How to Master Dubloon Disaster

      Before you start, make sure to go into the game options and turn off water effects. These can not only cause unnecessary lag, but they can be distracting by drawing your eye to places where nothing is actually moving. The controls are simple. Up, down, left, and right arrow keys are used to control the boat. The goal is to collect as many dubloons as possible without getting hit by a mine or getting sucked into a whirlpool. The game doesn’t have any extra lives, so you only have one chance and can’t make any mistakes.

      There are seven dubloons you can collect and they each have a different point value.

      Two Dubloon Coin (brown): 10 points

      Five Dubloon Coin (silver with a skull): 25 points

      Ten Dubloon Coin (silver with crossbones): 50 points

      Twenty Dubloon Coin (silver with a crescent): 100 points

      Fifty Dubloon Coin (silver with a skull and crossbones): 250 points

      One Hundred Dubloon Coin (gold): 500 points

      Two Hundred Dubloon Coin (gold and silver): 1000 points

      When you first start, there will only be one dubloon available to collect on the screen. Each time you collect the available dubloon, another will spawn, as well as a mine or a whirlpool. Only one coin will be on the screen at a time and they never disappear before you can get them, so there’s no rush to collect it. Because of this, patience is a key part to getting a high score in Dubloon Disaster.

      It is only possible to have nine mines on the screen at one time. Once at maximum, no more mines will spawn until some touch each other and explode, or a whirlpool pulls them all into oblivion. In other words, each coin you collect will spawn another coin and either a mine, nothing, or a whirlpool. Unlike Meerca Chase, the board won’t eventually be covered in red Neggs, I mean dubloons, until you panic and run into a wall!

      On that note, walls are safe to touch in Dubloon Disaster. One strategy you can sometimes use is to hug the wall while moving along it. You can press two adjacent arrow keys at once to stay along the wall or move in a diagonal direction.

      The main strategy to collecting points safely and efficiently is to keep all the mines in a group near the centre of the screen. The mines are not stationary. They are homing mines and will always be moving toward wherever to boat is, so it’s easy to control where you want them to go. I like to think of it as herding sheep where the mines are the sheep and the boat is a sheepdog. For the most part, you want to be constantly circling around the outside of the group. It’s best to pick a direction, clockwise or counterclockwise, and stick with it until a dubloon shows up that you can’t easily get. If a coin spawns underneath the group, go as far away from it on the opposite side of the screen and wait for the mines to migrate over to you. This is where patience comes in greatly. Sometimes it can be many seconds of waiting before the mines not only clear the coin, but also give you enough space to collect it and get away from them. You also want to try and keep the mines from getting too close to each other while you’re herding them. Too close and they might run into each other and explode.

      The mines don’t move towards you at a constant speed. The closer they are to the boat, the faster they move. This means that over time, your tight group of mines will become spread out over a greater space and block access to more coins. Every once in a while, you might have to dart through the centre of the group to get them to clump together again. This is especially risky because you’ll have mines on both sides of you and again, sometimes the mines will get too close to each other and explode, but is a necessary risk. If you have to dart through a group, do so in a straight line. Changing the boat’s direction causes you to slow down, giving the mines time to catch up with you.

      Usually mines hitting one another is bad and to be avoided at all costs. The most dangerous parts of the game are when mines and whirlpools spawn somewhere randomly on the screen, for example right underneath your boat, and you might never have a chance to avoid them. If you are at the maximum nine mines and two hit each other, that’s two more chances at getting a “game over,” completely out of your control. However, if there are two mines that are both getting close to you, it might be worth trying to get them to hit each other, creating space for you to escape.

      Whirlpools are easily the most annoying part of the game. Not only do they spawn in a random spot, but they also usually destroy all mines on the screen while they run their course. That means up to nine more chances of a mine spawning right on top of you as you get back to maximum mines again. If a whirlpool shows up, turn your boat away from it and press the up arrow to get away. Don’t let go of the arrow until the whirlpool has fully disappeared or it still could suck you in!

      There is an occasionally helpful, one-time use code in the game. You can type “scallywags” in order to make a whirlpool appear. Unfortunately, you still can’t control where it will appear, so it’s best to use it only if you’re completely cornered by mines with no way out.

      Dubloon Disaster has an avatar available at 2500 points. Fingers crossed that you get a game with two Two Hundred Dubloon Coins and one One Hundred Dubloon Coin and don’t need this guide at all! The most important thing to remember while playing for a high score is that there is some luck involved. Don’t get discouraged when you “game over” and eventually the trophy or avatar you’ve been hoping for will be yours!