Nature Sprites' Hut

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The seven Nature Sprites live in a hut down the alley next to the church. The front door to the sprites' hut is unlocked from 9:00 am until 5:00 pm. The sprites are the Harvest Goddess' personal helper entourage, living to work for her and for you. These little guys love to help however they can.

The Nature Sprites are Blueberry (indigo), Pumpkin (orange), Plum (purple), Cherry (red), Aqua (blue), Sunny (yellow), and Mint (green).

When the Nature Sprites are involved in an event outside of their house, such as the Preserved Flower or Pregnancy events, the door to their hut will become locked until the next day.

Farm Workers

Hiring the Nature Sprites is as easy as talking to them and then selecting Ask for Help. A sprite that has at least 3 notes of friendship with you will volunteer their abilities to help with watering crops, harvesting crops, or caring for livestock and poultry that includes feeding, brushing, and animal product shipping. You will then select the number of days you would like them to help (3, 5, or 7 days). Starting the next day, the tasked Nature Sprite will be at your farm at 6:00 am to work their dedicated job until 6:00 pm. The Nature Sprites will not work during a bad-weather storm.

The products that they collect while harvesting or caring for animals will be magically transported to your shipping bin and sold when Zack stops by at 5:00 pm. You cannot access these goods after the sprites have harvested them. If you're trying to collect specific items, such as Milk (S), you'll need to harvest your desired goods before the Nature Sprites get to them that day.

Raising their friendship is as easy as giving them Honey (+500 FP), Flour (+500 FP), and wild colored grasses that match their clothing color (+500 FP); Mint loves Green Grass, Cherry loves Red Grass, and so on.

The more the Nature Sprites work at each of the three tasks, the more skilled they will become at those tasks. Inside the Relationships Menu is a list of the sprites' skill levels. A sprite isn't inherently better at one task compared to the other sprites, but may become better depending on how often you ask that sprite to work at a particular task. The more experience they have, the faster they work.

Mini Games

Besides working on your farm, the sprites can gain experience by playing mini games. You can play one game per sprite per day when the Nature Sprite is inside of their hut. If the final score earned at the end of the game is more than the objective score stated at the start of the game, you will pass the game and the sprite will gain job experience. The more you clear a specific mini-game with a particular Nature Sprite, the higher that game's objective goal will be:

The more times you successfully clear a mini game's objective point goal, the more experience the Nature Sprite will earn. On the other hand, if you do not meet the end-game objective, you can lose a little bit of work experience.

Mini game high scores are documented in the Records Book inside the farm house bookshelf.

Water Crops

The first game is a memorization game. The mini-game field is made up of 25 dirt field squares. When the timer starts, several of these squares will light up in a sequential pattern. When it is your turn, use the directional controls to navigate the player Nature Sprite in the same sequential order, pressing the A Button when the sprite is standing on the proper square to direct the the sprite to sprinkle water.

A sprout will appear when you water the spot in the correct order. If you watered out of order, the ground will still get wet, but no plant will appear for the rest of the round. The game will continue until you do get the correct sequence of squares watered.

You have 25 seconds to go through three rounds of memory watering. Your score will then be calculated based on the total number of watered field squares plus the number of bonus sprouts that appeared. You will lose points for each spot that was watered out of sequence.

Harvest Crops

The second game is a steady-rhythm game. In this mini-game, the Nature Sprite must harvest the number of objective Turnips within 60 seconds. After the timer begins, press the A Button about 20 times, in a steady rhythm, to pull the Turnip out of the ground. If your rhythm of button mashing is too fast, a sweat bubble will appear above the Nature Sprite's head. If this continues for too long, the Nature Sprite could fall backwards onto their little sprite tushie and fail to pull up the crop.

After 60 seconds, your score will be calculated based on the number of successful harvests minus the number of times the sprite failed to pull up the Turnip. Meeting the game objective will earn your sprite experience towards faster crop harvesting.

Ideally, you only need to successfully pull up enough crops to meet the objectives. You will not be awarded more work experience for being an overachiever. Feel free to stop and allow the game time to expire after you harvest enough Turnips to meet the game objective.

Care for Livestock

The last game has your sprite feeding five chickens. The object of the game is to place Chicken Feed into the feed bins at the right time. Put the feed into the bin when it is still full will count as an error, and letting the chicken run off the screen because the bin is empty of feed will also count as an error. You have 60 seconds to meet the game's objective point goal.

To fill the feed bins, use the left/right directional controls to place the sprite behind the five bins, and press the A Button to put food into the bin. You'll earn a point each time the feed bin is filled correctly.

While there are five chickens to feed, there's nothing in the rules that requires you to feed all five birds! A handy tip is to let a chicken or two to run out of the coop. The remaining chickens can then be more easily managed. Often I'll let the far-left or far-right bird head out of screen, then tend to the four remaining birds in a steady, 4-second rhythm.

The final score is based on the number of successful feedings minus the number of erroneous feedings.