The Great Trophy Chase: Scrambled

When I first came up with the idea of The Great Trophy Chase I didn’t plan on trying for a Scrambled trophy, but this weekend I won a Scrambled trophy on both of my accounts!

The trophy looks like a folded omelette:

It’s also animated and bounces up and down:

Scrambled, which is actually called “Webkinz Scrambled” if you’re looking for it in the arcade, is a lot like Pizza Palace. Instead of pizza, though, you’re cooking up omelettes for a line of customers.

Here’s what the basic game play looks like:

(That’s my Strawberry Cloud Leopard named Lila – I also got the high score that day!)

You blend up one or more eggs plus one or more ingredients, depending on what type of omelette the customer has ordered. You put the omelette on the grill, pick it up once its cooked and put in on the customer’s plate.

Scrambled sounds deceptively easy because it’s more challenging than it first may seem. There are only 10 levels total – when you pass the 10th level you win the trophy. Levels 1 through 4 are pretty simple; even Level 5 isn’t too hard. It’s around Level 6 when some new challenges start to get thrown your way.

I’ve gahtered up some tips for Webkinz Scrambled that I think will help you pass the higher levels and eventually win that cool trophy. 🙂

First, there are two very important things to keep in mind while playing Scrambled. One is that every second counts. Two, stay calm and don’t panic when the customer starts to get angry.

What do I mean by an angry customer? Well, just like in Pizza Palace, a customer will start to show signs of anger (frowny face, puffs of smoke) when they’ve been waiting for a long time.

Here’s what an angry customer looks like in Scrambled:

There’s some good news, though. Customers may seem to lose their temper pretty quickly, but they actually stick around for quite a long time even after they’ve started to let out puffs of smoke/steam. It can be tempting to keep looking up at the customer or to get frazzled by their impatience. If you want to win the trophy, though, you have to practice ignoring the signs of anger and just keep playing the game calmly.

My next important tip is to only take care of two customers at a time. Now, there are five plates total, which means in the higher levels you’ll always have five customers waiting to be served. If this was Pizza Palace, I would suggest that you multitask and take several customers’ orders at once.

However, in Scrambled, you can’t really multitask – there’s only one blender, and you can’t buy more blenders, a faster stove, etc. Click on the first customer in line. Take their order and start blending up the ingredients. Once that omelette is on the grill, take the next customer’s order and blend it up while the first omelette is cooking.

That’s it. Just two customers at a time. Keep using this strategy throughout the whole level on every level. Just ignore the line of customers that start to crowd up in the back. I promise you can win the trophy with this strategy.

Staying calm and sticking to your strategy is how you earn your trophy. However, that doesn’t mean you can go slow or just take your time. Like I said before, in Scrambled, every second counts – even a split second counts!

So here are some tips and tricks I’ve learned to keep you from wasting any valuable time.

1. Keep your egg tray full

In the higher levels customers will start asking for four and five eggs in their omelettes, which will empty your tray of eggs quickly. Click on the stack of egg cartons to refill your tray – you don’t have to wait until the tray is completely empty.

Fill up the tray any chance you get or you could find yourself with an empty tray and having to wait to fill the next order. Also, don’t stop to watch the egg tray fill up. Just keep moving on with the order.

2. Dump in the ingredients as quickly as possible – you don’t have to go one at a time.

You see the cheese, onions and tomatoes in the bowls above? Those are the three ingredients you have to work with. Just go click, click, click. You don’t have to wait for one of the ingredients to fully empty into the blender before you can click on the next one.

3. The omelette only needs to go one shade darker

Scrambled is different from the Cooking Class where the pancakes must go two shades darker before they’re ready to be served. As soon as you see the omelette go one shade darker, that means it’s done and ready to be served.

4. You don’t have to babysit the blender

Once the ingredients are in, and you’ve clicked the button to start up the blender, it will do all the work on its own – including stopping on its own when the mixing has finished. So just start up the blender and focus on the next task.

5. Be precise about where you click

I’ve found that being sloppy with your clicking, especially when cooking and serving the omelettes, will waste valuable time. The game doesn’t give you much leeway in where you click in order to perform a task. Click directly on the omelette to serve it, and click directly in the middle of the customer in order to put the omelette on the plate. For me, this has been one of the most important time savers I’ve developed.

6. From Level 6 onward, each customer wants all 3 ingredients

You’ll notice this one on your own, but just remember that in Levels 6 through 10, each customer is going to ask for all three of the ingredients, so you only have to worry about the number of eggs.

One last important tip – serve the customers in order of arrival!

As I mentioned above, there are 5 plates on the counter. In the first few levels, the customers go to each plate in order from left to right, so it’s really easy to keep track of who you should serve next.

Unfortunately, this gets trickier in the later levels. Instead of lining up neatly from plate 1 to plate 5, now each customer will simply appear at the counter wherever an empty plate happens to be. This means you can’t just keep moving left to right and still be serving the customers in order.

What happens if you serve the customers out of order? Well, as we saw above, customers get angry when they have to wait. If the customer waits too long, POOF! They disappear. You only get so many “tries” on each level. If you lose too many customers in one level, the game is over.

So what’s the solution? There’s two parts. First, use your peripheral vision to see what animal has stepped up to which color plate. By that, I mean look from the corner of your eye while still working on blending and cooking up the omelettes. Second, if you’re not sure who’s next, look to see who’s starting to get angry. If a customer has started “smoking” or “steaming,” then they’ve been there the longest and that’s who you should serve.

Whew! I know that was a lot of information, but I hope it was helpful. When you pass Level 10 you’ll see this message, and you’ll know you won the trophy:

So what do you think about Scrambled? Are you going to try to win the Webkinz Scrambled trophy? Let me know in the comments!

The Great Trophy Chase: Zingoz Pop

Zingoz Pop is all about matching colors and popping bubbles. It’s a simple game, and  you can earn lots of kinzcash by playing it. Here’s my overview of Zingoz Pop, as well as some tips for playing the game.

First, and this is very important, if you want to win the trophy, you have to play in “normal” mode. You cannot win the trophy in “easy” mode. Easy mode only has 10 levels. Normal mode has 30 levels, and you must pass all 30 levels to win the trophy.

If you need to get more familiar with the game and get a feel for how you can bounce the bubbles off of the wall, spend some time playing in easy mode.

At the beginning of each level in easy mode, you’ll get a yellow line that shows you exactly where your bubble is going to go when you shoot it. Sometimes in order to make the most efficient moves, you need to bounce a bubble off one of the side walls. Using the line guide to practice will help you learn how the bounces work.

So what is Zingoz Pop all about?

The basic idea behind Zingoz pop is simple. You start with a formation of colored bubbles. As time goes by, the bubbles slowly descend downward. You must clear (or pop) all of the bubbles before they pass the “game over” line near the bottom of the screen.

In order to clear bubbles, you must group bubbles of the same color together. Connect three or more bubbles of the same color, and the bubbles will “burst” or “pop,” clearing them from the board.

Bubbles are shot out of a cannon at the bottom of the screen. You use your arrow keys to move the cannon left and right.

You’ll notice a colored ball on the cannon – that tells you what color the NEXT bubble will be, so in order to plan your moves you must remember the color one move in advance.

Don’t worry, though. This isn’t as tricky as it may sound. Once you’ve played Zingoz Pop a few times you’ll get the hang of it.

At the beginning of the game, you’ll be given the chance to choose one of four boosters.

Each booster does something special that will help you clear the board faster.

In order to earn a booster, you must clear a group of sparkling bubbles.

Sparkling bubbles look like this:

Sparkling bubbles appear randomly, and lose their sparkle after a few seconds. Once the sparkle is gone, so is your chance to earn a booster!

My favorite booster is the Burst Bubble, the one that looks like a rainbow.

The Burst Bubble’s special power is to clear all of the bubbles of the same color. For example, if you use your Burst Bubble to hit a yellow bubble, all of the yellow bubbles will disappear.

Here’s the Burst Bubble in action:

There’s also the Bowling Ball, which really does look like a bowling ball.

This booster will allow you to blast through a line of bubbles. The Bowling Ball can be a big help if you’re stuck in a jam, particularly if your bubbles are getting really close to the “game over” line.

Take a look at the Bowling Ball being used in game play:

Now let’s talk about the Super Bubble.The Super Bubble is the one with the star.

This booster pops all the bubbles it touches. I also think the Super Bubble is good for quickly getting out of a sticky situation.

Here’s how the Super Bubble works:

Last is the Line Guide. The Line Guide is the same  yellow line that you get at the very beginning of the game.

It guides you in pointing the cannon the right direction in order to get your bubble to land in a certain spot. The Line Guide is my least favorite booster because it won’t get you out of a jam or clear a lot of bubbles instantly. Everything the Line Guide does is something you can learn on your own with a bit of practice.

The Line Guide looks like this:

One interesting thing about Zingoz Pop is that the levels don’t necessarily get progressively hard as the game goes on. Same of the later levels are actually pretty easy, while some of the earlier levels are quite challenging. Each level is different and presents a unique challenge. There’s a lot of skill involved in Zingoz Pop, but unfortunately, there’s an element of luck, too. Sometimes you just don’t get the colors you need in order to make it work.

Zingoz Pop is a game that most anyone can master with time and practice. Levels that use to really stump me now seem easy, but I’m still a long way from the trophy. So far I’ve only made it to level 16. Level 7 is still a tough one for me, and I usually lose at least one life on Level 7.

Currently Zingoz Pop is only for Deluxe members. If you want to play Zingoz Pop and other Deluxe only games, you can check out the different Deluxe Membership options at the Ganz eStore. Deluxe Memberships come with lots of perks and free gifts.

Do you like Zingoz Pop? What level have you reached? Let me know in the comments!

The Great Trophy Chase: Dogbeard’s Gold

Dogbeard’s Gold is a Webkinz Arcade game featuring your favorite pirate – Dogbeard!

The goal of Dogbeard’s Gold is to launch Dogbeard from one spinning platform to the next, collecting jewels and gold coins along the way.

You can either press the spacebar or click your mouse to make Dogbeard jump. There’s a handy arrow that shows you which direction Dogbeard will “fly,” so you can line the arrow up with the jewels/gold coins and get as many as possible.

Here’s a look at the arrow:

Dogbeard’s Gold actually gives medals rather than trophies, but they still look great in a trophy room!

You get a bronze medal at 10,000 points, a silver medal at 50,0000 points and a gold medal at 100,000 points. So far I’ve only been able to earn the bronze medal. My highest score has been just under 28,000 points.

I have a couple of tips to help you earn your medals. First, I use the mouse rather than the spacebar. For me, the mouse is quicker and more accurate.

Second, really pay attention to racking up those jewels and coins in the early stages of the game. When you hit all of the gems/coins without missing any, you start building up a “combo.”

You can see your combo progress in the lower right hand corner of the screen. Your combo number is how many gems/coins you’ve hit in a row. As soon as you miss a gem/coin, your combo goes back to zero.

Creating high combo numbers is important because you have the ability to quadruple your score. When you get a combo of 30, you start getting 2x the points, at 60 it’s 3x the points and if you can hit a combo of 90 you’ll get 4x the points. The points start to add up really fast at 4x, and you’ll hit the bronze medal very quickly.

In the beginning stages of the game, the platforms spin more slowly, so hitting the coins/gems is a bit easier. Also, you don’t have to rush. You get a full rotation of the platform before your combo number starts over. So while you can’t just spin around endlessly, you can complete one spin without losing your progress.

A little compass-shaped clock in the lower right hand corner of the screen shows you how much time you have before your combo starts over:

Another tip – and this is something I only recently learned – is that you actually get TWO jumps per platform. If you miss the platform on the first jump, you can click one more time for a second jump. This second jump can save you when Dogbeard starts to plummet.

As the game progresses, you will come across platforms that are triangle shaped map pieces:

For me, these are a bit trickier than the round platforms, but the more you play the game, the easier it will become to time your jumps from the map pieces.

One last thing to look out for – sometimes the jewel/coin chain is really steep. Here’s a picture to show you what I mean:

In those cases, I usually focus on jumping to the next platform, and I don’t worry about trying to collect the gems/coins. Even though you lose the points, you’re still progressing in the game, and you’ll have plenty more opportunities to earn points.

Currently Dogbeard’s Gold is only available to Deluxe members. (Visit the Ganz eStore to learn about Deluxe memberships.) But, if it’s the Game of the Day, anyone can play, and you can earn yourself some medals for your trophy collection!

Good luck!

 

The Great Trophy Chase: Jumbleberry Blast

One of the trophies I’m working hard to win during The Great Trophy Chase is Jumbleberry Blast. I haven’t gotten it yet, but in the process of working towards the trophy I’ve come up with a few tips for playing the game.

First, for an overview of the game, check out the post I did back when Jumbleberry Blast was first added to the Webkinz Arcade: New Webkinz Arcade Game: Jumbleberry Blast

You can also learn about the game from the post on Webkinz Newz announcing the release of Jumbleberry Blast: New Arcade Game

To see the game in action, watch my video of Jumbleberry Blast game play.

Jumbleberry Blast is currently only available to Deluxe members, but keep your eyes open because Jumbleberry Blast is available to everyone when it’s the “Game of the Day.” (Visit the Ganz eStore for more info on how to become a Deluxe member.)

There are 30 levels in Jumbleberry Blast. Each of these level requires you to do some combination of these four things:

1. Earn a certain number of points
2. Clear rot
3. Drop jars
4. Clear bugs

Some levels require you to achieve only one goal, like clearing 12 square of rot. Other levels combine obstacles, such as having you drop jars while clearing bugs. (My blog post and video dive deeper into how the game works.)

There are some things I know about Jumbleberry Blast now that I didn’t know when I did the first post about it. For example, I know now that the bugs are introduced in level 21. They look like flies, and you clear the flies by clearing the berries next to the flies.

The flies also make an appearance in Level 28:

Shiny berries:

The shiny berries are introduced in Level 4. Shiny berries are your best friend in clearing levels in Jumbleberry Blast and in getting a higher score.

Making a chain of seven or more berries will earn you a “shiny” berry. These special berries will clear a whole row, either vertically (up and down) or horizontally (side to side), depending on the direction of their “shine.”

You can get multiple shiny berries at once by making a chain of 14 or 21 (multiples of 7). Getting a chain of 21 is pretty rare, but getting one of 14 isn’t too difficult. Always go for the longest chain possible!

You can also use one shiny berry to trigger another shiny berry. Here’s a picture of what I mean – the yellow shiny berry with the horizontal shine (right side) is going to “trigger” the yellow shiny berry with the vertical shine (left side).

When you create this kind of chain reaction with the shiny berries, you are able to clear two rows with one move!

Bonus points:

Try to clear the level using as few moves as possible in order to earn bonus points. You will get 10 bonus points for each move that you have left. For instance, if you have 3 moves left at the end of the level, you’ll be awarded 30 bonus points.

Take your time:

Remember that the game isn’t timed, so go slowly and think through your options. You can take as much time as you need in order to figure out how to make the longest chain possible.

Those are all the tips I have for Jumbleberry Blast right now. Do you have any advice on winning the Jumbleberry Blast trophy? Let me know in the comments!

The Great Trophy Chase

If you’ve read a few of my blog posts, you’ve probably figured out that I really like to collect trophies! I decided to go on a little mission through the month of March and chase down as many new trophies as I can! Want to join me?

I’m calling it The Great Trophy Chase, and I hope to make it an annual tradition.

I haven’t figured out what all I’m going to do yet, but I’m so excited that I wanted to go ahead and share my idea. We’ll have contests, giveaways, tips, advice and great information.

You know sometimes I can get busy with my real world life, so even though The Great Trophy Chase is a March event, I’m going to get started now and get some posts going this last few days of February.

I’d love to hear your ideas – what kind of posts, contests and giveaways would you like to see during The Great Trophy Chase? (Don’t worry – I’ll still be making other posts about all kinds of topics, too!)

So let’s chase down those trophies! On your mark, get set…GO! 🙂