I bet you all are tired of looking at 100 FAQs that tell where to bounce and that’s it. Well, this tells a little more than that
~Items, bad guys, and other moving stuff~
~bronze 5-dubloon piece: don’t do after these unless it wont cause you much trouble, like in levels 1, 3, 5 and so on. usually if you completely distort your patterns by chasing a coin, your time bonus will counteract it, or worse.
~silver 10-dubloon piece: same story as the 5-dubloon piece. the only difference is that at the end of each level when the gold bonus is divided by 10, its rounded so the bronze ones count too
~gold 20-dubloon piece: only slightly more useful, go after these a bit more often but if they cost you a good minute or 2 of work, don’t even try it.
~wooden chest w/silver sides (50 gold): a step up from the others, go after these more often as it is not very likely going after something will cost you 5 of your time bonus
~wooden chest w/gold sides (75 gold): also a step up, i suggest going after these unless it requires going through oh say….2 techo pirates
~GOLDEN chest (100 gold): go after these at ALMOST all costs. if it requires a heal point or 2, oh well. if it requires going right next to a skeleton pirate, why not go through a water tile instead?
(the treasure bonus is gold divided by 10, but rounded so if you get 25, it counts as 3 points instead of 2.5)
~cannon: these things are so annoying…they don’t follow you and are QUITE stupid, but make very good guards…they usually wont move away from the tile you want to get to
~Mynci pirate: just your normal basic grunt. they bounce around at random but don’t get TOO close…they’ve also been known to corner helpless blumaroos in small spaces
~Techo pirate: oh i HATE these things…I wish that blumaroo had a gun, or at least a weapon to deal with these… similar to the mynci pirates but they FOLLOW you. the only good that can come from that is luring them to swords
~Skeleton pirate: to tell you the truth, I don’t know what these are, but i suggest you stay away from them, as they do A LOT more damage than the normal pirates or so I’ve heard
~Cube crate: holy headaches, these are even worse than the techos. in levels like 4 and 6 where the tiles go into cycle, collect these at all costs, because if they detonate, they turn a random section of the field back to the normal brown color, which has basically the same effect as jumping in water in those levels
~sword: useful, use on the most troublesome enemy on the field (doesn’t work on crates too well, and haven’t tried these on skeletons yet)
~Stages, and what they look like
Stage 1: this is basically just a 8×8 square. lots of freedom, do what you want
Stage 2: similar to stage 1, but with a 2×2 puddle in the middle. the puddle doesn’t make it any more difficult
Stage 3: also similar to stage one, but has 4 small puddles in this formation (p=puddle)
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…a number of strategies work for this, so keep your wits about you
Stage 4: there’s no REAL way to explain this one except to show it, but its a step up from the other 3
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Stage 5: ooh I HATE this one, especially the corners in cycle levels
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Stage 6 and later: coming soon, my mind is asleep right now.
~Levels, what cycles, and what strategies to use (note that when I say time limit, I mean that ONLY for the full 10 point time bonus)
Level 1: this one is overly simple, brown goes to yellow and STAYS yellow. the ONLY annoyance here is the strict time bonus (0:30), and the occasional mynci
Level 2: brown to yellow in cycle. almost as simple, but if you mess up somewhere, you’ll find yourself doing various patterns to complete the level (time limit 1:00)
Level 3: brown to yellow to red in a red/yellow/red cycle. this is slight step up, and much changes.
1. as opposed to doing stages 1-5, you do stages 2-6.
2. techos come out and play. how annoying
3. the time limit is 1:30. not surprising
Level 4: brown to yellow to red in complete cycle. avoid water and stop crates or your in trouble. stages 3-7 take place here, and i THINK the time limit is 2:00 though i did level 4 stage 3 in 37-ish seconds
Level 5: brown to yellow to red to green with green/red/green in cycle. stages 4-8, but this is literally EASIER than level 4. still, keep your wits about you (time limit unknown from here on)
Level 6: brown/yellow/red/green in full cycle, this is even worse than level 4, and almost ALWAYS do i get nailed on either the 5th or 6th stage here. (1st or 2nd faced, since its most likely 5-9) same rules apply, no water, no crates, no techo damage, no getting cornered, and you SHOULD be able to make it within 2 or 3 minutes
(level 7 and above coming soon. I haven’t made it there just yet)
~Neopoints and dubloons:
The amount of neopoints won is equal to your score, not including the dubloons
Score ratings by my own judgment:
0-299: Oh come on! you can do better than that! (no dubloon)
300-499: I landed in the 450s when I played this for the first time. its pretty much the ‘average’ (1 dubloon coin awarded)
500-749: usually expected for people who normally get nailed in late level 4 to late level 6. this is ‘skilled’ (2 dubloon coin awarded)
750-999: my high score is currently 740, literally just 10 away from this, which kinda annoys me because that was 1 inch away from 3 more dubloons worth. this is ‘highly skilled’ (5 dubloon coin awarded or so i heard)
1000+??: you have to be REALLY good to get this, and from what i heard skeleton pirates will get in the way of this score range. (10 dubloons coin awarded i heard, plus there JUST MIGHT be a score range higher than that with a bigger reward)
~extras~
if you are using dubloons purely for the training academy like I am, know when to quit. if your pet is lvl 1-10, drown yourself at 300, 500 for 11-20, and so on. I’ve found it almost LITERALLY impossible to exchange a 2-dubloon coin for a 1-dubloon coin by ANY method. if your NOT using dubloons, they usually sell for like 1500 for 1 dubloon, 2500 for a 2 dubloon coin, and so on. fact is, I haven’t seen orange dubloons (worth 1000) sell for less than 100000 np anywhere…probably 600k and INSANELY rare items at the trading post
if you are cornered by oh say…a cannon and moving would risk serious damage, then DON’T unless you have to. in some 10 minute level cases, I’ve found treasure bonuses that when piled up by time HEAVILY outweighed the dead time bonus – MetaStaiford2