Well, though I try to avoid having this blog seem like a diary as opposed to being a helpful guide type of resource, I’m going to break down and do a little diary entry just so everyone knows I am still alive and doing posts.

First of all, I spotted my twin today. At least outfit wise. This would normally not be notable if it were not for that fact that I wear a fairly bizarre combination of armor. This fellow I spotted was wearing almost everything I normally wear with the exception that he was wearing an Amulet of Glory while I wear an Amulet of Fury. I suppose I will have to change to something even more bizarre so I am unique. Either that or hunt him down in Clan Wars and kill him.

I also spotted my first Penguin Spy. It was near the granite fields in the southern desert. I was pleasantly surprised that I could spy the penguin without having my spy notebook in my inventory. That makes this mini-game a lot more fun. I will probably collect out my spy points as xp as opposed to gold. I’ve got enough gold and I have no initiative to train my construction, so that is probably where my points will go.

I had planned on doing a write up about the three new mini games released a couple of weeks ago. Those being the circus, the penguin spies, and the falling stars. But the truth is that the circus is really the only one I know much of anything about. Like I said before, I just recently spotted my first penguin and have yet to stumble upon a fallen star. I suppose if I did train up my construction I would be able to get a telescope for the house and get some good location and timing data. Then again, another option would be to join one of the many clans who go hunting for the stars, but that would of course violate my whole antisocial stance to game play. Anyway, expect to see a circus write up soon, but don’t hold your breath on penguins and stars.

I have a few other write ups I am starting work on and hope to have posted here in the coming days. One will deal with what I suggest for Runescape travel tips. Another one will be a write up about an older mini game. In fact, I might have three mini game write ups over the coming couple of weeks. But don’t expect anything about clan wars. As anyone who has read the ‘about’ pages of this blog will know, I do not, did not, and expect to never PK. So clan wars holds no interest to me. However, that being said, I say bravo to the people at Jagex for the update. Though I personally don’t PK, I think PKing is an important part of Runescape and should never have been as limited as it was last year.

One final note. Granite is really pissing me off. Mining granite was supposed to be one of those sure fire millionaire makers of Runescape. But I haven’t been able to sell even one piece of granite for any price what-so-ever on the Grand Exchange. Plus, granite prices are dropping like a rock (no pun intended). 500g granite pieces have dropped 20% or almost 300gp over the past week alone.

I am introducing a new topic category to my blog. I am calling it diversions and the topics of this type will deal with aspects of Runescape that focus on the mini games as opposed to the typical monster killing and questing. My first diversion is Jungle Clean Up.

Jungle Clean Up isn’t the most fun of Runescape mini games. It isn’t the most interesting either. But it is something to do that isn’t the same-old same-old and it provides some decent opportunities for earning money.

In a nutshell, the object of Jungle Clean Up is to kiss the collective asses of the people of Tai Bwo Wannai Village. And there are a lot of asses to kiss. Once you start your career as a sycophant, the villagers will repay your efforts with trading sticks, which are only valuable in the village itself. Your efforts, of course, involve doing things for the community like killing threatening spiders, snakes, mosquitoes and other nastys. You can also gain brown nosing points by hacking the nearby jungle with a machete (I recommend red topaz), which sounds to me like cutting down the rain forest, but lets not get into a political correctness debate here. The thatches of wood you receive from hacking the jungle can be used to repair the village fence, and thus earn even more boot licking points.

While destroying the rain forest for future generations, an occasional village enemy will pop out of the brush and attack you. Money-wise, these creatures have some wonderful drops. Mosquitoes drop between one and five Proboscis (stackable), which can easily be sold on the grand exchange for 3500 gp each. Snakes drop their hides, which value around 2k. Spider carcass’s sell for around 800gp. Broodoo Victims tend to be a pain in the butt, but they drop Broodoo masks which can be crafted into Broodoo shields and sold for between 3.5k and 5k depending on the type of mask used. Tribesmen don’t drop much, maybe some bones or a few trading sticks.

There are some things to remember about these threatening creatures. Broodoo victims do not just simply disappear after a while if you run away from them. They will hang around and attack other players, so unless you are a complete noob, try to kill these guys off. Tribesmen and Spiders may poison you, so make sure you have some antipoison with you. Antipoison and food can be purchased (with gp) in the shop just northwest of the village.

While purging the jungle of its life, you may come across an occasional gem bearing rock. If you happen to have a pickaxe in your inventory then you can mine up to three gems from these rocks. These gems can be anything that can be obtained from the Shilo Village gem rocks. Also, occasionally you may stumble upon a Goutweed tuber. Using a spade you can dig it up. The tuber is best utilized by selling it for 38k on the Grand Exchange. However, it can also be planted, sold in the village for a piddly amount of trading sticks, or used as partial payment on an overpriced Softa Doc machete.

Your apple polishing points are shown as the Tai Bwo Favour percentage. At any point you can collect trading sticks from villagers, but once you hit 100% your Favour will cease to rise, so it is in your best interests to start collecting sticks at this point to lower your percentage and avoid doing any unnecessary work. You can collect trading sticks from most of the villagers (they will be holding trading sticks in their hands), but each one will only contribute a portion of the total sticks you are able to obtain (wearing village clothing allows you to collect more sticks from each villager).  So you will have to hit up several villagers as you will not be able to get sticks from the same villager twice in a row.

For the most part the trading sticks aren’t all that useful. You can use them to buy clothing from the village shop or buy machetes from Softa Doc, but their real value comes in two flavors. First, you can use trading sticks to send items to the bank. This is helpful as there is no nearby bank to Tai Bwo Wanni. You can also get into a special wood cutting area northeast of the village for 100 trading sticks. In this area you can chop down Mahogany and Teak logs.

To start this mini game talk to Murcaily in the northeast area of the village.