Next up in the A to Z Challenge!

Today we have:

S is for Spring Dragon

In honor of spring finally springing here in Minnesota, and because we could all use something bright on this day after the loss of musical legend Prince,* today we have the Spring Dragon from DragonVale.  If anyone else has ever gotten hooked on a time-wasting mobile game, you might know the love/hate relationship I have with this dragon collecting game from Backflip Studios.

I downloaded it back in February after I found a cute little Bronze Dragon picture in my daily dragon searching.  They also had a Zombie Dragon that I wanted to use for a Sunday night post, when I watch AMC’s The Walking Dead, but I didn’t want to mention the game here on my blog without first giving it a cursory look.  So I thought I should probably include them in my premier AtoZ Challenge, and the Spring Dragon is certainly cute!

Spring Dragon Baby

To my chagrin, I still play this game every day.  I’m hooked.  It’s a “freemium” game, where everything is achievable through free play, but if you want all the bells and whistles, or for things to happen faster, of course they’re willing to take your real money.  I’ve never given them a cent, and I won’t either.  But for free, you can collect both normal coins and the rarer Gems that are the currency in the game, and I have been known to splurge and pay a few gems to speed up time occasionally.

The game is mostly about choosing different dragon combos to breed and then seeing what new dragon you get.  You put your newly hatched dragons into the appropriate habitat in your dragon park, like this picture below, uploaded to the DragonVale Breeding Guide site by the user moonrisehill_.  Each habitat with one or more dragons in it generates coins that you then spend on more habitats, or park decorations, or other upgrades.

A Spring Dragon in it’s “natural,” wizard-made habitat.

I have a medium-sized park set up so far, although after a while I gave up on keeping it neat and orderly, and just started putting habitats wherever they would fit.  I don’t devote that much time to the game every day, but it’s fun to go in, collect the food I’ve grown, feed my dragons to gain more levels, collect the money, see if anything’s ready to incubate or hatch, set some of my dragons to tasks such as Colosseum events, quests, or races, and set others to breed ever more dragons.  Gotta catch ’em all, you know!  (Oh wait… wrong game…)

The Breeding Guide and their Sandbox tool is a really useful site that I also use daily.  It lets me quickly figure out which dragon would be best for each race by inputting the elemental indicators, and it allows me figure out which dragon breeding combinations are likely to get the most diverse results.  Then, once I’ve chosen my two dragons, I can get an idea of what dragon I’m waiting for by how long the egg will take to incubate.

Spring Dragon Egg

For example, my current favorite pairing is the Marbletail and Lodestone dragons.  If it says I need to wait eight hours before I can put the egg in the nursery (and then wait another length of time before it hatches), I know I’m getting either an Obsidian, Tempest, or Hail dragon.  I admit, I get nervous and annoyed at the same time when it gives me a choice of three or four, and I already have one or two of them!  But even if I get a duplicate, I can just sell the egg away and try again, and hope for better results next time.

I admit I really got a thrill when I realized the current dragon pair I’m using was incubating the super-rare Double Rainbow Dragon, which is the only one that takes 60 hours!  It’s taking forever, but in some weird way it’s worth it. 🙂  My Spring Dragon is also scheduled to hatch today, yay!

All right, if you’d like a chance to get hooked yourself, here are the links to download the game.  I think you should definitely check it out, but on the other hand, don’t say I didn’t warn you! 🙂

DragonVale on Google Play

DragonVale in the Apple App Store

Take care and stay creative, everyone!

*Post-script

Yesterday’s and today’s posts were written well before we received the terrible news of the death of Prince, a Minnesota native who was so important to the Minneapolis music scene as well as to the world.  I was never a huge mega-fan, but I loved his music and I work just blocks from First Avenue, the music venue he made famous in his movie Purple Rain.  There was a block party in Prince’s honor there last night and the celebration of his life will resume tonight and Saturday night, and I plan to stop by and pay my respects to this groundbreaking artist.

So many people have expressed their beautiful thoughts on the importance of this icon who was always true to himself, so I won’t try to stumble through my own tribute, but my thoughts are with his friends and family in this heartbreaking time.  I will reiterate what the Mayor of Minneapolis said: “Prince was unapologetically different and he made it okay for his fans to be different and to celebrate their individuality.”  I know it’s being used at every turn, but this lyric is so fitting that I’m sharing it too.  Take care everyone, and be kind to one another.

Image credits:
Spring Dragon Adult, Spring Dragon Baby, Spring Dragon Egg, and Spring Dragon in Habitat are all from the Spring Dragon tips and hints page at the DragonVale Breeding Guide site.
Prince image
Prince quote