For Juggling and Glory

Ah, Jolly Jugglers, the game that gives “Look before you leap” a new meaning. This game requires a mixture of skill, reflexes and chance, so getting a trophy is far from easy; the two elements you need above all else for a good score, though, are patience and practice.

The following guide was written for it because of how many people have contacted me requesting help with it, like how to get over even one thousand five-hundred points. To an inexperienced player that must seem impossible, because they might have just gotten a gigantic horde of berries in the game and defeated all of the enemies and the boss and still didn’t even get near two thousand points! Maybe you’re even that kind of player, and if you are then this guide is definitely for you.

The Items

These all fall from opponents on the first seven levels and on the Boss stage they fall from the sky. Seriously. From the sky. What?

Jump Power-Up: the little hexagon with the two arrows pointing up and down; this lets the Juggler that grabbed it jump a wee bit higher.

Gun Powerup: the hexagon with the “exclamation bubble” inside of it; this adds a free shot to the laser blaster or rocket launcher of whichever Juggler snatched it up.

Shield Powerup: the ever-lovable hexagon with the vague shape of a Chia in the center of it; this is the only Powerup that affects both Jugglers and while in use protects them even from touching enemies.

Purple Ammo: gives five free blasts for Olly, and only he can pick it up.

Green Ammo: same as Purple Ammo, except this is for Jolly and only he can pick it up.

The Berries: both Jugglers can pick up these spiky treats for a few extra points; the purplish/pinkish one is worth five points, the yellow one is worth ten, the blue is fifteen and the whitish/tannish twenty.

Extra Life: the heart-shaped berry that gives you an extra life, which, in the end, can be the cause of hundreds of more points.

The Enemies

Slorgs: Don’t worry, these slugs are probably the easiest kind of enemy there is in the game; all they do is crawl across a ledge, always staying on it, and once they hit the edge they pause for a couple of seconds and then turn around. Just make sure the right Juggler blasts them and you’ll be fine.

Tennas: The frenzied jumping beans with legs; they’re definitely harder than Slorgs to hit because of the fact that they’re always jumping up and down, off ledges and back onto them, right on top of the Jugglers’ heads... all it takes to take them down, though, is some practice with jumping and your ability to switch Jugglers the moment you land.

Drackonacks: Watch out for these little menaces! Their clever little tactic is to zoom along a ledge, nailing you, and then drop onto the next one and keep on zipping along. Usually you can spot them slowly falling onto another ledge and blast them before they hit you, but you still should be pretty watchful for them.

The Boss: A giant Mutant Chia that changes colors occasionally to allow both Jugglers a chance to hit him, although you may not get all that many chances because of his attack of three sets of three blasts; he can be extremely difficult to defeat if you’re not very experienced with the game or a cinch if you get a thousand Neopoints every time you play it. Don’t give up now!

The Walkthrough

Stage 1: Seven Green Petpets and five Purple. Here we go, the beginning of the game; it’s really quite easy with only twelve enemies in the entire level, and just Slorgs and Tennas at that, but because it’s the first level you should keep restarting until you get at least one extra life on it if you’re going for points; in the end that could turn into two hundred more points with the possibility of more lives from it. Very nice.

Stage 2: Eight Purple Petpets and nine Green. This level is a bit harder than the first with a total of five more enemies and the introduction of Drackonacks, those nasty little balls of speed that can easily take away a chunk of your armor. There’s not really anything special on this level except the increased difficulty, so just make sure you beat the snot out of the baddies and move on to the next level, unless you want to spend up to an hour trying to get extra lives on both levels one and two.

Stage 3: Nine Green Petpets and ten Purple. “Flight of the Fingers,” this level should be called; it’s the real beginning of four or more Petpets on one little group of ledges, and you’ve got to really pay attention to which Juggler is up and when you need to switch them. To help with that you should try to establish a place for your left hand to always be, like your trigger finger on the space bar and ring finger on the “Z” key; yep, that’s what I do. On to the next level!

Stage 4: Thirteen Green Petpets and thirteen Purple. Man, the beginning part of this level is easy! The only catch is when you soon get to a ledge that spans the entire game screen with three Drackonacks on it, two Green and one Purple, which is tricky because of the placement of the little ledge below the ledge with the bad guys on it; don’t beat yourself up if you get hit by them. I almost always do. You just have to be skilled enough at the other tricky parts to get by without losing any lives until you want to. Why would you want to lose any lives on purpose, you want to know? Read on.

Stage 5: Fourteen Purple Petpets and twelve Green. HANDS ON THE CONTROLS, NOW! In the very beginning of this stage is about a dozen enemies, four of them being Drackonacks racing right toward you! After you’ve beaten them and the five Tennas, which should be easier to hit if you just stay on the bottom of the level, you’ll see a Purple demo-I mean, Drackonack, that’s now falling and zooming toward you, even though it’s an easy shot, and right after that a Green Tenna falling from the sky. The rest of the level shouldn’t be too difficult…

Stage 6: Sixteen Green Petpets and fourteen Purple. Watch out for the foursome of Drackonacks near the start of the level; they may be on a ledge that they can’t escape from but they can still take away some of the Jugglers’ armor if you’re not careful. Ugh, another large group of Tennas around the middle of the level; again, if you lose some armor from them, don’t beat yourself up. It’s perfectly natural. After those enemies the rest of the stage is relatively calm and easy, so just blaze on through and hope for more extra lives.

Stage 7: Twenty Purple Petpets and nineteen Green. The beginning of this level is simple, considering that all you have to do is jump from ledge to ledge shooting at Slorgs with about a two percent chance of losing any armor by them. Unfortunately, after them come a bunch more Tennas, ten of them, actually, on two big series of ledges spanning the length of the game screen, which you have a good chance of losing even more armor from. After them is another series of ledges with Slorgs, only a bit harder than the first, which you should be able to get through rather easily, and two perfectly horizontal ledges with four Drackonacks on each. Just jump up onto them at the right time and they should be a cinch, with a few more Slorgs above them and the exit just beyond. Before you go confront the Jugglers’ sister’s captor, though, think about how high the scores are that you’ve seen in the High Scores List; it’s time for you to get a score like them.

Stage 7 (continued): To get as high a score as you can, you now want to carefully lose those lives that you spent so long to get, one by one. First you beat all of the enemies except one of the last two Purple Slorgs at the very top of the level, both of them crawling across the ledge with the exit; shoot one of them after you’ve made sure that Olly, the Purple Juggler, does NOT have the Weapon Powerup as to accidentally shoot both of the Slorgs, and then jump onto the very edge of the ledge, being as careful as possible not to touch the exit door, and let the Slorg continually hit the Juggler that you have up until he dies and you have to start the level over. You may be sobbing because of that now, but think about it; you still have the two hundred or so points from the level you just lost on, and a lot more lives to lose. Repeat the dying until you have only one life left, then defeat all of the enemies on the level and go on to the boss to finish up the game.

Boss stage: One Mutant Chia that wants and is trying to rearrange the Jugglers’ faces. So you’re finally at the end of the game where two hundred free points rests solely on your fingertips; when I was first playing I was like, “How the heck am I supposed to dodge that stupid Chia’s energy blasts?”, and I have now figured out what is probably the easiest way to do it: just jump up onto the near edge of the cloud opposite of the boss. Yes, it’s really that easy; it may require a bit of practice but once you get the hang of it the Mutant Chia should rarely hit you. But wait! Don’t just beat him up yet, wait until you’ve gotten him to about one or two hit points, which you should be able to recognize after a few tries, and have plenty of extra ammo. The answer to why is simply shooting him even after you’ve defeated him for even more points which, if you have the patience to collect that much extra ammo, can number into the hundreds! Even more if you have the Weapon Powerup!

The Extra Tidbits

One glitch-like thing in the game is that when you go through a level you may not actually see all of the enemies that you’re supposed to; an easy way around that is to go through the level and before exiting, go back and check to see if you missed any of those elusive baddies.

Plus, when the Jugglers in your game have the Shield Powerup and Jolly, for instance, then gets a Jump Powerup, the shield won’t disappear even though it no longer has any effect; the only way to fix it is to switch to Olly and then back to Jolly, so the shield is visibly gone.

Well, that’s it for the guide; I hope that it helped you and that you get a new high score and maybe even a trophy with it. Good luck, and happy juggling!