Ant Mania Trophy Challenge: Tips and Hints

If you read Webkinz Newz, then you probably know that there’s an Ant Mania Trophy Challenge coming up this month. The Ant Mania Trophy Challenge lasts from July 28th to July 30th.

I’m not very good at Ant Mania, so I started looking for some tips and hints at how to get a better score. I came across some pretty helpful information, so I thought I would share it with all of you. 🙂 Maybe it will help you get the trophy a little faster!

Let’s talk about the game itself – you’re a large black ant trying to pick up pieces of food on a picnic blanket…while avoiding smaller red ants. The more pieces of food you pick up, the more red ants that appear.

Eventually, after you’ve picked up a certain number of foods, a spider appears. (The number of food pieces that triggers the spider’s appearance varies according to whether you’re playing on easy, medium or hard.

If the spider or one of the red ants touches you, the game is over. You don’t get multiple lives or multiple chances – one touch, and the game is done.

There are three boosters or “Power Ups” that will also appear on the blanket:

To collect a “Power Up,” just run over it the same way you do when picking up a piece of food. Don’t wait too long or the Power Up will disappear. Like collecting a piece of food, collecting a Power Up also adds to your score.

Each Power Up gives you a different type of advantage and lasts only a few seconds. A power bar at the top of the screen shows you how much time you have left with your Power Up. It starts out green when it’s full, then goes to yellow, then orange and finally red just as it’s about to end.

Here’s the snail in action – you can see that it slows down the red ants (it slows down spiders as well):

Now here’s the tennis shoe – it makes the black ant (you) much faster:

Last is the lady bug armor – this protects you from the “enemies,” like a shield. If  you’re wearing the lady bug armor, you can touch a spider or red ant without losing the game:

Now that we’ve covered the basics, here are the tips and hints that I found:

1. The red ants are faster than the black ant, so don’t try to outrun them. Only when you have the tennis shoe/speed “Power Up” are you faster than the red ants.
2. The spider moves faster if you stay still. Once the spider appears, you want to keep moving at all times because the spider’s speed increases when you’re standing still…meaning it can reach you much faster.
3. You can move diagonally. You’re not limited to up/down, left/right. You can move in a diagonal line as well by using two arrow keys at once.
4. When wearing the lady bug armor, don’t waste time trying to hit the ants. There’s no real benefit to purposefully running over the ants while you’ve got the lady buy shield. They’re only stunned for a split second. It’s better to use the time getting as much food as possible.
5. The lady bug armor will start to flash/blink when it’s about to run out. This is helpful because you don’t have to look at the bar up top in order to know when armor will disappear.
6. You get a lot more points per food when you play on hard mode. Playing on easy and medium modes can help you get more comfortable with the game so you can play on hard mode and (hopefully) get a higher score more quickly.
7. You don’t have to run directly over the food. All you need to do is graze the side of the food in order to collect it.

Those are all the tips I have for playing Ant Mania. Do you have any hints for getting a higher score? Are you looking forward to the Ant Mania Trophy Challenge? Let me know in the comments!

Webkinz Berry Fest 2017 Prizes

Berry Fest 2017 kicked off today, and I’m already having “berry much” fun! 🙂 I’m loving this year’s Berry Fest prizes, and it’s great that floaty clicky prizes are back in the rooms and arcade. It makes it sooo much easier to collect all of the day’ prizes.

If you’ve been on Webkinz today, or remember Berry Fest activities from the past, then you know that there are 6 kinds of berries you’ll find floating around Webkinz World:

But…the REAL stars of the show are the Goo Goo Berry and the Polarberry. Why? Because feeding one of these types of berries to your pet will earn you a special prize.

There are two different sets of prizes, but they’re basically the same – just swap out one berry type for the other.

Here’s a picture of the Goo Goo Berry prizes from Webkinz Newz:

And here’s a look at this year’s Polarberry prizes:

As you can see, the prizes are divided into three categories: common, uncommon and rare, which means that you’ll win more of the ice cream cone than you will the car.

I’ve had great luck so far this morning, and I’ve got 3 Goo Goo Berry Cars total. The only prize I don’t have yet is the Polarberry Car.

If you’re wondering how I could have already won so many prizes, it’s because I’ve saved up my Goo Goo Berries and Polarberries from previous years. I like to keep my “special” foods and store them in rooms filled with refrigerators, like this:

This morning I went searching through my refrigerators and found plenty of both kinds of berries stored away:

Let’s take a look at some of the prizes you can win when you feed your pet a Goo Goo Berry or Polarberry during Berry Fest!

First are the preserves…these are fun because you can rotate them and get four different looks:

Here are the 4 ways you can display the Polarberry Preserves:

And here are the 4 ways to display the Goo Goo Berry Preserves:

Next is the chairs, which have a cute country/farmhouse look to them:

You can see that these wooden chairs are adorned with a cushion, and the cushion is decorated with either Goo Goo Berries or Polarberries.

Last up is the Goo Goo Berry Car (I’ll update my post when I finally get a Polarberry car). Take a look at this gif to see what the Goo Goo Berry Car looks like when your pet rides inside (notice the window on the back!):

So, what do you think of the 2017 Berry Fest prizes? Which are your favorites? Let me know in the comments for a Jumbleberry/Berry Fest prize via Kinzpost!

A Brand New Bake Sale Has Arrived!

Today is the start of the brand new Webkinz bake sale celebration! From now through April 30th, you can collect different baked goods and combine them on a stove to “cook up” one of 10 awesome prizes.

Last year’s Bake Sale was so much fun! I’m really excited that Ganz brought it back with new prizes and goodies! I have a few tips for Bake Sale success that I posted last year – click here to read the post and see how you can make the most of this bake sale fun.

Let’s start with the basics – if you want to cook up prizes, you first need to collect the ingredients. The ingredients are 5 different kinds of baked goods, and there are actually 5 different ways to collect them!

1. “Today’s Annoucements” – you get one baked good just for logging into your account.
2. Spin the Wheel of Yum – make sure you head over to Today’s Activities to spin the Wheel of Yum and collect another baked good. (and maybe even win a Blueberry Prize Pie!)
3. Looking for floating baked goods in Webkinz World. Keep your eyes open for the floating baked goods all around Webkinz World – you can collect up to 5 per day!
4. Floating gift box on Webkinz Newz. When you’re doing your daily activities on Webkinz Newz, be on the lookout for the floating blue and white gift box. Click on it to send a gift box back to your Webkinz account – it will contain one baked good!
5. Keep checking Today’s Activities – throughout the day there will be random baked good giveaways, so check the Today’s Activities list to find out when.

As I mentioned above, in total there are 5 different types of baked goods (and they all look so yummy!):

Even though these foods look super yummy, remember that you must cook a specific combination of baked goods on a stove in order to get the prizes – simply feeding them to your pet won’t work. (All of the recipes are available in a cookbook that you get for free just for logging into your account!)

The prizes for this year’s Bake Sale are a little different. There’s no particular theme like last year where you could build a sweet shop or a school cafeteria. This year is a mixture of furniture and accessories that will work with many different themes. There are 10 prizes total – are you going to try to cook up all 10?

Don’t forget about the Grand Prize! Feed your pet a slice of Blueberry Prize Pie for a chance to win this awesome nautical-themed bunk bed:

You can purchase a piece of Blueberry Prize Pie in the Ganz eStore for 2500 eStore points.

Or, if you’re lucky, you might win one when you spin the Wheel of Yum!

I purchased one slice of Blueberry Prize Pie and won another through the Wheel of Yum this morning. Take a look below to see what prizes I got:

Here’s a peek at 3 of the prizes I’ve collected so far:

First is the Mega Modern Carpet, which actually has two different styles/designs depending on which way you turn it:

(This carpet is in a room that I’m building for my Blue Avenue Pomeranian!)

Next is the Campkinz Lake Tile, which is smaller than I thought it would be:

I’m hoping I can make enough Campkinz Lake Tiles to fill up the ocean scene I’ve been working on:

You can see that I’ve used the Cozy Yacht Bed and several items available exclusively on Vacation Island. (Vacation Island is only available to Deluxe members!)

Last up I have the Fancy Hotel Dining Chair:

I’m really excited about this prize because it’s a perfect fit for the Hotel Theme. As you can see, I paired the Fancy Hotel Dining Chair with the Fancy Hotel Dining Table you can buy with Wish Tokens in the Wish Factory. (Remember that Deluxe members can earn tokens each day by spinning the Wheel of Wishes!)

Which of the Bake Sale prizes are your favorites? What’s your plan for collecting as many Baked Goods as possible? Let me know in the comments, and I’ll send you a prize from last year’s Bake Sale! 🙂

Come join in the Reindeer Games!

I was doing some Christmas shopping last night, and I popped into Five Below to look for Webkinz. I was excited to see that they had a few reindeer plushies. I have a couple of reindeer on my TreeHuggerJess account that I adopted with my nephew, but none on my gabirdgirl account. So why was I excited about finding a reindeer? Because of the Reindeer Games, of course!

During the month of December, reindeer owners get a special game to play each day in the “Todays Activities” section. And, there’s even going to be a special prize you can collect on Christmas – the Countryside Christmas Stable:

The Reindeer Games started last year, when Ganz ran a special sale on an pack of eight reindeer. Ganz brought the Reindeer Games back again this year and so far it looks like it’s going to be even better!

One of the best things about the reindeer I got at Five Below was the price…it was only $2.50! And that’s for a full size Webkinz!

I named my reindeer Rhonda…

And I dressed her up for Christmas!

I also love the PSI (pet specific item) that comes with the reindeer – this cute little red sleigh (“Far North Sleigh”) that your pet can ride in:

Click here for a list of the Reindeer Games activities and prizes happening this December.

If you don’t have a Five Below, but you still want to join in the Reindeer Games a plush version and an online only version of the reindeer are both available in the Ganz eStore.