Mutants: PVE Event, Amazonia

In the Shell Shock's Mutopedia entry, it was asked if I would reproduce the Shell Shock versus Goliath titanic fight in the Arena. Here is the result:

The Shell Shock met the Goliath in Fight 99 of Amazonia.

Despite the Shell Shock having some serious wounds, the result of the match would be obvious.

Of course the Gold Shell Shock won!

Onwards to a more exciting match: Fight 100!

Fight 100 of Amazonia.

It was time to assign my best Mutants:

I had the feeling I did not have the right Mutants.

I needed the Gargantus and the Asian Valkyrie's Speed to take out the opposing Silver Medusa early. I had hoped that my remaining Mutants would still win the fight.

The fight went bad early:

After the Silver Lichlock, a Gold explosion in my Mutants' faces.

On my first turn, I had the chance to assess the situation:

Assessing the situation.

I made my first mistake here. I used Eva's Tag Team while attacking the Silver Medusa with the Asian Valkyrie. Unfortunately, it was not enough to take out the Silver Medusa. Had I done my homework and calculated the Gargantus' and the Asian Valkyrie's attacks, I would have known that the combined attacks of these two Mutants would defeat the Silver Medusa.

The important lesson: Do homework first before the battle. Use a calculator.

Eventually, it was down to the fight fight between the Asian Valkyrie and the Silver Lichlock. The Gold Supernovus had delivered serious explosions and that had hurt bad.

Final fight.

I had called on Eva a second time (at a cost of 20 gold) to arrive at that situation. Doing some quick mental calculations, I think the Asian Valkyrie would require two attacks to defeat the Silver Lichlock while the Silver Lichlock would require two attacks to defeat the Asian Valkyrie. Looking at the turn order, that looked bad.

I either had to hope for a Critical or call on Eva a third time. Interesting to note that the cost of a third Tag Team increased to 25 gold. Anyway, since I had already spend 20 gold so far, I might as well spend another 25 to ensure victory.

Won the Gold Star!

I won the fight, the event and the Gold Star at a cost of 45 gold. Considering that the Gold Star cost 500 gold, I considered the gold expenditure during the fight worth it. If I had not made the mistake of summoning Eva the first time, it would have cost me 25 gold less.

Oh, and there was a congratulatory message too:

Now I know how Baron Urban looks like.

Missy said something unimportant between Baron Urban's phrases.

Mutants: Genetic Gladiators, Contents

Mutants: PVP Season 18 Ends

PVP Season 18 ended today. I was in the Elites league.

Won the Silver Star, Humongous, Reactor Token and credits.

Earlier, I was at the top 1% where I would have qualified to win the Gold Star. Unfortunately, during the last few hours of the Season, players dropped in to knock my ranking down to the Elites league.

My latest performance.

I had Gold Star mutants and that helped a lot. Unfortunately, I do not have many tag team partners. I have not spent real money on the game to get this far - just a lot of hard work.

Here is the Mutopedia entry for the Humongous that was part of the prize:

Humongous and Demon.

Compared to the Demon, which has the same Speed, the Humongous has +9.7% Health Points and +10.7% Attack. These extra stats are expected of a PVP Mutant.

Mutants: Genetic Gladiators, Contents

Mutants: Gothic Mutants

Today, I completed the Gothic collection in the Mutant Reactor with the Reactor Token I won from the PVE Event, Rapa-Nui. As a reward, I was given the Gargantus:

Gothic Rakshasa and Gargantus!

Eva has still not corrected her grammar!

Compared to the last time, I required 14 Reactor Tokens to complete the Gothic collection (the Reactor gave me 7 Baron Lundis). Having only one slot free in my Incubator, I chose the Gargantus to incubate first (of course!).

Only 3 hours to incubate the Gargantus?

The Gothic Mutants have different stats compared to their regular counterparts. The Gothic Martian Marauder has -10% Health Points but +9.5% Attack.

Regular and Gothic Martian Marauder.

The Gothic Baron Lundi has +10% Health Points but -10% Attack.

Regular and Gothic Baron Lundi.

The Gothic Rakshasa has -10% Health Points but +10% Attack.

Regular and Gothic Rakshasa.

The Gothic Alien is considered a Bronze Mutant and has +21% Attack with no change to Health Points. It also has a smaller head. Regular Bronze Mutants have +10% to both stats.

Regular and Gothic Alien.

The Gothic Medusa is considered a Silver Mutant. She has +40% Health Points and +17% Attack. Regular Silver Mutants have +30% to both stats.

Regular and Gothic Medusa.

The Gargantus is considered a Gold Mutant. Comparing its stats to the Demon, which has the same Speed, the Gargantus has +81% Health Points and +113% Attack. These stats are impressive, perhaps better than Gold PVP/PVE Mutants.

Gargantus and Demon.

Today's free gift was another Reactor Token. I think I will save a few tokens before deciding on the next collection to complete.

Mutants: Genetic Gladiators, Contents

Dillo Hills 2 (racing)

Fullscreen does not work on Kongregate.

Dillo Hills 2 by fexLabs (click the 'i' button on the main screen for a full list of the people responsible) is a 2D racing game featuring colorful animal characters and cute sound effects. The game is easy to play but difficult to master. A player's skill has a large impact on his/her performance.

Easier to catch a screenshot on the ramp at the end of the lap.

The basic gameplay is simple: press down to land at the descending portion of a slope. Stop pressing at the middle and launch off. Press up to glide to delay landing if there is no suitable place to land.

The in-game tutorial explains this much more clearly than mere words.

Update 5 February 2014:
This forum post suggests that the best time to release the down key is just before launching off the ground. I'm not sure if the information is still correct, considering the date of the post.

***

Player placings after a race.

Despite the simple gameplay, it is difficult to master the game. The art of landing on downward slopes while moving at high speed requires considerable skill. In addition, the player has to learn some combat skills to effectively use and avoid power-ups.

I bombed someone.

There are crystals to be found during the race, usually on the ground. Picking them up increases the player's speed. In addition, after a certain amount is collected, the player is awarded a power-up. These power-ups may be for offense where it's used to stun/hinder opponents, for defense to protect/recover from attacks, and/or supportive where it helps the player skip forward a little.

Mastering the use of these power-ups take some practice and adds another element to the game for players to learn.

There are also different worlds to race on, each with a different flow of terrain. Practice on these worlds will give the player an advantage over his/her opponents.

There are also different game modes. Worlds on Zen only give the Cloud Canister power-up. This removes a lot of randomness. The player with the most skill and who is most familiar with the terrain will have the advantage.

Besides Zen, there are also worlds with Water and Mining. Water has part of the world covered with, well, water, allowing racers to dive and emerge for extra speed. Racers should watch for obstacles floating on a couple of Water worlds. Mining is the recently introduced game mode where, instead of a straightforward race, the player races to gather a certain amount of crystals of three different colors.

A racer's stats.

Outside of races, the player has his/her racer(s) to manage. Each racer has stats that can be improved with XP cards. XP cards are commonly found from booster packs. Booster packs may be obtained from participation in races or by buying them from the Race Shop. Booster packs are opened with the link shown at the top right of the screenshot above, highlighted with bright white light.

Once all the racer's stats are maxed, the racer may be promoted (note the promote button on the left of the screenshot above). Promoting a racer resets that racer to its starting stats but awards the player with a Prestige token and a special booster pack. The Prestige token may be used in the Race Shop to buy rare accessories.

Accessories mainly make a racer look pretty but they also increase one of the racer's stats. A rare accessory may add to two of the racer's stats.

It is easy to max out a racer within a day (or a few) of playing. In addition, latter stats (the more expensive ones) add less to the individual racer's performance compared to the first. Because of these factors, the player's skill has a great impact on the outcome of a race. Thus, practice is important to be good in Dillo Hills 2.

Part of the selection in the Race Shop.

In addition to the main game of racing, there is a sort of minigame within Dillo Hills 2 involving the League. The League is a fantasy racer management game where the player may add real players to his/her League. The better those other players do in races, the more League tokens the player gets. These League tokens may be used in the Race Shop to buy goodies like booster packs and unlocking specific racers.

The League minigame.

Graphic-wise, the game is pretty. The racers are colorful and can be funny or cheerful or whatever depending on the equipped accessory. The racers also make cute sounds. In a large game (Tournaments or Disco) with lots of racers, there may be lots of tiny animal voices as racers overtake and/or attack one another, especially at the start.

The game is updated once in a while with new racers (the Mining worlds were added recently). In addition, bugs and exploits will be fixed. There is regular support from the game developer (at the time of writing).

In summary, Dillo Hills 2 is a game of skill. It has lovely graphics and happy sound effects but its main draw is the difficult skill level at the top that tempts players to master it. Also, there are accessories and achievements to collect.

For tips on Dillo Hill 2, check out Icrine's guide.

Party time in Dillo Hills 2.