Eye of the Storm: A Trophy Guide!

     Introduction

     Eye of the Storm is a low-key, relaxing puzzle game that relies on common sense and a good sense of direction. The premise of the game is to find Cyodrake’s Gaze, which unfortunately had gotten lost at sea. To do this, you must locate the ship (which is located on a tile) among a sea of other tiles (two hundred and forty, to be exact!).

     Does it sound daunting? Hmm, probably at first, but I’m here to tell you that it’s totally not. Luckily for us, several crewmembers are more than happy to point you in the right direction. Helpful, aren’t they?

     Besides, who wouldn’t want to play for these beautiful trophies?

     Ooh, shiny! @____@

     So, are you ready to play? Let’s start with the basics.

     Settings

     There are three different modes available for this game: zen, normal, and timed.

     Zen mode is the chillest of the three modes as you don’t actually score any points at all. On this mode, you have 99 seconds on each level to find the ship, and an unlimited amount of levels to enjoy!

     This mode is great for those who find the game fun and simply want to relax without having to worry about how many points they’re scoring. They’re also great for people who are practicing for a trophy, as while the mode doesn’t actually score you, it tells you how many clicks you’ve used, how many seconds are left on the timer, and how many bonus points you have left before you found the ship—a perfect simulation for the real deal.

     Normal mode is, well, normal. You have 20 levels to play, and you have 20 seconds on each level to find the ship. If you can’t find the ship in less than 20 seconds, then your game is over. Nothing much else to say about this mode.

     And finally, you’ve got the most stressful one of all—timed. On this mode, you have exactly 200 seconds to finish as many levels as possible. The more levels you can fit within that span of time, the better. This is the mode I recommend any trophy collector to play on as this gives the most amount of points.

     Besides the mode you play, there is one additional option: extended view. This option allows tiles to stay permanently open. While the premise certainly sounds tempting, I generally wouldn’t recommend turning this on—it costs more bonus points. While a turned card without extended view subtracts 3 points for normal tiles and 5 points for direction tiles, a turned card on extended view costs 5 and 10 points for their counterparts. While the differences may look meager, it definitely is going to affect your end score quite drastically.

     The Tiles

     Now, there are several times involved in this game. Some are totally useless, while the others either help boost your score up or help you find the long-lost ship quicker and easier. Here are all the tiles that can be found in the game.

     1) Default

     All tiles look like this before you click them. Nothing special, really. It is important to note, however, that aside from the cannon tile and the tiles directly above, below, and beside it, all tiles that you click revert back to this state a few seconds after. They don’t stay forever, so try to remember where you’ve clicked because every click matters in this game!

     2) Empty

     This isn’t exactly a tile, it’s basically just like opening a door and finding it empty. It serves no purpose in finding the Cyodrake’s Gaze.

     3) Directions

     Woohoo! These are the crewmembers of the ship who are more than happy to point you to the right direction. For your information, the yellow Aisha pointing down is Hoban, the crewmember who was pushed unceremoniously off the ship by Chef Bonju, who is the orange Blumaroo pointing towards the left. The pink Kougra pointing up is Linae, who you might recognize if you’ve ever played Kou-jong, and the remaining crewmember pointing towards the right is Shumi, the first officer of the Cyodrake’s Gaze.

     4) Treasure

     This tile adds an additional 20 bonus points to your score! You can’t click them more than once though, as they revert to and normal/empty tile after they have been clicked once. Sorry to the ones who thought they could farm their way to a trophy score. :P

     5) Whirlpool

     This sort of acts like the cannon tile does, but with various differences. For one thing, it doesn’t affect the four tiles directly adjacent to them, but the four tiles that lie diagonally. Secondly, it reverts back to a normal/empty tile after being utilized. And lastly, instead of exploding the tiles, it instead reveals them. That means that you get to see four more tiles for the price of one. That also means that if the whirlpool reveals a cannon or another whirlpool, it can start a chain reaction that can reveal even more tiles for the price of one. Score!

     The downside to this tile however, is that it quite seriously drains your bonus points. One turned tile takes away 3 bonus points, and since stumbling upon a whirlpool reveals that and four more tiles, it takes away a whopping 15 points away from your bonus! :(

     6) Cannon

     This tile is quite a useful one. It not only explodes itself, but also the tiles directly above, below, and beside it. The great thing about the cannon is that the tiles don’t come back after they’ve exploded, so now you’ve got four (five if you count the cannon) less tiles that the Cyodrake’s Gaze could be on.

     The downside to this tile, however, is that you have no way to find out what’s on the back of the adjacent tiles before they explode. That means that while now you’ve gotten rid of some of the tiles, you’ve also gotten rid of four possible clues! As far as I am aware (and believe me, I did a lot of clicking trying to confirm this theory), the only tiles immune to this are the whirlpool tile and the Cyodrake’s Gaze, and that alone should be a good enough reason to try and find the cannon tiles, anyway. Also, unlike the whirlpool tile, exploding tiles don’t take away from your bonus points. Hooray!

     7) Cyodrake’s Gaze

     This is the most important tile of the game. The level won’t end until this tile is found, and the longer it takes and the more turned tiles it takes to find it, the lower your bonus points will be. Finding the Cyodrake’s Gaze as quickly as possible is your utmost priority.

     Strategy

     The game starts with 240 tiles. As mentioned, your goal is to find the Cyodrake’s Gaze among this sea of tiles, and to do this you have enlisted the help of Shumi, Linae, Bonju and Hoban. Don’t worry, you can trust them—the ship is surely located in whichever direction they point at.

     (Now, normally you can only click one tile at a time, and tiles usually turn back around after several seconds. For the purposes of this guide, however, I’ve tweaked the board a bit to give you a better idea on how the game works.)

     So, anyway, if you have something like this, for example:

     Then you’ll know that every single tile that’s on the opposite direction of wherever they are pointing cannot be where the Cyodrake’s Gaze is, so always remember where they’re pointing at! Doing so will narrow your field down considerably. Using the same board, we get this:

     On that image, you can see that the number of tiles the Cyodrake’s Gaze could be hidden under has lessened considerably. From 240 tiles to 25 tiles real quick!

     When you first start the game, I would suggest looking first for a direction tile. Once you find one, go quite a bit away from the first tile you clicked and look for another direction tile. That way you can start making a border of where the ship might be. Going a couple tiles adjacent rather than right beside the tile saves you a lot of clicks. I mean, what are the odds of finding the ship or another direction tile right beside the tile you just clicked? Very, very little. Every click in this game takes away from your bonus points, so you need to be very efficient about the tiles you’re choosing.

     Don’t be too afraid of clicking, though. After all, there’s still treasure to be found. :P

     After you’ve established a border, try to establish a smaller border until such a time that the ship is found. And that’s it! Easy, ain’t it?

     Aiming for a trophy? Let’s move on.

     Tips & Tricks

     Eye of the Storm is probably one of the more easier trophies to get (at least for me, and I’m generally awful at attaining trophy scores for games so you can trust me on this). Here are a few tips and tricks that I had learned to get my gold trophy on the game.

     1) The location of the Cyodrake’s Gaze isn’t always random.

     Now, I’m not saying that you can tell from a first glance where the ship is located. The game really is random, after all. What I am telling you, however, is that the Cyodrake’s Gaze is almost always found in tiles that look a tad different from the others—their borders are much bolder. What do I mean? Let’s use the same board from the previous examples.

     See the tiles I’ve put a star on? Do you notice how their borders seem a tad thicker than the others? That’s what I mean. I’ve utilized this technique many times and it is almost always successful. And even if you don’t get the ship right away, you’re bound to get other special tiles like the whirlpool and treasure chest under them.

     I highly recommend going after the bold ones first, taking care to follow the strategy I had mentioned already. Create a border, and then click another bold tile that fits the directions’ criteria, then another and another until you finally find the ship.

     (Disclaimer: I emphasize the words almost always. Sometimes you get the levels when the ship simply doesn’t want to be found, so please don’t come at me when this trick doesn’t work all the time. ;___;)

     Using the same tile again, I’ve put some numbers as a simulation of how the game might go if I were to play it.

     2) Give the board a quick scan before you start the level.

     Now, before the start of a new level, the game tells you to press any key to start. Don’t do that right away! If you’ll notice on this screenshot here, the board isn’t actually completely covered:

     Start picking out the bold tiles that can be seen and then start the level. Hopefully one of the tiles you’ve picked out is the ship itself, or otherwise a treasure chest for the bonus points or any helpful hints from the crewmembers! See how many bold tiles you can already see even with obstructed view?

     3) Always pick timed mode.

     You obviously don’t earn any points whatsoever on zen mode, so that’s completely out of the question. A game on normal mode can end two ways: either you lose the game before you complete the 20 levels as you were unable to find the ship in 20 seconds, or you end the game after 20 levels because that’s really the maximum number of levels for the mode. The former doesn’t bode well if you’re looking for the trophy—20 seconds is more than an ample amount of time to find the ship. The latter is much better, though still not as good as timed—if you’ve gotten the hang of finding the ship quickly and efficiently, might as well shove in as many levels as you can within a given time limit, right? So, timed.

     (Also, for your information, I did a game on normal mode and timed mode to see how much the scores differed. I scored around 4.5k points on normal and around 8.7k points on timed. See how much the difference is?)

     4) Play on the largest setting.

     You can do this by clicking on the gear button under the play button, then choosing large under game size. I much prefer it this way as tiles with bolder borders tend to stick out more. It personally also makes me remember where the tiles I’ve clicked before are as the tiles aren’t as converged with each other as if you play on a small or regular setting.

     5) Play with a mouse.

     This may seem rather obvious to those of you who already have a mouse, but as someone who up until recently had only played with a trackpad, I definitely did not realize how much faster it was to move the cursor around with a mouse. Also, it’s a lot easier on your wrist if you played with a mouse as Eye of the Storm involves a lot of moving around and a lot of clicking. Trust me, your wrist will thank you.

     6) Practice, practice, practice!

     It takes a while to really get a hang of Eye of the Storm—it’s not something you can just jump into right away! Utilize zen mode and practice with the strategy and tips I have mentioned thus far. The lack of time constraint helps you practice your strategy by not having to deal with the timer. Then, when you’re finally confident enough for additional stress, you can go ahead onto normal mode and practice finding the ship within 20 seconds and finishing all 20 levels before moving onto timed mode. Once on timed mode, practice until your high score gets high enough for a trophy!

     Conclusion

     So there you have it—my guide to the very fun and very relaxing game of Eye of the Storm. I wish you the best of luck on your quest to a shiny, new trophy for your closet!