Not to be confused for a washing machine, the Wishing Machine is a potential path to great loot in Once Human that’s every bit as fun as it is gimmicky.
Simply put, the Wishing Machine is a gacha game where you can gamble currency (don’t worry, there’s no pay-to-win or micro-transactions here) to possibly score Blueprints or gear. While the Wishing Machine is straightforward, finding it isn’t so simple. Read on to learn how to find and use the Wishing Machine in Once Human.
Where to find the Wishing Machine in Once Human
I’ll preface this by saying I didn’t play the second beta of Once Human a few months ago, so I can’t say with certainty that the Wishing Machine has completely switched places in the third and current beta. However, that does seem to be the case. If you’ve followed another gaming guide to no avail, chances are it’s still referencing the outdated information that was true only during the second beta tests.
As of April 2024, the Wishing Machine is located in Greywater Camp, which can be reached by traveling north from Deadsville. It’s a bit of a trek (you’ll definitely want a motorcycle), however, it is the first settlement north of Deadsville that shares the same type of map icon, and that icon will be visible but grayed out even when you haven’t discovered Greywater Camp. This means you shouldn’t have trouble pinpointing and traveling to Greywater Camp—but just in case, here is the exact location highlighted on the map.
Once you’ve reached Greywater Camp, head into the small shack next to the Teleportation Tower in the center of town, and you’ll see the Wishing Machine. The pink light and music from the Wishing Machine are both super noticeable even before entering the shack.
How to use the Wishing Machine in Once Human
Using the Wishing Machine is fairly straightforward, but it does have some quirks. You need to spend Starchrom as a currency to “draw” in the machine—you can make one draw for 500 Starchrom or 10 draws for 5,000. Each draw will give you one item from a set pool of Blueprints, Cosmetics, or pieces of gear.
Once you’ve gotten a specific piece, it is removed from the drawing pool, so you don’t need to worry about pulling duplicates. There are also different prize pools that will continue to become available throughout the beta, so while, at the time of writing, there is only one pool to draw from, more options will continue to become available.
When you draw from the Wishing Machine, there is a little animation in which you have to hit a llama with a mallet Whack-A-Mole style. Don’t worry: You can’t actually miss, and which llama you do or don’t hit doesn’t have any actual effect on your prize. In fact, you can toggle “Skip Cutscene” at the bottom of the Wishing Machine, which will remove this llama whacking section altogether if you so desire.
How to get more Starchrom for the Wishing Machine
Thankfully, Starchrom is easy to come by. Every single Task, Event, and Log-In reward will give you more Starchrom. However, almost none of these rewards happen automatically, so you need to make sure you’re actually claiming rewards manually.
This means opening your Task Journal by pressing J and claiming any rewards there, opening the Events tab from the Esc menu and claiming rewards there, and also clicking on the Current Season option on the top right of the menu and claiming rewards there. To be transparent, the way these various rewards are categorized and claimed is kind of a mess. You really do need to be exceptionally diligent, or you’ll end up walking around with thousands of unclaimed Starchrom hiding behind various obscure menu options.
While every reward in Once Human will give you some Starchrom, the weekly events are the real cream of the crop, and the only ones that reward you thousands at a time. All this means is that while you can earn Starchrom throughout the week, most of the currency is just going to be locked behind weekly challenges, and you’ll need to wait for future weeks to rake in the big bucks.
