MyTribe’s New Mystery

So my favorite Facebook game, MyTribe recently added sending gifts and begging for gifts, and that’s pretty much the day I lost interest in the game. It was extra frustrating because there were so many great ways MyTribe could have implemented social trading — trading island resources and crops, for example — but instead it went the way of FarmVille spamming.

MyTribe also has collections made of random drops now, but I haven’t seen them add anything to gameplay, so virtual packratting doesn’t appeal to me. I’d like at least a veneer of gameplay over the acquisition of imaginary items. I mean, I’ll still rerun Van Cleef a dozen times to get the whole set of matching Defias armor…

But… I started playing MyTribe again because there are new mysteries to unlock. Flotsam’s Call (or as I like to call it, the Hatch), is the first of six new mysteries, so start building your Great Ark now to get to a new island with three new mysteries.

Solving Flotsam’s Call takes advantage of the new crafting recipes. Crafting was a great addition, I tend to like crafting (If I’m not wearing the Defias leather, I’ll endlessly mine and level my blacksmithing to craft another complete set of armor) and it adds a little bit of individuality to your tribe’s island. You’ll need to craft 4 torches, so to solve the mystery, you’ll need the recipe for torches (found under Supplies, then Decorations, then Decorative), 40 wood and 40 mushrooms. Then place one torch in each hole in the hatch. The reward is an increased drop rate for regular and silver crates and barrels, a nice bonus if you are interested in completed collections.

To open the Jewel Vault (because, seriously, what tropical island doesn’t have a jewel vault?), you’ll need to find four gems, one each from the Common, Uncommon, Rare and Scarce categories. Apply these gems to clothing, and dress your tribespeople in their sparkly new power-up clothes.

It seems you can use the same tribesperson wearing different clothes each time to unlock the mystery, but that even if he’s wearing two or more gems at a time, he can’t fulfill two or more requirements at once.

As a reward, you’ll get four new gems. Any one know if these are the same four every time? You’ll also be able to remove gems from clothing by putting a gem-wearing tribesperson on the Jewel Vault. So, hey, getting gems stuck on clothing isn’t a design flaw! You just need the Jewel Vault mystery!

More mysteries will be out on August 23rd.

What do you think? Are you excited about the new MyTribe  mysteries, or burned out on all the giftspam?