Feed the Scorchpot Shop and Tools

The shop is open during the year unless a tantrum scorches it. That single rule decides whether Feed the Scorchpot feels like a cozy market or a closed kitchen. Ducats come from leftover harvest and from buildings that print gold. You spend them on recipes, buildings, dice, tools, and artifacts.

This page is the bag: consumables and panic buttons. Permanent pieces live on Recipes, Buildings, and Dice. Strategy for when to open the wallet lives in the walkthrough and Scoring Combos.

Tools versus artifacts versus recipes

Tools are mostly one-shot. Reviewers describe extra Marks, tile conversions, and similar jokers. You spend them to fake a harvest you did not earn.

Artifacts (and similar relics) last longer: a doubled recipe window, a standing bonus, a rule-bender. They are still not a board. They make a board louder.

Recipes are the actual meal. If you are buying a tool because you refused a matching recipe, you are paying twice.

Extra Marks

An extra Mark is a fourth pair you did not roll. It is the cleanest panic button in the game. Spend it when two farms are dark and a third number would complete a legal recipe. Do not spend it to paint a 12 you never built. That is a fireworks show for the dragon.

Tile conversion

Converters change a hex’s food type or number for a window. They are how you salvage a bad seed or a scorched peninsula. Convert toward the recipe you already own, not toward a fantasy pantry. After the conversion expires, the island is still the island. Island Layout still matters.

Doublers and rule benders

Effects that double a recipe or break a payment rule are how scores explode. They are also how you waste a year if you fire them on a raw cook. Prime them when Flavor is already in the pot. The Quill-style doubler mentioned in previews is the model: temporary, enormous, not a lifestyle.

Inventory discipline

Keep one tool. Spend one tool. A full pocket and a dead village is a comedy achievement you do not want. Late walkthrough years are when you spend. Early years are when you save one convert for a tantrum.

Shopping under fire

If the dragon warns that the shop will scorch, buy the matching recipe and the die you already decided on. Do not window-shop. A scorched shop means the bag you hold is the bag you have. Prosperity-scorch years disable a passive multiplier; those years are when a tool that adds raw Marks beats a gold printer.

Ducat sources

Gold printers are buildings. Leftover food converting to ducats is the other tap. Do not starve the dragon to get rich. A failed year is the most expensive shop mistake because there is no next season.

When the bag is sorted, return to the Items hub or jump to Dragons if you are unlocking a meaner landlord instead of a meaner tool. For live odds, keep Dice Odds open while you decide whether a Mark tool is even necessary.

A year-eighteen shopping script

Open the shop only after you know this season’s Marks. If two farms are already lit, you do not need an extra-Mark tool. If the recipe is already legal, you do not need a converter. Gold spent on a redundant joker is gold you cannot spend on next year’s Essence partner. The recipes tier list is the calmer purchase.

If the warning banner says the shop will scorch, the script collapses to one line: buy the match. Window-shopping is how a closed kitchen happens with a full wishlist. If prosperity is the thing on fire, a gold printer is a joke. Marks and Flavor still cook. Ducats do not.

Tools are rentals. Buildings are mortgages. Recipes are the meal. Spend like you understand the difference.