Feed Florg: How to Master the Malicious Meanie

     Now for some nitty gritty details: 250 points nets you the avatar. How do you get there? Petpets get dropped down onto Florg's table, and you must keep them within its confines with a robotic hand. Every Petpet eaten is worth ten points, and every time you use your weird mechanical hand to 'bump' a Petpet so it stays on the table, you get one more point. (I call it 'bumping' instead of saving, because, well...) You only have five lives, however, and every time a Petpet manages to run off the table, you lose a life! There are no powerups in Feed Florg and thus no ways to earn extra lives. Thankfully, there are no power-downs either. (~Eyes Pterattack~)

     The game starts off easy enough with only one or two Petpets to juggle at a time, but by the end of a good game you'll be juggling three or four. If you reach 200 points with three or more lives remaining (somewhat rare), I would consider you to have a pretty good game going. You may consider restarting if you lose a life before reaching 50 points, but the game is so random that it may not actually matter.

     The first thing you'll notice about Feed Florg is how slowly he eats Petpets. If he's so hungry, you wonder, why doesn't he just eat faster?! I have no answer for you, but I can tell you that he'll eat one Petpet approximately every eleven seconds. This rate gets a tiny bit slower as the game goes on. Pro tip: you only have to bump the first Petpet that shows up twice. Florg is guaranteed to eat it after that, so you can relax... for about two seconds.

     The first time any Petpet gets dropped onto the table, it will actually move slowly until the first time you bump it, at which point it'll reach regular speed. This can help you in making decisions about which Petpet to bump first. If you have to choose between a Petpet that's been hanging out a while and one that just arrived, you might want to consider the one that's been there longer - the faster one. Florg won't actually discriminate Petpet age when eating - he can eat one that just arrived a microsecond ago or one that's made the table its new home. Often, you'll run into a situation where all the Petpets on the table will run off at the same time. When this happens, it's best to pick a grouping of Petpets going in the same direction and focus on bumping those. If you only have two to choose from, just pick one. Either one. Plus, with any luck, Florg will eat the one that's about to fall off that you can't reach! This has happened to me many times.

     Getting a high enough score for the avatar is, unfortunately, mostly dependent on luck. Once you reach a certain skill ceiling, getting the avatar is only a matter of randomness. Some tips for hitting that skill ceiling: be confident in your decisions on which Petpet to bump. Fumbling between two will only cost you time. Once you get good enough at the game, your timing gets better and better, and you can consider making 'pixel-perfect' Petpet bumps - a single frame of your hand bumping the Petpet before moving on. It can really come in handy when the trajectories of two Petpets are opposite each other and you have to MOVE NOW. I myself have watched in awe as my mechanical hand swooped in from one side to catch a Petpet, bumped it without stopping, and swooped away to the other Petpet! What a play! This is an advanced technique, though, and I wouldn't recommend it for everyone. It's messed up more than one of my games when I missed the one-frame window.

     Fun fact (that may ruin your run!) - the upper right slice of the table has a bit of a glitchy hitbox. I'm not yet sure if it's a specific Petpet that causes this or if it's just the glitchy corner, but sometimes the Petpets will walk off the corner, keep going in midair for a few steps, and THEN fall. It's something to be aware of if you're trying to be pixel-perfect and leave right after you THINK you've successfully bumped the Petpet but it continues crawling in midair! This doesn't happen very often, but it's almost worth staying a few frames more than usual in that upper right corner. It also seems to happen mainly with the purple Slorg, but more research is needed to confirm the specifics of this glitch.

     Additionally, don't let Florg's annoying tantrum or the orb that releases new Petpets distract you. It will often pop down and dispense another victim when you're trying to concentrate on Petpets near the top of the table and briefly block them. Just don't lose concentration and you'll be fine. Same goes for Florg's tongue, which briefly blocks a chunk of the table from view. Hey, why is his tongue sparkly purple, anyway? I want answers!

     Did you know? Sometimes Florg will stick out his tongue to catch a Petpet, but the Petpet he grabs will inexplicably switch its image to a totally different Petpet! (This does not seem to affect points earned in any way.) He could grab a yellow Spyder but end up with a Pink Warf! I wonder how he feels about that.

     And that does it for my Feed Florg tips! I hope this guide helps you eventually grab that lucky avatar, at which point you can join the PPL in their investigation of Florg's crimes and put him behind bars... provided they don't find out that you technically aided and abetted him, of course.