New outfit :) And halfway through level 6. Experience is slowing down, and it seems that only finishing in first place really moves the experience bar much. The only way forward is to start using level 2+ tricks, which confer an experience bonus. And the only way to do THAT is to complete the level 2 licenses, which require doing a fast series of tricks and reaching the end of the course in 36 seconds. I haven’t managed to earn any level 2 tricks. Usually I am just a second or two behind. I need more speed. And to get THAT – I need to craft enhancements.
I apologize for the lack of screenshots illustrating all this; Project Powder’s closed beta test isn’t open. So you’ll have to take me at my word that when you buy outfits, accessories, or new boards in the item shops, most of them will have one or more enhancement slots for things like Trick (red), Luck (purple), Turn (yellow), and Speed (blue?). Gems fit into the slots, and gems are crafted from the ores you occasionally get when you finish a race.
To turn ores into gems require a magic box, which you can buy at the (duh) magic shop.*
The better the box, the better the gem it can make. All boxes are good for one use only. All require three of the same kind of ore – one each of Flawless, Normal and Chipped ores. Find it in your inventory, place the ores in the correct slots, and press the “Magic” button. It spins for awhile and (hopefully) spits out a gem. The quality – and PHASE – of the finished gem determine the amount it will boost your stats. Unequip the gear with the slot that will take the gem, drag the gem on to it, et voila, you are turning tighter, going faster, getting more benefit from your tricks or – I don’t know what Luck does.
You can trade items and ores to other players by sending them as gifts. And you can remove enhancements with the “de-enhance” button in your inventory.
Enhancement gems (and level 2+ tricks) are the key to winning higher level races – and you will find yourself increasingly locked from the lower races as you level. Best thing to do is to save up your money and buy the best items with lots of slots. It’s the only way to shred.
- Okay, this is kind of off topic, but I’ll tell it anyway. My son and I went to Rhode Island last week to tour a college. Now, we live in New England, which is proud of its colonial heritage, so it wasn’t all that surprising that we passed a mall called The Shoppes at Blackstone Valley. The use of “Shoppes” supposed to make you imagine that instead of an air-conditioned, parking lot-choked temple to consumer plastic, that it is a small collection of hand-hewn, rustic village shops clustered together, with the kindly owners living in small apartments above them. But we’ll forgive them that. When we got into Warwick, we noticed that one store had decided to become even MORE authentic, and MORE colonial, by calling itself a “Cheese Shoppee”. Shop-ee. I have an idea for an even MORE authentic store. I’ll call it a “SHOPPPEEEE”. Be thinking you were back in Renaissance London with that.