Sneaking Your Way to the Great Qasalan Caper

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STORY

You must be thinking, "How can I possibly get away with stealing? That's just wrong!" Yes, it is, but not with this game. The Great Qasalan Caper encourages you to help the Meercas reach their goal. That's the game! Now, why would two innocent-looking Meercas turn to the "dark side"? Surprise! Not all cute and cuddly innocent Neopets are going to remain that way forever! It was going to happen eventually. What caused them to be so evil? One word: Greed. Here's the story:

"To honour his beloved Nabile, Jazan ordered his finest craftsmen to create 100 golden statues to present to her on her birthday. Rumour has it that they are being stored in the Qasalan Royal Treasury until that day. Heermeedjet and Merouladen have also heard this rumour and have hatched a devious plan to infiltrate the treasury and steal the priceless statues for themselves. The treasury, however, is a complex maze full of dangerous Petpets and is considered quite perilous. Only with a great deal of cunning and speed will the two Meerca brothers manage to pull off the heist before the guards arrive."

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INSTRUCTIONS

The instructions for this game are fairly simple. The two infamous Meercas are Heermeedjet and Merouladen. You have a choice of how you want to move them; You can use your mouse or keyboard. Heermeedjet and Merouladen will both appear on opposite sides of the screen. The character with a white glow around them is your currently selected character. If you're using a mouse, simply point to the other character to change characters. If you're using the keyboard, use your left and right arrow keys to make the same switch.

The idea is to get the golden statues to reach the bottom of the screen. You can move the rows by clicking your left mouse button or pressing the space bar. NOTE: You can only move a row that has a statue on it! Otherwise it won't move! Slide one of the Meercas next to a row with a statue on it to move the row left or right. When a row is moveable, one of the Meercas will have a golden white glow around him. Collect all the statues, before time runs out, in each level to win; otherwise it's game over!

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CONTROLS

If you choose not to use the keyboard, don't worry about selecting the "Controls" tab. You start with your mouse by default. If you prefer the keyboard, simply click on the "Controls" tab and click on "Control the game with the arrow keys and the space bar" selection. Then, choose back.

Items to Look (or Look Out) For

Even bad guys get their enemies, of course; it's the good guys! This time the good guys end up losing ^_~ But all games have their enemies to avoid. Watch out for any obstacles that can interfere with the statues' path. The only real enemies you'll have to face in this game are Lyins -- avoid them at all cost! If one of your statues falls to them, you lose 10 points per statue. You don't lose those statues, though you'll have to start all over at the very top. In case you don't know what Lyins look like, they have a semi-cat face with an odd fish-shaped tail and a hard shell which protects them from predators. They prefer living under the sand and burrowing for goodies (which makes it a little odd for them to be in a game like this, since it has no sand anywhere!).

There are good items which can help improve your score:

1) Shiny Coins: Each shiny coin is worth 10 points.

2) Sand Clock: Every time you land on one of these, you get 10 points added to your time.

3) Glowy Green Gems: These tasty green gems are worth 50 generous points, so try to get them every time if you can!

Aside from the good and the bad, these following items can go either way. They can help you or be very annoying!

1) Levers: These levers can be good or bad. When a statue falls on these, you automatically shuffle vertically or horizontally. It could help you get to the bottom faster, land right back at the top, or help you land in the mouth of a Lyins. Wooo, ouch.

2) Geb: Gebs are these triangular-pyramid shaped blocks. If a statue falls on these, the Geb will clear a path by crashing down through crates and onto a stone. It could also kill Lyins if they get in the way of their path. However, the Geb will NOT crash if there is a stone in the way. The only way to move it is by moving its row.

Remember, your goal is to get all of the golden statues to the bottom of the row! They're worth 25 points each! Good luck making it to the top 100! I hope you grab a shining trophy!

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PERSONAL TIPS

1) It's best to stack most of the statues at once. After awhile, once you get to higher levels, it's tedious to do each statue one by one. Be very careful of the Lyins, though.

2) If your statue keeps falling into a Lyins (most likely at the very top), quickly try to find a way to block it from taking your points away. It's very easy to lose points, especially at higher levels when there are more Lyins crawling around the screen.

3) Grab the gems as much as you can. They're worth 50 points!

4) Snatching the sand clock is also extremely helpful. Time runs out really fast at higher levels.

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I hope you've enjoyed reading this guide! Practice makes perfect. It's also a pretty easy money-making game too! Hopefully, a beautiful, shiny trophy will appear in your lookup. Good luck, and have fun!