Dubloon Disaster: New vs. Old

As we speak, Dorak is rowing around in his boat, looking for gold. The water ripples behind him and his paddles hit the water in coordination to your arrow keys. He does this over 20,000 times a day. So far, he has done it over 10 million times. But it wasn’t always like this.

Not too long ago, back when Dorak was a bald blue Krawk who didn’t play his game nearly as much as he does now, the water wasn’t shaded. His paddles didn’t were not coordinated. No, back then, things were much different.

Before I launch into the differences, I would like to explain why I am writing this guide. There are many things in here that do not only apply to only Dubloon Disaster. When you get to the Techniques part of the guide, you see why. The other day, I looked at my Dubloon Disaster high score. It was 555. I thought, I can do better than that! So I tried, using many of the techniques I have thought of. Guess what my new score is. 1,920. Incredible, isn’t it?

Now, let’s compare and contrast. The pros and the cons. What is better, worse, or different about the two versions of Dubloon Disaster?

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Game Image:

When you first open the new Dubloon Disaster game, you see an intro. Finally, we can know what happened to Dorak, why he still searches, all this while later, for the treasure his ship lost. We see that Dorak is a bit of a miser, perhaps, counting his golden coins on a nice ship, when suddenly the Black Pawkeet appears from nowhere and brings down his pirate ship. The game means more to some people when they have a bit of a background to it.

The Dorak we see now is a nervous looking fellow, while the old one looked quite smug. He had chests of gold in his dingy, and he looked serious with a tinge of slyness to him. Now, he just looks scared. He fidgets at the front of his boat with a large lantern, his eyes darting from side to side.

When playing the game, you can still see the remains of his sunken ship, down in the depths of the water. Now, however, the water is a foreboding murky color, as opposed to its old cheery, light-blue color. The ship’s image wavers as the water swells and lowers, just like real sailing!

Scoring:

Another big change between the old Dubloon Disaster and the new one is the scoring. In the older version, each dubloon coin’s color represented its value in real dubloon coins found in Krawk Island. The brown/bronze one was two points, the silver ones were five through fifty. And etc. Then, at the end of the game, the NP Ration was 6.00.

Now, however, the ratio is 1.25. This means each coin is worth more. In the end, you get the same amount of points, pretty much. The bronze coins are worth ten points, the silvers are worth 25-250, and etc. There is a rumor going around that silver coins appear more often now than bronze coins.

Movement:

It is my personal opinion that Dorak’s dingy moves more slowly in the new version that the old one. Turning, especially, takes slower. As a consequence, turning when Dorak is near a mine is a bad idea. It makes it quite easy for the mine to get him. Also, another difference is that going backward, Dorak can maintain the same speed as when he is going forward. In the old version, Dorak’s speed was slower going backward.

It isn't just Dorak whose movement has changed. It is my firm belief that the mines move differently. As they did in the older version, the mines speed up when they are closer to Dorak. But in the newer version, the mines seem to enhance their speed. That is, they go very slowly when they are far away from Dorak, and their speed steadily increases as they get closer. Instead of, as they used to, suddenly going faster when they reach a certain distance from the dingy.

Multiplayer:

The multiplayer is fairly similar. There are now four different players who can play. Player one is blue, player two is red, and players three and four are green and yellow respectively. In the old version, there were two players maximum, and the goal was five dubloons. In the newer game, you can have as many as four players, and you can choose how many dubloons are the goal for the game. At most, you can play up to 99 dubloons. I imagine that would be quite a long game!

As with the old game, players that are hit with mines explode. As with the old game in Multiplayer, the victim loses all gathered dubloons. When playing with high numbers of dubloons, be careful!

Techniques

As I mentioned earlier, one concentrated game took my high score from 555 to 1,920. You can do that, too!

The biggest, best piece of advice that can never be stressed enough is to be careful. Watch out for the mines! A good idea is to get two coins, then make the two mines hit themselves. This is accomplished by waiting in between the two, then moving out of the way. They crash into themselves. This does take quite some practice, though.

Another big thing is patience. Take your time. You can’t get a score of 5,000 on your first try. Trust me, I know. It took me months to get my high score of 1,920. The game did not take me months, no. It took me that long to realize that I needed to be patient. The game took me quite a while, because I paused to rid myself of the mines every two coins.

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There. I’ve explored many aspects of the new Dubloon Disaster, including how to score big on it. I am making no promises that you’ll make the require 19,000 neopoints to get on the high scores, but, if you follow my advice, I’m guaranteeing an increase in neopoints for you!

Questions? Neomail writer190!