Hello and welcome to my guide! I'll be dividing this into these sections:
- Basics, controls, objectives
- In the Beginning, Avoiding mines when they pop up
- Getting the mines together
- Practicing maneuvers
- Knowing when to take risks
- How to win in the World Challenge
- How to get a trophy in no time

Basics, controls, objectives:

If you have never even laid eyes on this game, don't fret! First off, a quick introduction to the basics: by using the arrow keys, your goal is to capture the dubloons that show up without running into any of the mines that come up. Sounds easy right? Surprisingly, it is! Now, whenever you grab a dubloon, a mine will come up, BUT, there is a limit to the number of mines on the field, and that magic number, is 9. After you have 9 mines out in the field, your life actually gets much easier. Why? Because it means that you don't run the risk of grabbing a dubloon and having a mine pop up right under or in front of your boat. That's why codes, such as 'scallywags' which makes a whirlpool appear, are a nightmare, because although they eliminate all mines, they also put you at risk when you're grabbing new dubloons.

In the Beginning, Avoiding mines when they pop up:

When the game starts out is when you have the most freedom, because if you get sunk, you've only used up 10 seconds of your life and can restart again, so don't be afraid to pull some risky moves here. Now, if you don't want to worry about restarting the game until you 'get it right', here are some tips to avoiding the surging mines:
- Never grab a mine and just stop. If one shows up under, or anywhere close to you, you have guaranteed your own failure. If you are always moving, you have time to swerve, or back up if needed.
- Grab them in a way so that you're facing open space. As in, if a mine is against one of the walls, don't run your boat right 90 degrees into the mine, this gives you no movement. Instead, approach it from the side and grab it so your boat comes off facing open space.
- If it shows up in front of you, swerve! If it shows up too close to swerve, back out immediately.

Getting the Mines Together:

The secret to progressing in this game is to be able to bunch the mines up close together, preferably towards the middle. Why? Because not only does it let you easily avoid them to get dubloons faster, but remember how they follow you? This way, they'll follow you as if the group was one body, so not only is it easy to avoid, it's easy to control if they're standing over one of your dubloons. This is also why destroying mines is BAD, because the news that will pop up might pop up where a colleague is and further destroy more mines, or it'll make you work by having to put the new mines in with the rest of the group. That's why when you have them in a group, make sure they're far apart enough to not hit each other, and are a small enough cluster so you can maneuver around easily.

Practicing Maneuvers:

As with any game, you need practice to get better at it, especially practice with the controls. Sure, it's only 4 arrow keys, but if you're new, you don't immediately know how fast a mine is when it's not even a centimeter away from you and how fast you need to move to get away. Some simple things you can try though, are:
- If you have a group of mines on one side, and another group on another side, you want to bring them together. To do so, bring your boat in between them, and if the distance is great, wait. When both sides get close, move! If they're closer than that though, you can't afford to sit there, you need to speed by there; this requires practice so you don't crash into either side.
- Moving backwards is just as effective as moving forwards, so make sure to practice both, especially in combination with the right and left arrow keys.
- Give yourself enough room to grab a dubloon if it's near a mine. Before, you could brush against it and you would get it, but now, you must go through it. This means, if there's a mine next to it, lure the mine away first, go around, and grab the dubloon.

Knowing When to Take Risks:

If you're going for a certain score, taking risks should be kept to a minimum. DD is very much a game of patience, so doing a risky move because you don't feel like moving the mines away is no excuse. The beginning is the best time to try all type of acrobatics, because as I mentioned earlier, if you mess up, restarting isn't that bad. However, when you're in the thousands, don't do anything that puts you in a bad position, just be patient and lure the mines where you want to, even if it takes an extra 10 seconds, trust me, it'll be worth it.

How to Win in the World Challenge:

Basics to World Challenges overall: You must pay 100 NPs to enter in one, small price to pay compared to the prizes. There are three ways to win, being in the top tally, usually top 2 or 3, getting the highest score (by a high margin), or getting the highest total of scores (must finish with a score of 0 or above!). So if you send in 2 scores and they both net you +1 and you finish in the top 3, congrats! Or if you send in 2 scores, one wins, one loses, but the combination of that score (say, 3000 and 4000) is higher than others, you'll also win. MOST IMPORTANT: DON'T SEND IN EVERY SCORE!
Now, for DD, there are two tricks you can try, either to win for being in the top, or for having the highest tally. If you want to be in the top, my suggestion is be selective about the scores you send. Right now, a score of about 3500+ is good enough to send because there's a good chance it'll get you +1. If you want to win for tally, you might want to send in enough scores so your tally will be 0 or above, but your total of scores beats out everyone. For this, you can lower your standards of sending to about 2500+, because you can afford to lose every other sent score.
Most importantly, don't give up if you don't win the first time around! When I started, I didn't win all of my games, but I didn't give up, so when I have the time, I get my 3 pieces a day without breaking a sweat.

How to Get a Trophy in No Time:

Get comfortable! Find a good place to sit, go to the bathroom if you have to, do it at a time where you won't be interrupted, if you have a laptop, make sure it's connected so it doesn't run out of battery. It can take up to 2 hours to get a HS, so patience is a requirement. Make sure you also haven't sent in a score 3 times already! Now, whatever you do, keep the risk taking and the incredible maneuvers to a minimum, it's not nice having a score of 8,000 and dying from a stupid mistake. Also, the best time to play for a trophy is at the beginning of the month, because there aren't that many incredibly high scores being sent in then.

Well, that's all I can think about for now, I'll probably be updating this more with time, so look forward to it! If you would like to make a banner for this (I don't have time to learn HTML sadly) I would be honored! =)