Here’s the best tips I can recommend for anyone wanting to blow this game out of the water:
- Use the “small” game size. Less distance to have to move your mouse = less time lost on the clock = more bonus points. Turn OFF the animations. You will have to do this every time you restart the game.
- Minimize any other windows you have. You will be working in a very small window, and the LAST thing you want is to accidentally click out of the window and have to go find it again. If you click out and onto your desktop, your window will still be up and you won’t lose as much time. (This is recommended for any “clicking” games.)
- Get through the first couple levels as fast as you can. From what I can recall, I have 8 seconds left on level 1, and 16 left on level 3. (I think level two is 12, but I’m not sure at the moment.) If you can’t do level 3 fast enough to get 15-16 seconds left, restart and keep practicing these. This will speed up your response time drastically, and gives you a good start.
- Once you get a few levels in, you’ll start seeing backgrounds of red in addition to the blues. I will VERY QUICKLY run through the whole set until I’ve matched out the red backgrounds first. Remember, even if the two you just flipped haven’t quite turned back over, you CAN already be clicking the next two.
What I mean by run through the whole set is this: I start at the top left, and take the top-most two and flip them, then move down to the next two, etc until I get to the bottom – then I come up using the 3rd and 4th over. Pattern ends up looking something like this:
1-2-16-15
4-3-13-14
5-6-12-11
8-7-9-10
Searching in a pattern similar to this reduces the amount of time you spend moving around on the board, and is easy to keep track of where you are/where you’ve been.
- At this point, you will start having a larger number of matches to make. Pick somewhere between 2 and 5 cards close together (I’ll usually start in the top left corner) and run through the rest of the cards until you match them up. Once you’ve finished those, select a next set, etc.).
- When you get to the point where you start seeing yellow backgrounds, do the same thing as with the reds: get rid of them first. Out of habit, I then go through and try to get rid of the reds, but I usually find myself doing a mix of that, and step 5. Same thing when you start hitting green backgrounds.
- Sometimes, you’ll run into a clump of guys that are the same, but with different backgrounds. (Example: the yellow smiley Kiko, with blue, red, and yellow backgrounds are sitting next to each other.) Try to remember where you saw the clump of them – even if you’re not primarily looking for them, it’s sure easy to get back to them.
- If you’re having trouble remembering where things are take a break. Seriously. I’ve discovered that if I play any matching games for too long – or any memory games for that matter – I start mixing up the current game and a previous game. Take breaks after every 3 times you get into the upper levels, or so, and either go play another game or leave the computer or something. This’ll help you clear your brain of the temporary memory from the games and give you a fresh start.
I will go ahead and try to get a score over 700 again and post my round scores. Might not happen today, but I’ll try to get it done as soon as possible.
Hopefully this will help! Good luck to y’all still trying! – Pickles
Additions
The small window does help, even though it hurts my eyes. I’ve been turning off the animations all along – it definitely takes 1-2 seconds off in the earlier rounds, which is only amplified in later rounds (so probably an extra 100 points right there). I can only average 14 seconds for levels 3 and 4, but I get the same as you for levels 1 and 2. I’ve also been taking a break between rounds – that’s why I’m posting here. I have my own system for going through that works better with my brain (straight across one row at a time, then backwards across the next row), though your way is just as efficient.
What’s really helped is to just look at the yellow backgrounds (or red or green). I just finished level 12 with 83 seconds left – it took a bit of practice on levels 10 and 11 to get the system down, but now I feel like I can really improve my time. I’m working on some suggested times per level based on the allotted times and my current attempts, so please don’t torture yourself by trying again — I’m already playing anyway, so I might as well write some stuff down between rounds! I’ll post my suggested times once I figure them out.
Thanks for all your suggestions – they’ve given me hope again!
ETA: Just finished the game – new high score of 633! Definitely try the smaller window and the matching the weird backgrounds first, for those still struggling.
Kiko Match II Suggested Points Per Round
While I haven’t gotten the needed score yet, I’m getting closer. Here’s the most recent game I played. “Seconds” means how many seconds each round lasts. “Finish Pts” reflects the 10 points you get for finishing each round. “Time Left Pts” equals the time I had left at the end of each round. “Round” is the total score I got for that round, while “total” is the total score I had after completing that round.
The columns of most interest to those who are still trying are the last two columns: “rec round” is the number of seconds I recommend you try for at the end of each round; “rec total” is the total amount of points I recommend having at the end of each round. Note these are guidelines only; I built in an 11 point buffer in case you don’t make it for a particular round. I typed in the “ineedmoretime” code at the beginning of round 14 (I figured I could type it in less than 15 seconds) since every second counts. I hope this, combined with Pickles’s great hints above, will help those of us still struggling to knock this one out of the park.
For those interested in why I picked the recommended numbers, they’re stretch goals of ~5-7 seconds/round faster than my current best at that round (for later rounds where I feel I can actually improve), with the exception of round 11 – you can see I already managed to surpass the stretch goal this time through! My poor scores on some of the later rounds were due to me not waiting long enough between rounds. – Sinriri