Hey, many of you may have tried Alien Invasion and the problems just got too hard or you’d been doing it for hours and couldn’t concentrate any longer; so I’m here to give some helpful tips.
1. NEVER use the # pad that they give you at the bottom of the game. Using your keyboard is much easier and quicker.
2. I prefer to use the larger size, but its really your preference on standard vs. larger.
3. Sometimes you’ll type the answer and it won’t shoot, so you’ll get really frustrated because you know its right and all and will keep trying. What may have happened is you hit a key too hard and it double the #. So, just look right below the cannon and see if that’s what you’ve typed so far. If it isn’t, just hit enter and re-select, then type. The backspace key doesn’t work.
4. You can hold your mouse at the top of the screen and as soon as it turns to a hand click on it. Then type the answer. It doesn’t matter if the problem hasn’t come down yet and you can just see the silver bottom. As soon as you select one, the problem will be displayed on the bottom left hand corner.
5. I can’t remember if this is true or not, but I’m pretty sure that if you start on Level 1 and continue instead of starting on Level 9 you get a few extra points.
6. Have at least up to your 12 x 12 times tables memorized. The more you play the more you memorize. Before I could only do to about 13 x 13, and now I can do up to about my 16 x 16’s.
7. If your a really serious player, before you play you can write out the higher times tables you don’t know (not all of them, you’d never finish!), but if you already have them written out on post-its you can stick them around your computer screen or have a legal pad with the higher times tables right next to you. This gives you some more time if you get in a jam so you don’t have to use a calculator.
8. Always have a calculator right next to you. If you can’t locate the problem on your sheet, just punch it into your calculator. Graphing calculators and other complex calculators don’t really help. The big, cheap ones are the best because you don’t have to worry about hitting more than one key and messing up.
9. Don’t play on a fast computer. It’s really boring, especially for the easy problems, but high up if you’re using your calculator a lot, you’ll be thankful.
10. This game takes a LONG time!!!! Those people who got the 100,000’s on the game probably know math really well and have a really fast computer, even then it takes a long time. So, do it on the weekend or another free day if you want to make it to the top- and tell everyone that you’re going to be really bust- family members, friends- and not to bother you.
11. This game takes a long time, so have some music playing, like a play list of a bunch of mp3s on your computer or something.
12. If worst comes to worst, you can always have a friend help by reading the answers of doing all the calculator work for you. That’s all 🙂 And for the record I’m not on the high points list; I just used to play a lot during the summer, but I always got to bored from sitting before I could score high enough.
-Kat
P.S. Hope it helps! 🙂 – Kat