Now that Bug Village has launched, we can finally examine the freemium game’s PDLC in detail. The vast majority of the game’s PDLC is associated with coins, though players can also buy acorns if they prefer not to wait for the in-game harvesting process. Everyone receives 10 free coins upon starting the game. Unfortunately, the tutorial strong-arms you into using one or two coins unless you’re content to leave the game running while the first house and piles are built. Thus most players will end up with 8 coins to spend once the tutorial ends.
Coins are good for two things: speeding up tasks and buying premium items. See, tasks like building houses and farming resources take time to complete. The times start at 15 minutes and stretch into the hours from there; thankfully players are usually given a choice of three different lengths of time when harvesting items. The longer you harvest, the more Acorns and XP you’ll earn. But if you’d like to skip out on the waiting and instantly complete a building or task, it will cost one more coins, depending on the time involved.
As for premium items, they include buildings, decorations, food, piles, and flowers. All of these things look different from the non-premium versions, and some offer greater benefits. For instance, premium buildings produce extra insects compared to regular buildings, which would have to be upgraded in order to achieve the same effect. Premium decorations are purely aesthetic, though they do contribute toward the Achievement for placing 50 decorations. Premium piles and flowers produce greater rewards than low-end versions, but are surpassed by high end flowers and acorns. Premium piles and flowers have much lower level requirements though, so they may be worth buying early on in the game (especially the Wonder Crocus).
When we asked Glu Mobile about buying coins in our developer interview, we were told that purchases would either be added to the user’s phone bill or charged to credit card. Perhaps some wires got crossed, because the only method of payment available is Microsoft Points. This carries some benefits, because savvy shoppers can often purchase Microsoft Points cards for less than retail price, and purchases made with points don’t get taxed. While you’re given ample warning of the consequences when buying coins, there is no confirmation dialogue when actually spending coins, so be careful not to waste them.
Besides the possibility of accidentally wasting a coin or two on unintended speedups, I can’t find much to fault with Bug Village’s coin system. The prices are in line with similar games like Haypi Kingdom, and the more expensive packages are a better value than the cheaper ones. More payment options would be nice, but Microsoft Points are my preferred method of payment anyway. All in all, coins really do allow dedicated Bug Village players to enhance their enjoyment of the game. People who don’t get into the game or simply don’t want to spend money won’t miss out on much by saving their Microsoft Points.
Without further ado, WPCentral presents the complete list of PDLC for Bug Village version 1.0 on Windows Phone.
Coin Prices
- 10 Coins = 160 Points ($2)
- 30 Coins = 400 Points ($5)
- 65 Coins = 800 Points ($10)
- 100 Coins = 1200 Points ($15)
- 140 Coins = 1600 Points ($20)
Acorn Prices (You can earn acorns in-game, so this is just a time-saving measure.)
- 1000 Acorns = 160 Points
- 3000 Acorns = 400 Points
- 6500 Acorns = 800 Points
- 10000 Acorns = 1200 Points
- 14000 Acorns = 1600 Points
Left side of the river
Premium Buildings
- Double Dorm: 15 Coins Ants: + 2
- Lux Lounge: 20 Coins Ants: + 3
- Pink Parlor: 17 Coins Bees: + 1 (Level 5 required)
- DoubleBee: 24 Coins Bees: + 2
Premium Decorations
- Big Fence: 1 Coin
- Twigs Lamp: 5 Coins
- Tox Mushroom: 5 Coins
- Nut Lamp: 5 Coins
- Umbrella: 4 Coins
- Orangella: 4 Coins
- Red Chair: 2 Coins (limited time only)
- Evil Cap: 20 Coins (Level 8 required)
- Honeycombs: 4 Coins (Level 8 required)
- Black Chip: 2 Coins
- Red Chip: 2 Coins
- Golden Ring: 23 Coins
- Silver Ring: 20 Coins
- Blue Shell: 10 Coins
- Egg Lamp: 5 Coins (Level 5 required)
- Button Chair: 4 Coins (Level 5 required)
- Spool Table: 10 Coins (Level 16 required)
Right side of the river
Food
- Cheese: 10 Coins Sugar: + Max
Piles (Ants harvest piles.)
- Treasure Pile: 10 Coins
- 3 Hours - Acorn: 120 XP: 75 - Refill: 20 Acorns
- 12 Hours - Acorn: 300 XP: 115 - Refill: 40 Acorns
- 23 Hours - Acorn: 490 XP: 160 - Refill: Acorns
Flowers (Bees harvest flowers.)
- Wonder Crocus: 20 Coins (Level 5 required) – 2 bees to harvest
- 5 Minutes - Acorn: 40 XP: 8 - Refill: 5 Acorns
- 15 Minutes - Acorn: 60 XP: 18 - Refill: 8 Acorns
- 1 Hour - Acorn: 225 XP: 60 - Refill: 20 Acorns
- Great Oleander: 10 Coins (Level 5 required)
- 3 Hours - Acorn: 120 XP: 75 - Refill: 20 Acorns
- 12 Hours - Acorn: 300 XP: 115 - Refill: 40 Acorns
- 23 Hours - Acorn: 490 XP: 160 - Refill: Acorns
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Ready to start building? You can find Bug Village here on the Marketplace.
