Nailing Down That Shifty Shapeshifter Game

To better help you understand the workings of this guide, I have provided several graphics.

Now I know that several people use checkers to keep track of moves while planning out their moves and some just sit down and randomly place the shapes. Although these may work fine, I found the easiest way for me to do it is to make my puzzle pieces out of construction paper and cut them out. Then I make a game board and I place a little sticker where the Wrong pieces are located. Take this level 7 puzzle for example in graphic #1

First off I make a little board and mark the wrong pieces that need changed like this....

Then I cut out all the shapes I will need. It helps to use different colors of construction paper for the shapes. After a while you get a good supply of shapes and do not need to make as many. At least not till you get further into the game anyway. To get an idea of the shape cutting, an example ...

After I get all the required shapes cut out and several game boards made, I am ready to start placing them on the board. When I place a cutout piece on, I either add a little piece of construction paper to the blank squares or leave the squares that are 'Wrong' blank when I cover them up. Using pieces of old ' peel and stick' label pieces work exceptionally well also. You can get an idea from viewing this picture:

As you can see, when I placed the first green piece over the wrong shapes, I just left them blank. But when I placed the blue one on, I added a little piece of colored paper to the square that covered the blank square under it. By doing this, you can readily see which squares still need to be changed to the correct winning symbol.

As you notice, sometimes there are pieces that either by themselves, as in the pink and dark blue ones, cancel each other out ....or sometimes, it is a combination of pieces, that when placed on top of each other, will result in two exact shapes. Take for example the orange shape and the combination of the red and purple ones. Those two, when pieced together, gives you the same shaped piece as the orange one.

You always want to try to find pieces that cancel each other because that will give you less shapes to work with. Sometimes it takes several different tries to find which you need and which can be paired up and ignored for now. When you do get a solution and have sets of identical shaped patterns left over, be sure to place them on a little game board , all on top of each other. That way you can look and see where to place them when you get to them in the order that the pieces that are given to you during the game.

After you get the solution and all your placed pieces gives you a blank game board, (Blank, being the correct symbol) you then transfer each piece to a game board and tape it in place. Nothing is worse than getting the solution all worked out and then losing it because you walked back to the computer under that overhead fan! All that hard work just blown right away ! been there, done that. You will need enough game boards so that you can easily see the shapes of the pieces. This is shown here...

This way you are sure to get them placed right on the actual game. I found this to be the easiest way on the higher levels. The game board increases in size as you go along and the shapes get more complicated too. Make sure you have a good supply of construction paper handy. This is one of the few games that you can wait and save your game to complete on the first of the month. You want to try and achieve your trophy by level 25. The reason is that on level 26 you have three different images to contend with and try to get them all to the one correct image. you can see in this example of level 26.

As you can see, this is more complicated because the goblets have to be changed twice to get them to the dagger. And any correct square you cover up becomes a goblet and has to be changed twice more to get back to the dagger.

I am sure there are many ways to play this, but this is how I have done it. I hope it gives you the help you need to get that trophy. The good thing is you do not have to be at the computer to play this game.. You can do this sitting at the table and even leave it and come back to it later on. This is a good thing to do if you are stuck. Sometimes a break and a fresh look later helps out. If for some reason you are really stumped and can not find a solution no matter how many combinations you try, don't worry. Just go and do the puzzle wrong and get a new one. But what ever you do, don't click to re-do a previous level in the drop down list. This will cause you to lose the level you are presently on and will have to re do the last level in the list. Been there and done that also! Good luck and if this helps you to enjoy a great game and possibly get that elusive trophy. Drop me a message so I can admire it if this achieves you one.. Rosebud2554