Super Hasee Bounce: The Manual That Should Have Come With The Game


Super Hasee Bounce has been my favourite game since the day it hit the Games Room. Well, maybe the third or fourth day - like you, I struggled a lot with it at first. The first thing I do when I start playing a new game is head to the Instructions page, but with this game, the instructions are pretty lacking. The only way people have been able to learn (including myself) was through trial and error - until now.

Super Hasee Bounce was one of the challenges on the final day of the 2009 Games Master Challenge, and when I ventured to the challenge board to get some input on Spinacles, I was surprised to see the number of topics about Super Hasee Bounce - people declaring it their least favourite game, saying that they'd skip that challenge and finish at 39, and plenty of people asking for hints. I waded in, sharing what I've learned in my way-too-long spent playing this game, and then I had a thought - why not write a guide, and share it on a petpage, for the world to see? This is a very rudimentary guide at the moment. I've kept it to the bare bones for now in order to have it finished and uploaded before the challenge ended. In time, I'll come back and get the pretty formatting done, but for now, this page is not pretty. I hope, though, that it's helpful.


THE AIM OF THE GAME

In this game, you play a pair of Hasees on their seesaw. At all times, one Hasee will be in the air. You are in control of the seesaw, and must use it to break the fall of the Hasee in the air. When your Hasee lands on one end, the Hasee on the other end will be sent flying into the air, where there are balloons with various effects (see below). You must collect the letter balloons in each level (there are five in each level, with letters that spell out H A S E E) in order to advance through the 15 levels.


GAMEPLAY

You can control the seesaw using either your mouse or your keyboard. I tried playing using the keyboard about twice, and since then have used the mouse exclusively, as you have far more control with the mouse than with the keyboard. Nothing else is used within the game - all you do is move, so there is no need for any other buttons to come into play. Taken down to its bare bones, you play the game by using your mouse or arrow keys to guide the seesaw so that your Hasee lands on the free end, sending the other Hasee flying. Each time your Hasee misses the seesaw and hits the ground, you lose a life, and you start the game with five lives. Play on hard incorporates a few new elements, but I do not play on hard. The scoring system seems to be about the same, so hard is more difficult without having a bigger payoff - I recommend you play on regular.

Getting an element of control over the Hasees, and understanding what all the balloons do, is paramount to getting a good score for this game. In the next sections, I will share the details of each balloon, as well as some hints for getting your Hasee to go where it wants to go.


THE BALLOONS

The most important part of this guide is a lesson on what each balloon does, and what to do with it. This is information that really should come in the game instructions, but for some reason does not.

Here's a screenshot of a level containing all seven special balloons:



I'll go through the balloons one by one, explaining what each of them does. As far as I know they don't have official names, so I'll refer to them the way I do in my head.

1. LETTER BALLOON
This balloon, with a letter on it, is the core of Super Hasee Bounce, as you can only advance to the next level when you have collected all five of these per level. Each of these balloons award 6 points.

2. MULTIPLIER BALLOON
This balloon comes in three varieties, x2, x3, and x5. For a short length of time after catching these balloons, the points you score from catching Letter or Doughnutfruit balloons multiplies by the number on the balloon.

3. DOUGHNUTFRUIT BALLOON
This balloon, patterned with a Doughnutfruit, gives you a point bonus when you hit it. The number 10 flashes when you catch it, which would indicate that you get 10 points for each of these you hit, but actually it's 20. This is about the most useful balloon you can get, and are at their best when grabbed immediately after catching a Multiplier Balloon (see #2).

4. TRAMPOLINE BALLOON
This balloon, with a coat of arms on it, causes a trampoline to stretch across the bottom of the window, just above the Hasee on the seesaw, as follows:



The Hasee will bounce off the trampoline instead of the seesaw, meaning that you don't have to worry about catching it for a short time, but also meaning you have no control over the direction in which it goes. Sometimes this is an extremely desirable balloon, other times just the opposite.

5. DESTRUCT-O-BALLOON
Yes, I'm harking back to my all-time favourite game with that name - rest in peace, Destruct-O-Match II. Anyway, this bullseye-patterned balloon gives your Hasee the ability to destroy anything it bounces off (other than the sides of the window). This is extremely useful in many levels, where the bricks can really get in the way. 6. SPEED BALLOON When you hit this balloon, which is patterned with an orange S, your Hasee increases greatly in speed for a short time. This isn't generally desirable - not only is it harder to catch a speeding Hasee, it's also more likely for a glitch to occur and for your Hasee to sink right through the seesaw.

7. KNOCKOUT BALLOON
This black balloon has faint yellow stars inside it, which aren't immediately visible - you sometimes don't notice them at first glance. When your Hasee hits this balloon, it will be stunned for a short time. It will recover after a few seconds, or once it hits the seesaw again. When a Hasee is stunned, it will go straight through all balloons without collecting them.

All plain-coloured balloons are simply filler and do not have any effect on your Hasee.


THAT DARN HASEE

So now you have an idea as to which balloons you want your Hasee to collect, but it seems to be flying off the seesaw at random, and the best you can do is hope it goes in the right direction. That's fixable! While the Hasees will always have minds of their own, there are a few ways to influence the direction they fly off in.

If your Hasee hits close to the middle of the seesaw, your Hasee will go upwards without too much horizontal movement, as follows:



This does carry risk, as if your Hasee lands too close to the middle, it might land on its partner. If you land on the Hasee on the seesaw, it will become stunned, and that's a big problem - when the Hasee on the seesaw is stunned, the seesaw can't be moved. When this happens, it's very likely you'll lose a life, as you won't be able to catch the Hasee still in the air.

Conversely, if your Hasee hits the seesaw close to the end, it will be fired into the air a lot more horizontally, and will cover a lot more distance in the direction it is facing (towards its partner), as illustrated below:



Again, this carries risk, as if you're just a little too far off, your Hasee could hit the ground, and you could lose a life.

A more advanced way of influencing the direction your Hasee goes in involves moving the seesaw as the Hasee lands on it. To do this, you'll need to keep a close eye on the Hasee in the air, and get an idea of the trajectory it's taking. If you can follow it, and can get an idea of where it will land, you're in luck.

If the seesaw is in motion when the Hasee lands on it, the Hasee will travel further in the direction the seesaw is turning. To do this, keep the mouse moving as you move it under the Hasee in order to catch it. At first, in order to get used to it, it's best to keep the movement slow, and as such the difference will be quite small. With time, though, you'll find it easier to move it a bit faster, and the results will be more profound. I've learned the right way to jerk the mouse, and when the Hasee lands on the seesaw while it moves fast, it can cover most of the screen in one bounce, and get pretty close to where I want it to go.


GLITCHES

Unfortunately, this game has a couple of known issues which, when they show up, drive the player mad as they generally lead to losing lives. I don't know a way around either of these glitches, so I'm mainly including them here as a warning.

The first glitch is that sometimes, especially if the Hasee is moving almost directly downwards or at a high speed, it can go straight through the seesaw and lose a life. This is the main reason why I avoid speed balloons.

The second glitch is equally frustrating. Sometimes, your Hasee clings to the wall instead of bouncing off it. It slides down the wall, and if you're unlucky it bounces off its partner, stunning it. Occasionally, from here, the wall-clinging effect will wear off and the Hasee in the air will bounce away. More often, however, the Hasee in the air will keep clinging to the wall, and keep bouncing up and down on its partner, eventually losing a life. As with the first glitch, I don't know a way around it, and it can be extremely aggravating.



I hope you've found this guide helpful. I hold a gold trophy for this game, but I don't aim for the scoreboards anymore - that's your job now :D I hope this guide gets you a bit closer to the score you're after.



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