Games Master Challenge 2015

[Kaljinyu]

In defense of your friends, I'm sure they didn't mean to aggravate you. It's like when I bother the people who are the objects of my fandom. I know you need your privacy, but it's just I need your judgement so badly so if you could just take some time to give me a statement... I'm sure I'm not bothering you too much...

And aha! There ya go, Aristotle retired. This is some guy named Alexander.

EDIT: And missing stuff, Pikachu? The GMC is below standard and Mac, though she tried to shut the door, has had her young eyes exposed to the carnal and inconvenient truths of our new Jumpstaff mommies and daddies. That's basically it.

[The Scrac that Smiles Back]

This is really bad timing for a GMC, but team fire.

[Huntress]

Tch, Alexander is a much better name anyway. I posit that he finally got sick of people making fun of his name all the time and decided to turn it into something like Buck McFistbacon.

Then his agent pitched a fit and declared that AAA is a well-known trademark for the public and he can't get rid of the initials. So they settled on a compromise.

Then the public pitched a fit and he had to change it back.

And this is why we can't have nice things.

*prods the teams* Element-wise, I could really go for either one, nifty way to set it up this year. Joined Snow for the plain practical reason that I always liked the various snow- and winter-related games more.

[The Scrac that Smiles Back]

Huntress

That's a good reason. I joined fire even though I like snow themed games on Neo more because... fire trophies will probably look better >_>

[Ian Wolf-Park]

... Urgh, Wingoball.

[Liou]

Yay, Wingoball! =D

(So I didn't want to take part in any events because of how the site's being run, but then I saw that one of the teams was snow... and I thought, "Ah, we meet again, my old archenemy..." and I know that a lot of people will pick snow because a lot of people like snow for whatever reason, but I WANT TO FIGHT THAT FOUL THING, GO FIREEEEEE)

[The Scrac that Smiles Back]

Hrm, for today's challenge only one looks do-able with my skill set. The boat and arrows would be awesome if they were wearable.

[Huntress]

Aghagh, so the first day's challenge with its piddly easy scores was up for a day and a half and the second day with Wingoball of DEATH and Itchy Invasion of EVEN MORE DEATH for maybe 12ish hours? Welp, not that the extra time would've made me any better at meticulously shooting petpetpets.

*prods Ultimate Bullseye II glumly* Yanno, I used to be really good at the original Bullseye, then they remade it and the controls are so unintuitive that I never played it much after that. Although my highscore looks to be 86 so I've clearly been able to play it at some point.

*gave it a shot, got 7 points*

*needs a TARDIS*

[Duke Pikachu]

Today was the first day that was a bit of a challenge for me. I also have things to say about several of the prizes. I probably should have been posting my thoughts and maybe some tips on here, sorry. But better late than never, right?

DAY 1:

SPOILER: Click to show

DAY 1:
Challenges:
1. But There's So Much To Choose From! (Add 4 Qualifying Games to your Favourites)
Apparently there is (or was) some problems completing this one. People fixed it by clearing their Favourites List so if you're having problems try that (you may want to write down what games you had on your Favorites list before you do, though).
2F. Those Blasted Rocks! (Score 60 or higher in Magma Blaster)
The main thing about Magma Blaster is getting used to switching between the ammo. Assign your fingers on the number keys and memorize which finger means what ammo.
The final tip I can provide (since it's really not that hard to get 60 in this game once you get used to switching between the ammo) is try to get the rocks in the center of the reticle as you'll get more points.  
2S. Take Cover.. (Score 45 or higher in Snow Wars II)
Bleh, I don't really like this game BUT I did complete it when the Progress page was glitched. If you just want to get to 45 focus on building one fort around a snowman at a time (remember you need to leave a 2x2 space next to the snowman to place the catapult). If you have time you can try building around another snowman but I myself never got past two (and usually I only get to make one). If you're having a problem placing a snow piece just "discard" it by placing it someplace out of the way. You have unlimited snow pieces but limited amount of time.
Once you get that done the "battle" round begins. Focus on shooting the Snowbeasts with catapults. The Lupes are annoying to hit, try to aim somewhere between where they are now and in front of them for a best chance to get them. However it's likely the round will end before you clear all (if any) of them. You have one shot per catapult you built, and you can't fire another snowball from a catapult until its previous snowball had vanished. Make your shots count.
THIS IS IMPORTANT! on the next building around rebuilt the snow fort which has the catapult around it since it you don't you can't use the catapult next round (and if it's your only one it's game over). Otherwise do as I suggested during the first build round. Rinse and repeat and you'll get to 45 soon enough.
Prizes:
1. My Favorite Games (Toy)(These are a few of my favourite games!)
A bit bland but not a bad idea... though is also a bit of a sign JS doesn't know much about Neopets mythology. Why do I say that? Well these CDs thus are video games which you need a computer or game console to play... which doesn't really exist in Neopets. Yes there's the Virtupets Space Station but still one reason TNT didn't make computer or video games items is because they wanted to make Neopets a fantasy world which encourages players to imagine their Neopets running around and exploring, not in front of a screen.
2. Snow and Fire Blaster (Toy)(This handy contraption may look deceptively simple, but it can fire both snowballs and fireballs.)
Ooh, this sounds like it would make for an interesting weapon... oh, its a toy. What's with JS and not wanting to make new weapons? Are they afraid to do anything with the Battledome? The BD is one of the most iconic places on the site and you can do SO MUCH with it. Come on JS, at worst you'll have to undo things you did if you break something but I have a feeling TNT made a way for them to create new weapons in a way to prevent that from happening.

DAY 2:

SPOILER: Click to show

DAY 2:
Challenges:
1. Please Stand Still (Score 790 of higher in Wingoball)
To get 790 you're going to need to make sure to get the first throw bonus on most levels. Practice makes perfect, though JN's Level Guide can get you through just as fine too.
2. Itchy Bitsy Fleas (Score 560 or higher in Itchy Invasion)
Once again, this one you may need some practice if you're not used to playing it. Well first thing first, the thing that'll end your game the most will probably be running out of ammo. Now when you're low on ammo an alert will appear... BUT you still have three shots left. I suggest shooting at least one more (but obviously no more than 2) P3s before shooting a green robot to refill your ammo to max.
Now if you're careful with your shots when its time for you to refill your ammo a green robot should appear. So if you're really low on ammo but it hasn't appeared yet don't worry about letting a few P3s get by, your first priority is keeping your ammo filled. As long as you don't let too many past that it fills the Itch Meter your should be okay.
Also be sure to hit the purple robot as they're a screen nuke and will help keep your Itch Meter low and reserve your ammo.
Now, by the third round blue P3s will start appearing hanging high up on hairs or flying. FOCUS ON THEM. They're worth the most points and if you need to let one or two P3s on the ground to get pass to get one of the blue ones then do it.
Also type "pest" to instantly refill your ammo once per game. Try to save it. Remember at the start of the game you can type "pes" so that when you need it all you need to do is press "t".
With enough practice you should be able to get enough points plus some more.
3F. Some Like it Hot (Play 5 Qualifying Tyrannian/Moltara games)
You just need to send in any score (though do make it a decent one just in case). Games that count are S.M.E.L.T., Destruct-o-Match III, Magma Blaster, Petpet Rescue, Pterattack, Tyrannian Mini Golf, Ugga Drop, Ugga Smash, & Volcano Run.
3S. Some Like it Cold (Play 5 Qualifying Terror Mountain games)
You just need to send in any score (though do make it a decent one just in case). Games that count are Dar-BLAT, Ice Cream Machine, Igloo Garage Sale - The Game, Let It Slide, Rink Runner, Snow Roller, Snow Wars II, Snowball Fight, Snowbeast Snackrifice, Snowmuncher, & Wrath of the Snowager.
Prizes:
1. The Ultimate Guide to Placing Garden Gnomes (Book)(What to do when you have more garden gnomes than plants.)
Well can't really complain about a book, now can you? And it looks decent enough as well.
2. Petpetpet Comb (Petpet Supplies)(Get rid of those pesky Petpetpets once and for all!)
So this item seems to be glitched. Instead of a Petpet Supply it looks to be functioning as a Petpet, which means you can attach it to your Neopet! Now to be fair TNT once in a while did this, but still you just got to shake your head and sigh/laugh. I don't know if it has been fixed but still plenty of players now have a comb as a Petpet (I guess you can maybe say its the Petpetpet on the comb which are their Petpet? It's like having an ant farm). Though to be fair this would technically be the first new Petpet that JS has released since laying off TNT...
3. Burning Snowflakes Foreground (Special)(A sight like nothing you've seen before.)
A nice looking wearable. I have no complaints. Interesting JS is doing a lot of NP animated wearables.

DAY 3:

SPOILER: Click to show

DAY 3:
Challenges:
1. Got My Head in the Clouds (Score 450 or higher in Cloud Raiders & score 200 or higher in Extreme Faerie Cloud Racers)
For Cloud Raiders get used to how the boat moves along the cloud paths made by the pen. Afterwards just focus on collecting the coins and staying alive. This is really the best tip I can provide. You never have to worry about running out of cloud as it refills quickly.
As for EFCR that's a bit more difficult. Your main objective is surviving. Don't focus on the main screen, focus on the mini-map. Also get used to how the controls work, for example hitting right will TURN you right, NOT MAKE you go right.
Anyway the computer seems to have a problem controlling themselves so usually if you fly around in a circle they'll crash soon enough. If you want to try and force them to crash just remember to keep your distance on the outside of their flight path. Also try to get the Tonu power-up (shows up as a white square on the mini-map) as it'll let you go through your opponent's paths without crashing. As always, may take some practice (also try playing it on the lowest quality, it for some reason takes a LOT or memory to play which will cause it to stutter making it very difficult to play).
2. Pterrifying! (Score 900 or higher in Pterattack)
Yikes, this is a difficulty spike.
First you need to power-up your shot IMMEDIATELY. Now I was able to make it through by powering up the Blue Laser but it's recommended you get the Red Spread as fully powered it covers the whole screen. I heard Purple Boomerang is also good. Once powered up remember DO NOT collect anything but its color as collecting another color will set your weapon down to Level 1 of that weapon. I suggest trying to do this during Level 1 as it's the easiest time to do it.
Next try staying on one side of the screen (though if you have a fully upgraded red you can stay in the center) BUT don't touch the walls. Try to keep your side clear of Pteradactyles as you'll most often get hit by getting clipped than anything else. Also don't stay too near the bottom as a Grarrl may appear, its easy enough to ignore by going to the other side of the screen.
Now if its to ignore an unwanted power-up or the Grarrl it's okay if you get hit (though try not to), just be careful normally. You do get rewarded with extra lives upon getting to some levels so there's also that.
This takes a LOT of practice, all I can say other than that is good luck.
BTW shouldn't this just be a Team Fire game? Seems kind of odd Team Snow also got a Tyrannian specific game...
3. Shoot! (Score 35 or higher in Ultimate Bullseye II)
I liked the original way better...
Try, try, and try again. The only tips I can provide is how I got the score: when a balloon appears try to pop it and hit the target. You get 5 for popping the red balloon, 10 for popping the gold, 20 for popping the balloon and hitting the target, and the usual amount of points depending on where on the target you get. That's at minimum 26 for the red balloon and 31 for the gold!
As for aiming, well I have success aiming slightly above with medium to medium high power depending on far away its places.
Finally type "catapult" for a free power-up. Also remember if you get 10 points in one round you get a power-up that way. One more thing, if you get 10 points on the "last" round you get to play an additional round for each time you do it. So you may want to save at least one power-up for the last round.
Now while I have difficulty playing this, the thing is EVENTUALLY I get lucky and score my intended score. You just need to keep trying.
Prizes:
1. Cloud Boat (Gift)(This beautiful boat is perfect for sailing in the skies.)
Why isn't this wearable? It would have looked pretty cool for your Neopet sitting inside of it!
2. Pteri Spring Toy (Toy)(Bouncing around is almost as fun as flying!)
Really JS, you want to release a spring toy prize even though "Korbatgate" wasn't so long ago? Well I guess they're trying to show they can make a spring toy re-using Neopets art... though would be better if it was completely unique art. Eitherway looks fine.
3. Arrow Rack (Gift)(Keep all your arrows neat and safe with this cool arrow rack.)
This should be Furniture! JS hasn't done Furniture either despite having released several "Gift" which could have easily been made into Furniture. Come on JS start expanding out! Weapons, Petpets, Furniture! You have them available to you so use them! *sigh* Looks fine but honestly who cares if you can't do anything with it?

[Rabbit ♠]

900 in Pterattack? Maybe around 400 or 500, but 900? I still was able to score that high, but sheesh.

Might as well share my thoughts on the challenges. It sounds like fun. 

Day 1

SPOILER: Click to show

I had no trouble scoring 45 in Snow Wars II. I even did Magma Blaster for kicks and got to 60 no problem.

Day 2

SPOILER: Click to show

Wingoball and Itchy Invasion. Wingoball is eh to me, but Itchy Invasion is one of my favorite games. It took one or two tries to get the score needed in Wingoball. For Itchy Invasion, I got on the High Score table when trying.

For the, "Send Scores in 5 Terror Mountain Games" it really wasn't very hard. I did the minimum work to get the scores.

Day 3

SPOILER: Click to show

(I could not help but post this meme.)

It took quite a while to get the required scores. Pterattack was extremely difficult for me to score high enough. EFCR was actually a bit fun when I got the hang of it. Cloud Raiders was a bit boring in my opinion, but I got the score, so I'm not complaining. And finally, Ultimate Bullseye II took a couple tries, but I'm actually decent at it. The first time, I was one point away from the qualifying score. XD

[Zoey]

I paled when I saw the GMCs for today. I had played them all before, but had dismal scores in all of them. But nothing a few tries wouldn't do... figured out that for EFCR, as Duke Pikachu said, all you needed to do at minimal was to go around in circles until the other faeries collided (and not run into your own tail or run off the ledge), and Bullseye made me want to cry but luckily popped a gold balloon and hit the target after that. I'm currently not looking forward to the latter days, when there's going to be like five challenges a day or something, 'cause it seems like the difficulty level is slowly increasing...

Might be just me, but I liked Wingoball. It jives with the math nerd in me (ninety-degree angles! shapes!) Itchy Invasion was a pain but took someone's advice to blow up the screen and it helped a lot.

Also I'd like to mention that the Cloud Boat is really, REALLY cute and I love it a lot. ^.^

[Duke Pikachu]

No problems for me until today. I think everyone got the score for Day 1's challenge but they're meant to be "freebies".

Day 2 I didn't have a problem with either. Wingoball I play daily and Itchy Invasion I like too (infact I'm thinking of maybe adding it to my dailies).

Day 3, hoo boy. EFCR and Cloud Raiders was easy enough, I play Cloud Raiders everyday when I can get 1k from it easily. Ultimate Bullseye II I dreaded not because it was difficult but because I knew it would take me like dozen or two tries before I got the "hang" of its wonky mechanics and got lucky (like hitting a balloon and the target). But my jaw drop when I say Pterattack. For my high score I do have over 900 but I still knew it would actually take some focus and skill to get 900 again. After failing the first attempt when I just played through without focusing on getting power-ups (I didn't make it far), I then focused on getting power-ups and on my second or third attempt I got a string of Blue Laser in a row so I went with that. As soon as I got over 900 I just let myself lose as I wasn't going to even try getting a higher score.

I'm still on route for Gold so far, but if we're already being hit with stuff like this I'm not sure how long that'll last.

[Huntress]

Nov 26, 2015 14:49:35 GMT -5 Duke Pikachu said:

Day 3, hoo boy. EFCR and Cloud Raiders was easy enough, I play Cloud Raiders everyday when I can get 1k from it easily. Ultimate Bullseye II I dreaded not because it was difficult but because I knew it would take me like dozen or two tries before I got the "hang" of its wonky mechanics and got lucky (like hitting a balloon and the target). But my jaw drop when I say Pterattack. For my high score I do have over 900 but I still knew it would actually take some focus and skill to get 900 again. After failing the first attempt when I just played through without focusing on getting power-ups (I didn't make it far), I then focused on getting power-ups and on my second or third attempt I got a string of Blue Laser in a row so I went with that. As soon as I got over 900 I just let myself lose as I wasn't going to even try getting a higher score.

You already got the Pterattack score, but I can't keep my mouth shut anyway, maybe it'll help someone else :'D What you do in Pterattack is
1) hold the spacebar down all the time (it'll shoot at the same speed anyway and you'll spare yourself the frantic taptaptap)
2) get the purple or orange weapon (and power that up as fast as you can)
3) then just cruise along like this avoiding all pterodactyls (and dat Grarrl) as long as you can while the weapon clears the way.

My personal favorite is the orange weapon because its final stage is basically a shockwave that clears everything, but the purple boomerang also does a good job if you get that first. The green and blue are piddly and not worth the effort.

(It's fascinating to see how everyone has different tolerance levels for different games. What's fun and easy for one is eternal torment for another and vice versa. But that's probably the point of having this challenge. My Pterattack high score is 3800 and I don't even like the game, the score is by virtue of having tried it out a few times.
*still forever thwarted by Itchy Invasion, maybe tomorrow*)

These are some really pretty items as prizes, though. Kinda hoping that they'll become some other usable item type later on and they're just currently gifts because the team didn't have time to finish the functionality.

[Liou]

Y'all actually make me want to chime in.

Wingoball: hehe, that's one of my best games and has been for years. I know exactly where to click on each level, even though I haven't played it in months. Breezed through the whole thing, only needed several tries for the final level. B)

Itchy Invasion: I just... click on the thingies and try not to run out of whatever's in the meters?

Pterattack: I'm quite meh about this game. When it comes up in GMC or DD, I usually give it a few tries and charge through until I get lucky enough to reach the right score. This time, I ran into several of the orange firey powerup things (Fireeeee \o/), and as Hunty said, it becomes a cool shockwave thingy, so I just blasted my way through everything. Boooom. Feels good to watch the world burn for a moment.

Ultimate Bullseye 2: don't even try to aim well. Just wait until you get a balloon. As long as you pop the balloon and hit any point on the target, you've got it.

Cloud Raiders: I really pity whoever was in that ship while I was in charge of it.

Extreme FCR: took me a moment to wrap my head around the weird directions - I only pay attention to the minimap - but once I had got the hang of it, the score was easy to reach.

Basically, for any games that I'm not used to playing, I give it a few tries and charge through with brute force until I get an ok score. Hasn't taken me longer than a few minutes so far. *shrug* =D

[Ian Wolf-Park]

I knew it would take me multiple times for Ultimate Bullseye 2, but somehow, I got lucky (and on my first attempt) with 2 Red Balloons and a couple of bullseyes to squeak past the minimum requirement (36). The other games I was a bit rusty, but also managed.