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Dubloon Disaster

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Dubloon Disaster Submitted by: top1214

I find the blowing up the bomb method to be a big boring pain. But that's me. If you are like me (may the Lord have mercy on your soul), here's an alternate way to play. Also, I find if I really cared about getting a high score (and this game is too boring and time consuming for me, but I got the av!), I think the two-bomb-blow-'em-up method would lead to me getting blown up by mines randomly popping up in my path. At least that's how I usually die before apathy sets in. A couple of things to note: 1) The edges of the mines are OK to touch. Only the red dots are bad. 2) Your oars can pick up dubloons for you. 3) There will never be more than 9 mines at a time. 4) The closer mines get to you, the faster they move, but your top speed is always higher. 5) The worst part of the game (for me anyway): ~90% of your dubloons are for 2 points, but can account for <<1/2 your score if you play long enough to get a gold dubloon. The Herding Method Here's the goal: get the 9 mines together into a small cohesive blob. A 3x3 square is perfect, but hard to achieve. Anything relatively tight will do, and any shape, though the more one dimensonal is is, the harder it can be to control. Why: If you have 9 mines on the board, no new ones can spawn right in front of you. If the mines are all pretty close to each other, they move in a pack. You can then alter the position of the pack (with some care to keep it cohesive) to easily and safely get dubloons. How: If the mines spawn near to each other, you've won half the battle. When they don't, you have to maneuver them near each other. The way to do this is to form an isoceles triangle between the two mines and your boat, w/your boat being the apex. The mines will gravitate towards you, and towards each other, as in the above method. However, you want to stop about when their spokes start to touch, maybe a little before. This way they are close, but not so close they will blow up accidentally. As more mines appear, you want to form arcs of mine approaching your boat, with your boat being in the middle of the arc. If there is one rogue mine, see if you can't bring him into the fold by swimming between the herd and the rogue, then using the arc approach. Getting dubloons: My herd generally stays near the center of the board, and I constantly circle it, collecting dubloons (this can be early training for Meerca Chase 2's gravity mode perhaps). The reason to try and stay in constant circling motion is to not distort you herd, as mines move faster the closer they get to you (i.e. if you stay to the left of your herd, the left side moves faster and faster towards you, leaving the right side behind). The difficulty comes in when a dubloon spawns w/in the herd. The way to handle this is to see maneuver the herd away from the mine (obviously). To accomplish this, pick the shortest distance to move the herd. Let's say the mine is towards the right edge, so we want to move the herd left. Go to the left edge of the screen. Place your shipin the middle of the arc of ships coming towards you (if we have a 3x3 ship arrangement, we'd want our ship on the left edge, about even with the middle ship). We move to the left edge so the entire herd moves at about the same speed (b/c we are far away), and we choose the middle to keep the group tight. BUT, what if the dubloon doesn't pop out before our herd starts to disintegrate? First of all, don't stay married to that left edge. Keeping the herd together is key. Once you start to move the herd to left, the center of the herd isn't near where the dubloon is. By now moving the ship to the top or bottom (whichever is farther), and positioning ourselves in the middle of the herd, the edge of the herd is still being drawn away from the dubloon. And remember, if you're daring (or bored), you don't have to wait for the dubloon to totally clear the herd; if you angle it right, your oar can skim the dubloon and the edge of a mine.

Dubloon Disaster Submitted by: khalaria

Type scallywags to create a whirlpool. This can only be used once per game.

Dubloon Disaster Submitted by: khalaria

Ahoy buckos! Come to learn a bit o’ the sweet trade, have ye? Aye, well then button yerselves down and listen t’ me bit o’ advice. Yer task be t’ collect dubloons whilst avoiding t’ mines that be dead-set on explodin’ yer rowin’ boat. Start with collectin’ the first two dubloons ye see. Which leaves ye with two mines, it does. Now bamboozle t’ two mines into exploding each other, and ye will have clean sailin’ waters. Trick those blimey buggars by rowin’ the edge of yer screen then bring to. (For ye landlubbers, the meanin’ o’ that be to come to a standstill.) The mines will converge on yer position, yet blow each other t’ bits afore they reach ye. Avast, be wary, if the mines seem to be convergin’ on ye faster than each other, take yerself smartly to t’ other side o’ the screen and begin t’ deception once again. T’ more daring and dashing means to accomplish t’ task be to set yerself betwixt t’ mines to be drawin’ them together all the more quickly. Scoot smartly out o’the way as soon as they be set on t’ course of destroyin’ each other instead o’ ye. If a whirlpool should rear its scurvy head whilst ye are collecting your dubloons, row smartly in the opposite direction, ye should. Row without once relenting, until the whirlpool, its energy be spent. Here be a listin’ o’ the dubloon values so ye be knowin’ which to make headway for without delay:

Dubloon Disaster Submitted by: gnomefriend

The mechanics of this game are very simple. You are paddling around in the ocean in this little zippy boat and picking up dubloons of varying values that are floating about. The dubloons don't move so it is even easier to grab them. All you have to do is move the boat (using the arrow keys) over or next to the dubloon to pick it up. The catch is (and there are always catches) that every time you pick up a dubloon, a mine shows up on the water and starts to follow you. This could be a bad thing BUT since the mines follow you, you can move them around the water to get them away from the dubloon you are trying to get. If you have more then 1 mine floating in the water, move the boat to a point where you have 2 mines follwing you at the same time. As you move away, they will keep following you and slowly get closer to each other. When they meet, BOOM, they are no longer a danger to you. Those are the basics of the game. One other challenge that pops up is every once in a rare while, a whirlpool shows up instead of a mine. This whirlpool will draw your boat and any mines to it. BUT you can move away from it as long as you don't get to close. Try to pick up dubloons while the whirlpool is active (it doesn't hang around too long) cause it will suck up those mines when they appear. The game takes a little patience and even less eye/hand coordination. The dubloons values are 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100 and 200 points. The higher the point value the rarer the dubloon is found. I only play this for the NP opportunities so I only need to earn 167 points to get my 1000np. I am not sure if the mechanics change after you go above 500 points since I have yet to get that high a score on it. Anyway, have fun playing and good luck!