Desert Festival
| Desert Festival | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Type | Festival |
The Desert Festival takes over the Calico Desert for three days every Spring, and it is the busiest event in the valley's year. Calico Eggs are its currency, and almost everything on the site either pays them out or takes them in: snail races to bet on, Skull Cavern challenges from Marlon, fishing challenges from Willy, a scholar with a quiz, a chef who cooks to order, a free cactus, a free makeover from Emily, and two villagers running their own stalls each day with weapons and furniture that exist nowhere else. The Skull Cavern is thrown open to everyone for the three days, Skull Key or not, and it fills with egg-bearing nodes and statues that bless or curse a descent. Eggs do not survive the festival, so the whole event is a three-day spending spree.
Event
The festival runs on the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth of Spring in the Desert, and it opens officially at ten each morning. Getting there needs the bus repaired, which puts the festival out of reach for most farms in a first year, since the bus is unlocked through the Vault bundles. Pam drives on a different schedule from her usual one during the festival.
Sandy's shop is closed because she is helping Emily, though the Oasis can still be walked into, and the Desert Trader is present and trading as normal.
Calico Eggs are physical items rather than a counter, and they sit in the inventory and in chests like anything else. They last from one day of the festival to the next, but they vanish from inventory and from storage the moment the festival ends and are not held over to the following year. Putting them in the Shipping Bin is pointless, since they sell for nothing at all.
The races run all day. Bets can be placed from ten in the morning until the last race starts just after ten at night, and a winning bet pays twenty eggs. Picking Escar-go, the slowest of the field, pays a hundred eggs the first time it comes in each day. The race will not actually run unless the farmer is standing in the main festival area, so a bet placed and then abandoned has to be waited out. Five contestants exist, namely Speed Rooster, King Sting, Shoebiscuit, Escar-go and Cactus Crawler, and only three of them run on any given day. The Suspicious Man beside the Oasis will accept one egg to arrange for a chosen runner to have a bad day, which shortens the odds considerably.
Marlon offers one-day Skull Cavern quests, two of the three types showing each day. A Monster Hunt asks for ten Serpents, Purple Slimes or Mummies and pays thirty-five eggs. A Deep Dive asks for level thirty and pays fifty. A Treasure Hunt asks for twelve Omni Geodes or fifteen Iridium Ore and pays forty. The cavern behaves normally underneath, Treasure Rooms and dangerous floors included, but it gains Calico Egg Nodes that give one to three eggs when mined, and monsters, crates, barrels and ordinary rocks all gain a chance of dropping eggs too, with every chance rising the deeper the dive goes.
The cavern also hands out Egg Rating, one point for every five floors reached and one for every Calico Statue activated. A statue can appear once per floor, even in a Treasure Room, and touching it rolls an effect that lasts the rest of the descent. The good rolls hand over ten, twenty-five, fifty or a hundred eggs, a speed boost, a full refresh of health and energy, or a quarter off incoming damage. The bad rolls are genuinely bad: more Ghosts, more Serpents, more Bats, more of everything, dangerous Skeletons and Haunted Skulls appearing, Armored Bugs replaced with much deadlier Assassin Bugs, Mummies swapped for their dangerous version at double speed, a quarter more damage taken, food halved in effect, and half the eggs in the bag lost on being knocked out.
Gil takes the day's best Egg Rating in exchange for prizes. A rating in single figures gets a Miner's Treat or a coffee and some gentle mockery. Climbing higher pays ten, twenty-five, fifty, a hundred, two hundred and eventually five hundred eggs, with Gil's Hat handed over once at the top of the middle band and Magic Rock Candy at the very top.
Willy sets a fishing challenge for each day: three Sandfish on the fifteenth for twenty-five eggs, a Scorpion Carp on the sixteenth for fifty, and on the seventeenth the return of his lost Golden Bobber for thirty. The bobber turns up in the first Treasure Chest fished out of the water that day.
The Scholar asks four questions and pays fifty eggs for four correct answers, once per day until a successful round, after which the next reward waits for the following year. The questions are drawn at random and cover who runs which shop, which season a crop grows in, which season a fish bites in, animal prices at Marnie's Ranch, the mine levels where particular fish live, George's surname and the number of bins in town. One question asks how many steps the farmer has taken, and the trick there is that the numerically middle option is always the right one.
The Chef offers a choice of two ingredients and cooks something from them, which restores health and energy to full and layers the buffs of both ingredients. Hearty Beans give defence, Cave Loaf mining, Rare Fruit luck, Extremely Sharp Cheddar attack and Shrimp fishing, and the second ingredient adds a smaller bonus of the same kinds. The dish is eaten at once, the effect lasts seven minutes, and it stacks on top of any other food buff. It can be done over and over with different pairings.
Emily and Sandy run a makeover hut, handing out a randomly chosen outfit each day with a short scene in which Emily picks the clothes that embody the farmer. The old outfit goes into the inventory. On days when Emily is running a stall Sandy takes over, after some hesitation. A few of the outfits are the only route to the Dark Ballcap, the Joja Cap and the Laurel Wreath Crown. The hut cannot be re-entered the same day, and Emily will say the farmer looks great as they are.
The Cactus Salesman at the bottom of the map gives away one piece of cactus decor per festival. Which one it is varies, in its face, its colours and its design, and an empty inventory slot is needed to accept it.
Harvey keeps a medical station next to the cavern entrance for anyone knocked out underground. Waking there costs no gold and no extra energy, leaves every item intact and takes a fifth of the Calico Eggs being carried.
Shop
The Calico Egg Merchant is the main stall, open all three days with items replenished each morning. Ten Mystery Boxes cost twenty eggs, a Mummy Mask a hundred and twenty, a Dark Velvet Bow seventy-five and a Blue Bow fifty. A Mega Bomb costs fifteen, Woodcutter's Weekly a hundred, and one of five cooked dishes chosen at random is sold five at a time for ten. The rotating slots carry Strawberry Seeds on the first and third days, Mixed Seeds on the second, desert furniture and a Calico Statue each day, and Magic Rock Candy on the seventeenth for 250 eggs, which is the single best use of a Large Egg balance given what the sweet normally costs.
Two villagers host their own stalls each day, chosen at random, open from noon until midnight. The stock is the draw: Abigail sells Abigail's Bow and Abby's Planchette, Alex sells Alex's Bat, Elliott sells Elliott's Pencil, Maru sells Maru's Wrench, Penny sells Penny's Fryer, Harvey sells Harvey's Mallet, and several of them carry furniture that appears nowhere else. Emily sells a Prismatic Shard for five hundred eggs, Caroline sells Tea Saplings, Clint sells ore and coal in bulk and Demetrius sells Deluxe Speed-Gro a hundred at a time. The stalls can be walked into from behind, so the villager minding one can still be talked to, given a gift or handed a quest item.
The Traveling Cart turns up with an umbrella over the pig's head and opens at noon, selling a re-randomised slice of its usual stock on each of the three days. A Shrouded Figure will send the farmer home for 250g, exactly as at the Night Market.
Notes
Villagers leave their normal routines for the desert the way they do for the Night Market, arriving in groups across the three days, while Emily, Harvey, Lewis, Sandy and Willy are there every day. A villager running a stall overrides their usual schedule, so they can turn up on a day they would not otherwise appear.
The bin next to the Calico Egg Merchant is worth a daily poke. It holds five to eight Calico Eggs, once each day, which is free money for the cost of rummaging.
The festival uses its own desert map, which has two consequences. Soil cannot be tilled, so the secret note that asks for digging there has to wait. Chests and other items left in the desert may disappear for the three days, and should come back on the eighteenth.
All Festivals
Every entry in this group, with its key details.
