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2023 Halloween Event Minigame Tutorial & Strategy Guide!

Mooing Cat

Hello! My name is MooingCat and welcome to my minigame tutorial and event strategies for the brand new 2023 Halloween Event! In this guide I will go through all the rewards you can get in this event, I'll guide you through the mechanics of the minigame, and go over strategies on how to get the most out of the event!

You can also check out my videos on the event:

Table of Contents

Event Rewards

Let's start by quickly looking at the rewards, there are some really good ones this event!

If you want to check out all the new buildings in my sortable table, you can use this short link: https://mooingcatguides.com/halloween-buildings-23

Main Building: Laboratory of Monstrosities

The Laboratory of Monstrosities is a 4x5 building with 10 levels. Last event we were introduced to the "Silver" upgrade kit ... and it returns this event, yay! So, let's first look at the Level 8 building:

Note: Where values depend on age, they will be displayed as "BA-SAT" values.

Laboratory of Monstrosities Level 8:

  • Size: 4x5 (road required)
  • Medals
  • 21-23 Forge Points (0.95-1.05 per tile)
  • 25-27 Goods (1.14-1.23 per tile)
  • 61-63 Previous Age Goods (2.77-2.86 per tile)
  • 50 Guild Goods (2.27 per tile)
  • 1 Fragment for Ectoplasmic Nightmares Selection Kit (100 required = 100 days)
  • 5 Fragments for Laboratory of Monstrosities Silver Upgrade Kit (150 required = 30 days)
  • 29-31% Attack for Attacking Army (1.32-1.41 per tile)
  • 15-17% Defense for Attacking Army (0.68-0.77 per tile)
  • 30-32% Attack for City Defense (1.36-1.45 per tile)
  • 16-18% Defense for City Defense (0.73-0.82 per tile)

When upgraded to level 9 with the silver upgrade kit, the building turns into the Sinister Laboratory of Monstrosities:

Sinister Laboratory of Monstrosities (Level 9):

  • Size: 4x5 (road required)
  • Medals
  • 23-25 Forge Points (1.05-1.14 per tile)
  • 28-30 Goods (1.27-1.36 per tile)
  • 68-70 Previous Age Goods (3.09-3.18 per tile)
  • 70 Guild Goods (3.18 per tile)
  • 2 Fragment for Ectoplasmic Nightmares Selection Kit (100 required = 50 days)
  • 5 Fragments for Laboratory of Monstrosities Golden Upgrade Kit (150 required = 30 days)
  • 34-36% Attack for Attacking Army (1.55-1.64 per tile)
  • 17-19% Defense for Attacking Army (0.77-0.86 per tile)
  • 35-37% Attack for City Defense (1.59-1.68 per tile)
  • 18-20% Defense for City Defense (0.82-0.91 per tile)

When upgraded to level 10 with the golden upgrade kit, the building turns into the Thundering Laboratory of Monstrosities:

Thundering Laboratory of Monstrosities (Level 10):

  • Size: 4x5 (road required)
  • Medals
  • 25-27 Forge Points (1.14-1.23 per tile)
  • 31-33 Goods (1.41-1.5 per tile)
  • 75-77 Previous Age Goods (3.41-3.5 per tile)
  • 90 Guild Goods (4.09 per tile)
  • 3 Fragment for Ectoplasmic Nightmares Selection Kit (100 required = 33.3 days)
  • 39-41% Attack for Attacking Army (1.77-1.86 per tile)
  • 19-21% Defense for Attacking Army (0.86-0.95 per tile)
  • 40-42% Attack for City Defense (1.82-1.91 per tile)
  • 20-22% Defense for City Defense (0.91-1.0 per tile)

For a full comparison with other buildings check out my sortable table!

The level 8 building is already really good, with a really good amount of fps, goods, and attack boosts! The Ectoplasmic Nightmares Selection Kit is quite nice as well - more on those buildings in the next chapters! The Silver and Gold levels are even better of course, and you can get the fragments from the level 8 building itself, so no strict requirement to get them during the event.

I'd definitely pick up this building and add it to your city!

New Building: Sparkborn Stormspire!

The Sparkborn Stormspire is a 1x1 building with 4 levels! To fully upgrade it, you need the level 1 building, upgrade kit, silver upgrade kit and golden upgrade kit ... but luckily you will be able to get all from the minigame - more on that later!

Sparkborn Stormspire Level 1

  • Size: 1x1 (no road required)
  • 1 Good (1.0 per tile)
  • Negative Happiness & Population
  • 3% Attack for Attacking Army (3.0 per tile)
  • Random chance:
    • 80%: 1 Forge Point
    • 20%: 2 Forge Points

Sparkborn Stormspire Level 2

  • Size: 1x1 (no road required)
  • 1 Good (1.0 per tile)
  • Negative Happiness & Population
  • 4% Attack for Attacking Army (4.0 per tile)
  • Random chance:
    • 80%: 1 Forge Point
    • 20%: 2 Forge Points

Sparksurge Stormspire (Level 3)

  • Size: 1x1 (no road required)
  • 1 Good (1.0 per tile)
  • Negative Happiness & Population
  • 5% Attack for Attacking Army (5.0 per tile)
  • Random chance:
    • 40%: 2 Forge Point
    • 10%: 4 Forge Points
    • 50%: 1 Fragment for Dauting Tower (100 required = 200 days)

Sparkforge Stormspire (Level 4)

  • Size: 1x1 (no road required)
  • 1 Good (1.0 per tile)
  • Negative Happiness & Population
  • 6% Attack for Attacking Army (6.0 per tile)
  • Random chance:
    • 40%: 2 Forge Point
    • 10%: 4 Forge Points
    • 50%: 2 Fragments for Dauting Tower (100 required = 100 days)

This is definitely a worthy building! It might sound hard to get all the levels, but it's actually not that bad. On average from each completed dungeon you have a 50% chance to get the level 1 building, 45% for upgrade, 35% for silver upgrade, and 20% for golden upgrade. However, for every Thief ability card you have an additional 25% chance for silver and 20% for golden, so on average you'll likely get around a full Sparkforge Stormspire every other completed dungeon!

You can also get the level 1building from Daily Specials!

New Buildings: Ectoplasmic Nightmares Selection Kit

As mentioned above, the main building produces fragments for the Ecoplasmic Nightmares Selection Kit. In this kit, you are able to choose between two new buildings, the Batsy Bar's Ectoplasmic Elixirs and the Monster Ranch's Nightmare Box. Luckily all of these new Halloween buildings have short and easy to remember names :)

Batsy Bar's Ectoplasmic Elixirs

  • Size: 2x2 (road required)
  • Requirement: 111 to 6867 Population
  • Requirement: 1080 to 24450 Happiness (for enthusiasm)
  • 20-25 Goods (4.0-5.0 per tile)
  • 8-10% Defense for Attacking Army (1.6-2.0 per tile)
  • 14-19% Attack for City Defense (2.8-3.8 per tile)
  • 11-13% Defense for City Defense (2.2-2.6 per tile)
  • Random chance:
    • 95%: 1 Self-Aid Kit
    • 5%: 10 Self-Aid Kits

Monster Ranch's Nightmare Box

  • Size: 2x1 (no road required)
  • Requirement: 83 to 5150 Population
  • Requirement: 360 to 8150 Happiness (for enthusiasm)
  • 2-3 Forge Points (1.0-1.5 per tile)
  • 3-6% Attack for Attacking Arm (1.5-3.0 per tile)
  • 3-4% Defense for Attacking Army (1.5-2.0 per tile)
  • 4-5% Defense for City Defense (2.0-2.5 per tile)
  • Random chance:
    • 75%: 1 Store Building Fragment (15 reequired)
    • 25%: 5 Store Building Fragments (15 reequired)

New Buildings: Daily Specials

Yup ... we're not done yet xD We have two more buildings that can both be won from the Daily Specials!

Tower of Whispering Horrors

  • Size: 2x3 (road required)
  • Happiness
  • 1-5 Forge Points (0.14-0.71 per tile)
  • 21-25 Previous Age Goods (3.0-3.57 per tile)
  • 8-12% Attack for Attacking Army (1.14-1-71 per tile)
  • 10-14% Defense for Attacking Army (1.43-2.0 per tile)

MonsterWares' Terrors Boutique

  • Size: 2x3 (no road required)
  • Population
  • 6-10 Forge Points (0.67-1.11 per tile)
  • 10-14 Goods (1.11-1.56 per tile)
  • 11-15% Attack for City Defense (1.22-1.67 per tile)
  • 18-22% Defense for City Defense (2.0-2.44 per tile)

Grand Prizes & Milestones

To get the main building fully leveled you need 3600 progress towards grand prizes (or 3000 if you end in Bronze+ league). This will give you 1 upgrade from Milestones, level 1 + 7 regular upgrade kits from grand prizes, plus 25 silver upgrade kit fragments. If you reach 4500 progress you'll get the new golden upgrade kit for the Tarot Card Caravans!

To get a full silver upgrade kit from the grand prizes, you need to reach 6300 progress. For the golden upgrade kit you need to reach 8700.

The Grand Prizes will first have a quite a few unique rewards, before it starts looping between 9600 and 14100 progress.

Progress Rewards (Unique)
0 Laboratory of Monstrosities ("LoM") Level 1
300 50 Forge Points
600 LoM Upgrade Kit
900 One Up Kit
1200 LoM Upgrade Kit
1500 Sparkborn Stormspire Level 1
1800 LoM Upgrade Kit
2100 Sparkborn Stormspire Upgrade Kit
2400 LoM Upgrade Kit
2700 Avatar
3000 LoM Upgrade Kit
3300 25 LoM Silver Upgrade Fragments
3600 LoM Upgrade Kit
3900 25 LoM Golden Upgrade Fragments
4200 LoM Level 1
4500 Tarot Card Caravans Golden Upgrade
4800 LoM Upgrade Kit
5100 50 Silver LoM Upgrade Fragments
5400 LoM Upgrade Kit
5700 25 Golden LoM Upgrade Fragments
6000 LoM Upgrade Kit
6300 75 LoM Upgrade Fragments
6600 LoM Upgrade Kit
6900 50 Forge Points
7200 LoM Upgrade Kit
7500 50 Golden LoM Upgrade Fragments
7800 LoM Upgrade Kit
8100 One Up Kit
8400 LoM Upgrade Kit
8700 50 Golden LoM Upgrade Fragments
9000 LoM Upgrade Kit
9300 Renovation Kit

Progress Rewards (Looping)
9600 LoM Selection Kit
9900 Tarot Card Caravans Golden Upgrade Kit
10200 LoM Upgrade Kit
10500 40 Goods
10800 LoM Upgrade Kit
11100 10 Blueprints
11400 LoM Upgrade Kit
11700 50 Blueprints
12000 LoM Upgrade Kit
12300 2 Units
12600 LoM Upgrade Kit
12900 One Up Kit
13200 LoM Upgrade Kit
13500 10 Blueprints
13800 LoM Upgrade Kit
14100 40 Goods

Daily Specials

There are a lot of daily specials that can be considered good, so for a complete list check out the fandom wiki ("list of possible Switched Prizes"). Below are a select few of my top recommendations:

  • Sparkborn Stormspire Lv.1: By far the best attack efficiency from the daily specials!
  • Tower of Whispering Horrors: Best over-all attack option in my opinion. Small size, but still among the best for attack per daily special.
  • Tarot Card Caravans: Very good attak building, especially if you get the golden upgrade kit from grand prizes.
  • Mountain Reserve / Governor's Villa: Still good options from earlier events, though probably not the highest priority for this event.
  • Donkey Enclosure: A good mix of defense for attacking army and unit production.

You can compare all the available buildings from daily specials in my sortable table. For all available event buildings + daily specials, you can use the following link: https://mooingcatguides.com/halloween-buildings

Leagues

This event has a league system based on points you get from opening chests with keys you win in the minigame!

The points required on beta are not usually a good estimate for live servers, especially this time when there were some big balance changes on beta.

Quest "Cheat List"

COMING SOON

Event Mechanics - Minigame Tutorial!

Check out my video tutorial and full playthrough for the minigame! More written information to come soon!

Full vs Cheap Dungeon

In the video, I go through two different ways of playing a Dungeon, which I will call "Full" and "Cheap".

Full Dungeon means playing through the entire Dungeon, spending extra teeth to be able to defeat the Final Boss. My recommendation is to go for 2 Ability Cards most of the selections, possibly with the exception of the final selection. Here you also need to heal with Teeth if you are unable to use Ability Cards. For more information, tips and tricks, check out the section starting at 0:39 in the video! Cost: typically between 200 and 500 Teeth

Cheap Dungeon means playing the Dungeon spending few Teeth. Your goal here is not to defeat the Final Boss, but to get as far as possible without spending a lot of Teeth. My recommendation is to only buy 1 Ability Card each selection, and most of the time either Heal or Vile Renewal. You should still use Teeth to redraw, but you shouldn't be as strict with going for the perfect card. Ideally you shouldn't heal with Teeth, and instead just fight until you die if you can't heal with Ability Cards. There might be exceptions though, use your judgement! For more information, tips and tricks, check out the section starting at 28:27 in the video! Cost: typically between 50 and 100 Teeth

Event Currency: Teeth

Before going into strategies, let's first go over how many Teeth you can get.

  • Starting: 200
  • Daily Logins: 21*150 = 3150
  • Rush Quests: 35*120 = 4200
  • Daily Quests: 21*250 = 5250
  • Milestone: 100 + 300 + 500 + 1000 = 1900
  • Total: 14 700 Teeth

Looking at the numbers, you can get at least 150+250=400 Teeth per day of the event, that will be important for my recommended strategy :)

Event Strategies

The event might look complicated, but it's all in the actual playing of the minigame. In terms of strategy, I can offer this Fool-Proof strategy that everyone should be able to follow, regardless of how "well" you play!

The Fool-Proof Event Strategy!

How many Card Decks should you play? Each day you are able to choose every Card Deck (Werewolf, Zombie, Vampire) for free once, then you have to pay more and more Teeth to unlock them. The cost for the 2nd unlock of a given Card Deck is 100, then it is increased by x1.5 for each additional unlock. At midnight the cost will reset to 0. For my strategy, you should play each of the 3 free Card Decks once per day. As I will go over later, you will be able to spend all your Teeth if you play three games per day, so unless you miss days, there shouldn't be any need to play more decks on a given day.

How should you play these 3 Card Decks? To make it easier to understand, I've made a simple flowchart!

Due to the way the event works, it doesn't actually matter when you play full Dungeons. On average you are likely to have enough Teeth for 1-2 full Dungeons every day, but it doesn't matter when you play these. There is no difference between playing 3 full Dungeons one day and only cheap ones the next day, compared to playing 1 + 2 full Dungeons on both days, with the remaining 2 + 1 Dungeons as cheap ones. So my recommendation is based on always playing as many full Dungeons with the recommended Card Deck as posible, while still having enough Teeth to play any remaining free Card Decks that day. Each new day of the event you will get 400 Teeth from quest and daily login, which is enough to play 3 cheap Dungeons. This means that you don't need to save any teeth for upcoming days. I still recommend having at least 500 Teeth available before you start any full Dungeon so that you can buy ability cards, redraws and heal, but ending a day with close to 0 Teeth is ok!

On average you will be able to choose the free recommended Card Deck 2 times each day, which is likely more than you can afford. Still, my recommendation is to do as many full Dungeons as you can early on in the event, and then take it easier later on in the event. This way, if you're able to play very well, you will still have time to play many full Dungeons towards the end of the event, and if you don't you can always do the cheap Dungeons towards the end :)

You might have noticed the lack of expected number of full Dungeons, but that's the beauty of this strategy! It will work regardless of how many full Dungeons you are able to play, so how well you do is entirely down to how well you are able to play the Dungeons!

If you need to catch up on spending Teeth, then you need to unlock Card Decks, there is no way around it. Otherwise, the strategy is the same :)

Expected Progress per Dungeon

On average you will get 2 Thief ability cards per full Dungeon, so factorying in those you can get on average per full Dungeon:

  • 16 Bronze Keys
  • 10 Silver
  • 12 Gold Keys

You get 1 progress per Bronze Key, 3 per Silver Key, and 6 per Gold Key, for a total of 1x16+3x10+6x12 = 118 Progress per Full Dungeon.

For the Cheap Dungeons it depends on how far you can go, so it might be more useful to look at what number of keys/rogress you get by defeating up to X enemy cards:

  • Enemy 1: 1 Bronze = 1 Total Progress
  • Enemy 2: 4 Bronze = 4 Total Progress
  • Enemy 3: 8 Bronze = 8 Total Progress
  • Enemy 4: 8 Bronze, 1 Silver = 11 Total Progress
  • Enemy 5: 13 Bronze, 1 Silver = 16 Total Progress
  • Enemy 6: 13 Bronze, 2 Silver = 19 Total Progress
  • Enemy 7: 13 Bronze, 2 Silver, 1 Gold = 25 Total Progress
  • Enemy 8: 13 Bronze, 4 Silver, 1 Gold = 31 Total Progress
  • Enemy 9: 13 Bronze, 4 Silver, 2 Gold = 37 Total Progress
  • Enemy 10: 13 Bronze, 4 Silver, 3 Gold = 43 Total Progress
  • Enemy 11: 14 Bronze, 6 Silver, 6 Gold = 68 Total Progress

How far you can get will depend on how much you are willing to spend on redraws and the occational healing. If you only spend 20-30 teeth you will probably not get much further than card number 4-5, let's say 15 Progress per Dungeon on average. If you spend 50-100 teeth, I think you are likely to reach enemy card 8/9, let's say 35 Progress per Dungeon on average. We can use these numbers in my simulator below, but keep in mind they're just rough estimates, please update with your own numbers as you start getting some more knowledge of the event!

Extra Progress from Daily Challenges + 2x Chests

In the event there are two ways of getting "extra" progress.

  • Daily Challenges: Each day one of the daily challenges will give you some keys. On average, this will give you 17.1 progress per day, or 359 Total Progress
  • 2x Chest: Each day the first chest you open will give twice the reward, including twice the progress. Use this on the gold chest for 24 progress per day, or 504 Total Progress
  • Total: 359 + 504 = 863 Progress

Expected Progress Simulator!

So, using those numbers let's look at expected amount of progress, and I'll do so using a simulator I've made to help you estimate based on your strategy!

If you can't see/use the simulator you can use this link: https://trinket.io/embed/python3/0d758eaa96

Can you get the main building fully leveled for fre?

If you play daily, it is definitely possible to get the main building fully leveled for free. You need 3600 progress to guarantee all the upgrades for level 8, and the remaining silver and golden upgrade fragments you need you can produce from the building itself in at most 2 months.

Using the numbers from above, you need to play 3600/118 = 31 Full Dungeons to reach this, or in other words you can spend 474 Teeth per Dungeon. Based on testing that is very generous, I expect the average to be closer to 350.

Of course, this is not including the 863 extra progress you can get from 2x chests and daily challenges, including those you need 2737/118 = 24 Full Dungeons, or 613 Teeth per Dungeon.

So yes, it should be very easy to get the main building fully leveled for free. Indeed you should be able to get a lot further than that, or if you are not able to commit to playing daily, you still have plenty of room to play with.

How to maximize Daily Specials!

When buying chests, each value has a range of possible daily special chances. Bronze can give 5%/10%/15%, Silver can give 10%/15%/20%, Gold can give 20%/25%. Each time you choose a set all three are refreshed, you can use this to your advantage! You have a lot of keys to spend, so if you always choose an option when it is at its max value, you will get a lot more daily specials! If none of the chests give their max value, go for the Bronez chest, or try to balance:

When choosing which chest to open, you should try to balance the keys if you have more than one chest with max daily special chance. Your Silver keys should be around half the number of Bronze keys, and the number of Gold keys should be around 1/3rd the number of Bronze keys.

How many Daily Specials can you expect?

If you play 3 games every day, around half Full Dungeon, half Cheap Dungeon, you should expect to get somewhere around 900 Bronze Keys, 450 Silver Keys, and 450 Gold Keys. If you play around 2/3 Full and 1/3 Cheap, the numbers should be around 950 Bronze Keys, 500 Silver Keys and 550 Gold Keys. If you go for 2x chest every day, that is 84 Gold Keys you can't use on a specific daily special, this is around 5 Daily Specials.

  • You need 12 keys per Bronze Chest, so that is around 75-80 Bronze Chests.
  • You need 6 keys per Silver Chest, so that is around 75-90 Bronze Chests.
  • You need 4 keys per Gold Chest, so that is around 115-140 Bronze Chests.

If we use the trick from above to maximize for Add all of these together, and we get:

  • From Bronze Chests: 11-12 Daily Specials
  • From Silver Chests: 15-18 Daily Specials
  • From Gold Chests: 29-35 Daily Specials
  • Total: 55-65 Daily Specials

This doesn't include the 2x bonus, that should add around 5 extra daily specials, though spread across random days.

This is a very rough estimate, so even if these are not entirely accurate, the event is still an amazing event when it comes to daily specials!

Diamond Spending Costs

(coming soon!)