending to
match that. Ideally you should spend between $20 to $50 per day on research
- certainly no less, and perhaps slightly more only if you can afford it
after you've spend a few turns establishing an ebb and flow of steady
income.
Pricing
At the beginning of the game, it's more important to make money to invest
back into the business rather than making customers like you, so don't
lowball yourself when it comes to setting prices for potions. (At the same
time, don't make your prices so insultingly high that customers storm off in
a huff.)
To that end, never sell potions
for less than the minimum recommended price, which is found on the Pricing
tab. When you scroll over a potion in the Pricing tab, the TIP window below
will display the recommended market value as something like $40 - $70. This
means to sell at $40 when demand is low, and crank the price up to a maximum
of $70 when demand is high.
Lost sales and how to
avoid them
Customers will storm out of your store for three possible reasons: 1.Your potions cost too much. Solution: Pay close attention to the curse forecast, and
adjust your prices accordingly using the recommended selling range in the
TIP window of the Pricing tab. The lower the demand is for a potion on a
given day, the lower you should set the price.
2. You run out
of ingredients for a potion that people want. Solution: Make sure your warehouse is well-stocked with
ingredients at all times, and check the forecasts to anticipate
approximately how many ingredients to purchase for the next day. If the
forecast is only 10% then you won't need many of that type of ingredient,
but if the forecast is 85% then you'd better stock up.
Don't forget that some potions
use more than one of a given ingredient at a time, and that one ingredient
might be used in multiple potions, which alters demand.
Purchase the Flying Elephant
spell, which will let you send an emergency delivery of ingredients to the
shop during the day.
3. Customers
get fed up with standing in line. Solution: Upgrade to a faster potion maker and/or upgrade
the in-store entertainment.
Upgrading
Aside from upgrading your storefront once or twice if you can afford it, you
shouldn't do a lot of upgrading until you've finished researching all
available potions - make research your first priority.
Each new potion you discover
will take a little longer to make than the one before it, so you should
upgrade your potion maker immediately after discovering the second potion,
and then again after discovering the third potion to make sure the counter
staff can keep up with the demand of making them.
After research is completed,
storefronts, potion makers and warehouse upgrades should be the top
priority, followed by in-store entertainment and spells, followed by spy
devices. (Spy devices aren't really necessary to do well in the game, so
consider those upgrades optional.)
The Competition
Although many of the level goals involve eliminating all competing stores,
don't actually worry about taking out your competition until later in the
game. They're too powerful at the beginning, and your meagre funds are
better spent on research, ingredients and upgrading rather than hiring
goons.
Once your net worth is close to
that of your competition, it's a good time to start think about taking them
out. Here are some techniques for doing so:
1. Lower your
prices. At this stage in the game, we're going to assume you've amassed a
pretty good stash of money and that your business is solvent, which means
that now's the time to price gouge the competition by offering your potions
at prices that are at the low end of the recommended selling price,
regardless of the demand. If you really want to make customers love you,
offer extremely low prices when demand is at its peak (90% or higher).
2. Pay for
more advertising - now's the time to go for the Brainwashing and Non-stop
infomercials.
3. Hire some
goons. Quite frankly, you don't ever really need to use the goons that
increase your popularity. However, the punitive goons are quite useful (not
to mention a lot of fun) in discouraging peasants from visiting your
competition. Try putting some Persuasion Trolls on the paths leading towards
a rival's store, or stick a Giant Lazy Baby right in front of his door.
NOTE: If there
is more than one rival business to contend with in the same town, don't take
them all on at once. Pick them off one at a time, focusing on the weakest
one first (the one with the lowest net worth).
Final Tip
The most crucial part of the game is the first 20 turns or so. Don't try to
do anything fancy here. Just maintain the status quo and slowly build up
your net worth, buying the occasional upgrade, and focusing on researching
all available potions. Fairy Godmother Tycoon is not a game of grand
gestures, and is best played with patience and a mentality of slowly
chipping away at the competition.
Please
select the first letter of the game's title below. If the word
"The" appears at the start of a title, ignore it and search for
the second word in the title:
