Conquering Freaky Factory

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To begin, you should get familiar with your game. Let's look at the most important elements:

Vats and Blobs: Blobs are the liquid Kreludite that whizz by on the top half of your screen. Vats are the containers you're trying to get the blobs to fall into. Red blobs will come from the right side moving toward the red vat on the left, the blue goes from the left to right, and yellow will come from both sides. Blobs can go at different speeds, so it will take a little practice to get a feel for when/where to click on the blobs so they'll fall into your vats. Once you've played for a while, you'll get into a nice rhythm and won't have to think so much about clicking. You should also learn to recognize the number of colour units of each size of blob... that is, how much your vat fills up when the blob goes in. There are 1's, 2's, 3's and 5's. Your vats can hold 8 units of colour at a time.

Next toy: On the right, next to your blue vat, there will be a picture of a toy, a big number above it's head, and a little chart of colour. This tells you everything you need to know about the next toy your game will try to build. Let's say for example that you see a red Jubjub with a 1, the chart shows that you need 2 units of red to build this toy. If you don't have the colour necessary (two red, in this case), nothing will be done.

Consecutive bonus: This is on the left just above where the toys disappear off the conveyor. Each time a toy goes off and is closely followed by another, your consecutive bonus (C.B.) goes up. I bet you didn't know that this is where the real points/NPs are made! Sure you get something for each toy made, but no one will get any fancy avatars without paying attention to their C.B.!

Overflow: The squiggley thermometer-shaped thing on the far right of your game. This indicates how much colour you have spilled. It will be white at the beginning, but as you (inevitably!) spill colour, it will begin to fill up. If this gets filled to the top, it's GAME OVER!

Time: That big orange clock in the top/middle of your game tells you how much time you have left for the current round. The clock goes faster and faster with each round.

Toys left: The counter on the bottom left of your game. This will tell you how many more toys you have to make to successfully complete your current round. This number increases with every round. That's right... with every round, you have to make more toys in less time!

Conveyor queue: On the bottom right (next to the sound toggle and restart button) is a pipe contraption with red dots on it. It is easy to ignore this, but don't! As more toys get queued up, the red dots turn green. For example, 4 green dots means there are 4 toys waiting to pop out on to the conveyor. Your C.B. is safe as long as you have enough colour in your vats for the next toy, and you still have toys in your conveyor queue.

Grundo thief: This is a scoundrel who will pop up from the bottom and try to steal your toys right off the conveyor belt! Click him with your mouse and he'll disappear for a few seconds. Watch out though, because he will be back before you know it!

Other stuff: There's a big screen in the middle of your game that keeps you up to date with what's going on. You can ignore it. Your current score is on the top right. And on the bottom right you can toggle the sound on/off, or restart your game.

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Okay, enough already! Let's start playing!!

First level- points goal: 130+

You have to get the maximum consecutive bonus (C.B.) for this round. Not a single break where your bonus returns to 0! Look at the right at what toy you have to build first. Let's say for example that it's 1 red JubJub, requiring 2 units of colour. DO NOT PUT MORE THAN 1 UNIT of that colour (red, in this case) in the vat until the others are full or nearly full. And then, only put colour in the red if it's 3 or 5 units, because you want enough in there for a second red toy if that's what's next. This sets you up for a good C.B. After this, click like crazy to keep the vats nearly full till the level is through! Don't worry about a little bit of overflow.

Second level - points goal: 275+

Pretty much the same as the first level. You can maybe afford a break in your C.B., but probably not more than one.

Definitely restart your game if you're not above 275 by the end of second level. Your chances for high C.B's go way down after this level, so get them while you can. You'll start having to build more complex toys requiring more and more colour, making it harder to get a good run of consecutive toys going.

After level 2, just click like crazy to keep the vats full, but watch your overflow!

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Finally, here are some assorted tips:

Thief-hitting: ALWAYS click to get rid of the Grundo thief if he can get one of your toys. If there are no toys and he's not right by the entrance, you can leave him alone till the toys start. If it's a choice between filling a vat and hitting the thief, hit the thief. Note that if a blob misses a vat and hits the thief, he will also go away! I wouldn't recommend relying on this though, because you don't want to miss him and cause unnecessary overflow. Whatever you do, don't let him mess with your C.B. If he has to get one of your toys, let it be at the beginning. :)

Angel Blob: This heavenly blob will completely fill one of your vats! Always try to fill the emptiest vat with the angel blobs, even if that is not the vat where you currently need colour to make the next toy. (level 3+ only!) If the Angel Blob misses a vat and hits one of the toys on your conveyor, the toy will get a halo and be worth 10 extra points. Be really careful with this though... if you miss the toy and the angel blob goes on the floor, it causes a LOT of waste.

Clock blob: Clicking this will give you more time! ALWAYS click the clock blob to get a few more seconds for your current round.

Cleaner blob: Clicking this soapy blob will clean up some of your waste. ALWAYS click the cleaner blob if you have any overflow.

Radioactive blob: ALWAYS click this green glowing blob to upgrade all the toys currently on your conveyor. It will turn your primary-coloured toys (red, yellow, blue) into secondary-coloured toys (purple, green, orange), which are worth more points! And even more exciting, it will turn any secondary-coloured toys into rainbow toys (worth lots of points!) Sadly, if you have ONLY rainbow toys on the conveyor, it will make no difference.

Speedy blob: Only click this winged purple blob if you need your toys on the conveyor to get to the end in a super-hurry because time is about to run out. Otherwise, it messes up your C.B. Bad!

Freeze blob: These ice blobs will slow your conveyor belt to a crawl, making a terrible mess of your C.B. You don't want that, do you?

Hyper blob: This very rare atom-looking blob is most wonderful blob of all! Merely clicking it will fill ALL your vats to the top, Oohhh!!

Time remaining bonus: You get points for finishing your round quickly, so don't spend too much time enjoying the scenery.

NEVER click the aptly named Evil blobs or the huge drooling blobs, as they will cause an unbelievable mess (lots of overflow).

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Hopefully this will get you off to a good start with Freaky Factory. But don't come crying to me if you suddenly find yourself muttering such phrases as "Get your fat head back down there before I click it off!" or "Would it be THAT painful for you to give me some red now and then?" on an otherwise quiet Sunday afternoon.