Training to Defend

First things first, let’s take a look at the object of the game. For those of you who don’t know, in this game you are shown a gallery of Neopets pictures and presented with a question. Your objective is to click on the correct picture according to what the correct answer to the question is, in the amount of time given. The faster you answer the question, the more bonus points you will get, IF you answer correctly of course. So, what you are basically looking at is a carnival shooting game, where the pictures are your targets. Got that? OK, let’s move on.

Let’s get down to the basics of the game. There are three difficulty levels: easy, medium and hard. The harder the level is, the more targets there are and therefore, the more smaller they are, plus the more points you will earn. On easy level you have four big targets. On medium level you have six slightly smaller targets. On hard level you have nine even smaller targets. If you are just starting out, I would play a game on easy level first just so you can get a feeling for the game. Then I would move to the medium level for a couple of games until you get the hang of the smaller and extra targets. Then if you feel brave enough, you can move on to the hard level.

Each level consists of ten rounds and each round has a question that you have to answer ten times. So if you make it to the end of the game, you will have answered one hundred questions. Quite a lot for a short amount of time, don’t you think?

What are the questions you ask? Well, I am glad you asked as I am going to tell you them right now. There are seven questions in total, with two of them appearing more than once. The order in which I have listed them, is the order in which they appear in the game. So remembering the order is something I would work on. Where you see ‘X’ is where the specific letter will appear, and where you see ‘Y’ is where the specific anagram will appear. What I have put in the brackets at the end of each question is what type of pictures will show up.

1. Which starts with the letter ‘X’? (pets)

2. Which starts with the letter ‘X’? (petpets)

3. Which is an anagram of ‘Y’? (pets, petpets)

4. Which is an anagram of ‘Y’? (fruit, items)

5. Which starts with the letter ‘X’? (pets, petpets, fruit, items)

6. Which has the longest name? (pets, petpets)

7. Which has the shortest name? (pets, petpets)

8. Which ends with the letter ‘X’? (pets, petpets, fruit, items)

9. Which contains the letters ‘X’ and ‘X’? (pets, petpets, fruit, items)

10. Which has the most vowels? (pets, petpets, fruit, items)

There are a few little catches in the game. Come on now, you didn’t really think it would be THAT easy, did you? *laughs* The first catch is within the questions themselves. Some times the word ‘NOT’ will appear in the questions in red. So instead of getting “Which starts with the letter ‘G’?”, you will get “Which does NOT start with the letter ‘G’?”. The next few catches deal with the pictures. Instead of being upright and full-sized, the pictures will change somehow some times. Some times the pictures will be upside down. Other times they will be very (and I mean very) small. At other times they will be shadowed so you will only see their silhouette (outline). There is also ‘Moving Targets’ where the pictures switch places after a certain amount of time. You will know when they are moving targets when those words appear in red, in the upper left-hand corner of the game. There are a couple of different speeds with the moving targets (I believe 3-4), so watch out for those and try to distinguish a pattern, as I find there usually is one.

There is a time bar you need to consider as it shows you how much time you have to answer each question. It is centered at the top and is filled in yellow. The time starts off at eight and goes down to zero, stopping when you answer the question. The time bonus works as follows, where Time=Bonus: 0-1=0, 2-3=1, 4-5=2, 6-7=3, and 8=4. Don’t worry too much about the time bonus; just make sure you answer the questions right and on time.

When you answer correctly, you will hear a ding and the box the picture is in will highlight in green. When you answer incorrectly, you will hear a buzz and the box the picture is in will highlight in red and have a red X. The correct answer will also highlight, again in green. When you answer a NOT question, all possible correct answers will highlight, as well as the wrong answer. Some of you might find this confusing, so just listen for the ding and you will know you answered the question correctly.

Well, that is basically all there is to know about the game. Oh, guess you’d like to know what score you need to get in order to get 1,000 Neopoints, huh? Well, that would be 500, which should be easy for you to get after a few practices now that you have read this guide. Below are some tips I think are important to remember.

Tips

#1 – If you are just starting to play the game, start on easy or medium level for a few games before moving on to the hard level.

#2 – Try to remember the order of the questions. This will help you, as you will know what question to expect next.

#3 – Try to get to know all the pictures. What they are, their shape and their color will help you tell them apart from each other, and therefore they will be easier for you to pick out. This is most helpful for the starts with and anagram questions.

#4 – Knowing all the pictures will also help you know how many start with a certain letter. For example, there is only one picture that starts with ‘H’, which is Harris.

#5 – Watch out for the NOT in the questions. Remember, it can appear at any time, some times 2-4 times in a row or even more than once in a round.

#6 – Watch out for the Moving Targets sign. Again, it can appear at any time, some times even 2-4 times in a row, some being faster than others.

#7 – When you get a fifth extra life, it will cover the spot where the moving targets sign appears. When this happens, you can only see the sign a little on both ends, so you will have to watch more carefully for the sign.

#8 – Practice, Practice, Practice. The more you play it, the better you will get.

If you have any more questions or want clarification on something, feel free to Neomail me. So go on, get going and get training!!