Pogo Cheats Blog

Taking a break

2010-06-21T08:49:00.000-07:00

Hi all! I'm distracted by and enjoying summer so my entries are postponed. But I'm sure you all will make it through (I checked the upcoming badges for the next month and it looks like Play Buddy has 'em covered) - good luck and have fun badging! TTFN

May 26, 2010: Phlinx & Word Whomp

2010-05-31T14:20:00.000-07:00

Phlinx Badge Challenge
Hieroglyphics Badge
Make 75 groups of 5 or more stones fall to the ground this week!
Win this badge plus 2000 Tokens!

Sadly no Play Buddy for this challenge. Even so, I was surprised at my skills. I completed this badge on easy in 59 minutes and earned an additional 1,273 tokens. This is a tricky game to play, let alone explain, so my advice is limited.

I recommend choosing the easy level because the puzzles are simplified and finish sooner. Look for any groups that you know will cause balls to fall. Then add some balls to that group if necessary to get 5+. Then "cut the tie" so-to-speak. I continued this process over and over and towards the end of this challenge I really got the hang of it, and you probably will, too.

Word Whomp Badge Challenge
Baby Carrots Badge
Find 15 6-letter words this week!
Win this badge plus 3000 Tokens!

Thanks to Whomp Buddy I got this badge in 6 minutes and an extra 2,283 tokens. BUT you'll get it much faster (hard to believe you can get it in faster time than 6 minutes, huh?) because halfway through I figured out a trick...

You do NOT have to finish the game to receive credit for the 6-letter words. That said, let the Buddy scan the game and generate the list of words on LEVEL 3. Then double-click all the words in the right-most column of the Buddy; these are all the 6-letter words and double-clicking on them automatically enters it into the game (such an awesome feature... man I love Play Buddy!). Then click "NEW GAME" and repeat the process. You'll be done in a couple minutes flat. :-)

May 19, 2010: Fortune Bingo & Quick Quack

2010-05-19T10:24:00.000-07:00

Fortune Bingo Badge Challenge
Crystal Gong Badge
Get 20 Jackpot Spins this week!
Win this badge plus 2000 Tokens!

Thank goodness for Play Buddy because this one was a bit of a doozey!

Fortune Bingo Buddy got this badge for me - and an extra 3752 tokens - in 2 hours 52 minutes. At first I tried the single card (speedy game, of course) rooms thinking it would go faster, but the majority of the time someone else would get and call bingo before me, and before I had gotten my "spin" number. So then I switched to the speedy blackout rooms. These take a bit longer because it is blackout BUT my odds of getting the bingo or my "spin" number greatly increased. So overall, I think this is the way to go to get the badge as quickly as possible (or wait for a couple of days and play in an empty room... empty room = guaranteed jackpot spin for you!).

Quick Quack Badge Challenge
Duck, Duck, Goose Badge
Get 100 streaks of 15 ducks or more this week!
Win this badge plus 3000 Tokens!

With an extra 4,430 tokens and the badge in 49 minutes, I must say I couldn't have done it without Quack Buddy. This bot is so amazing, that it was getting 100-duck streaks right from the start. BUT the badge is for 15 streaks so for this challenge, I played with the Buddy. Here's what I did, and what I recommend to others:

1. Open Quack Buddy and go to "Options" to turn the speed up to 2.
2. Then let it Autoplay until you have 12-14 ducks then STOP the Buddy.
3. Now END the streak: play any duck(s) that will end the streak the quickest.
4. Then START up the Buddy again and repeat this process.

This method earned me more than TWICE as many 15+ duck streaks than letting the Buddy autoplay on its own. However, if you have errands to run or stuff to do, you can certainly just turn the Buddy on and let it play all by itself since it will eventually get the badge on it's own. The choice is yours! :-)

May 12, 2010: Deuces Wild & Thousand Island Solitaire

2010-05-13T10:31:00.001-07:00

Thanks to Play Buddy this week was very easy: it was a "download a Buddy and GO" week (yay!). That said, both of these challenges were completed on auto-pilot without any hangups so I don't have much to offer as far as hints or tips.

Double Deuce Poker Badge Challenge
Pair of Deuces Badge
Get a Two Pair or better 100 times this week!
Win this badge plus 2000 Tokens!

Double Deuce Buddy earned me an extra 1,980 tokens and the badge in 26 minutes.

Thousand Island Solitaire Badge Challenge
Floating Chest Badge
Get a 'Perfect 1000' on 100 piles this week! (Play Distance cards to make a pile add up to exactly 1000)
Win this badge plus 3000 Tokens!

Island Sol Buddy wasn't too shabby, either; this Buddy received my badge and an extra 5,530 tokens in 1 hour 37 minutes (on average, that's less than 1 minute per pile). NOTE: Be sure to select the "Only Score 1,000" option from the Buddy's menu so that it capitalizes on achieving the badge faster.

May 5, 2010: Ali Baba Slots & WordJong

2010-05-05T14:52:00.000-07:00

Ali Baba Slots Badge Challenge
Forty Thieves Badge
Win 100 tokens from the Spin to Win Bonus this week!
Win this badge plus 2000 Tokens!

This week's challenges were so very very very easy compared to last week - what a treat! So for this challenge in particular, I opened Alibaba Buddy, pressed autoplay and the badge was finished in 6 minutes with an additional 1,415 tokens.

WordJong Badge Challenge
WordJong Spring Badge
Spell 15 7-letter words this week! (Win the game to check your progress)
Win this badge plus 3000 Tokens!

Since Play Buddy doesn't have a bot for this yet, I played by myself using the same tactic as SCRABBLE here - by manually typing in all the playable tiles (up to 7) and solving, then filtering the results by 7-letter words; if only 6 letter words could be made, I'd double check to see if an "s" could be tacked on to the end of any of them, when I had extra wild tiles. This strategy helped me complete the challenge in 25 minutes with an extra 264 tokens.

One final note: not only do you have to win the game to check your progress, but you also have to win the game to get your badge (a bummer when you get your 15th word on the beginning of a huge puzzle like I did!)

April 28, 2010: Tri-Peaks Solitaire & Flower Daze

2010-05-05T14:47:00.000-07:00

Tri-Peaks Solitaire Badge Challenge
Sneak Peak Badge
Clear 250 peaks this week! (Peaks are the 3 top cards in each hand)
Win this badge plus 3000 Tokens!

This one was a DOOZIE! Even though there is a Tripeak Buddy, I completed this challenge solo because I have Vista and - as the download page attests - it was buggy to the point of not working so I struck out on my own. This was a whopping feat that took me just short of 3 hours 30 minutes, and a bunch 'o extra tokens (8,533). Throughout my journey I learned some tidbits that could help other players:

Always look for the up AND down cards. Example: showing a 4; can choose a 3 or 5

Then choose the longest chain which could be a combo of going up and down Example: showing a 4, with a 3,3,4,4,5 on board so you can have a chain of 4,3,4,3,4,5.

And make sure to select the card that will uncover more cards UNLESS it's at the very top where you can either uncover a card or finish a peak, in which case finishing a peak is preferable (unless you're card counting and know that you can do both).

Save wilds until you have 0 or only 1 peak in a game, and can use the wild card to obtain an extra peak.

Flower Daze Badge Challenge
Flower Power Badge
Convert 2500 orange flowers this week!
Win this badge plus 2000 Tokens!

This one seemed very easy (and short) compared to the Tri-Peaks challenge - I completed it manually in 52 minutes with an additional 3,244 tokens.

The instructions weren't very clear on how to play this game. Basically you have flowers with numbers in them at the bottom of your screen. That means you can move to that colored flower on the game board, that many times. In short: select any of the difficulty levels until an ORANGE flower appears on the game window, and start clicking on anything that lights up!

Sometimes after a game is completed, no orange flowers will appear. So keep hitting "new game" or change the difficulty level and they will eventually reappear.

And a final sweet note... the great fact about this badge is that you DON'T have to WIN the game in order to get credit. :)

April 21, 2010: Beaker Creatures & Mini Golf Madness

2010-04-23T09:38:00.000-07:00

Beaker Creatures Badge Challenge
Creature Comfort Badge
Win 3000 tokens this week! (Including Jackpot Spins)
Win this badge plus 2000 Tokens!

I thought this badge would take forever so I opened Beaker Buddy and turned on autoplay and left the room. About 1/2 hour later, I came in to check the progress and it was already done! So unfortunately I don't know exactly how long it takes, but I do know it's less than 30 minutes on DIFFICULT level, and I got an extra 4,097 tokens.

Mini Golf Madness Challenge
Chip Shot Badge
Finish a hole under par or better 60 times this week! (Score -1 or less for a hole)
Win this badge plus 3000 Tokens!

Since Play Buddy didn't have an auto for this game, I soloed it and got my badge in 1 hour 28 minutes in addition to an extra 3,490 tokens. BTW, this challenge really means UNDER par. In other words, if you get Par on a hole, it WON'T count. :-( BUT I found some tricks that I think will make your challenge go by more quickly and easily.

First, I recommend playing the easy Warm-up course over and over and over; I found that the more familiar I became with that "easy" course, the more under-par holes I had (my record was 12 holes under par out of 18!). Some helpful hints for particular holes are here:

Hole 3: Shoot to the north-most (upper) hole
Hole 4: Use Big-Gulp if available
Hole 9: Shoot to the south-most (lowest) hole
Hole 11: Draw out the shot as long as you can make it, and aim it north (towards the upper or left side).
Hole 14: Bump it out in front of the car when the car is moving towards the direction of the hole.

April 14, 2010: Everyone Wins Bingo & Crossword Cove

2010-04-14T10:01:00.000-07:00

Everyone Wins Bingo Badge Challenge
Spring Saplings Badge
Call 50 vertical bingos this week!
Win this badge plus 2000 Tokens!

I completed this badge with an additional 3,735 tokens in 45 minutes with EW Bingo Buddy's help. I think you could do it a bit faster because I was playing in a room with only 1 other person, but for this particular challenge a fuller room might work to your advantage because you'll receive more wilds to make more bingos. Anyway, here's what worked great for me:

Select a 5-card FAST room to speed things up. UNcheck "Use wild card for wild bingos only" in the Buddy's options, if you let it autoplay the entire challenge. Personally I played along WITH the Buddy to maximize my vertical bingos. This is done by first checkmarking "Hold wilds" in the Buddy's options. THEN after all of the numbers have been called, place the wilds yourself on numbers that complete vertical bingos. This is more efficient since the Buddy would place them wherever thereby obtaining horizontal or diagonal bignos. :-)

Crossword Cove Badge Challenge
Hermit Crab Badge
Earn 12 star powerups this week! (Easy and Medium difficulty level puzzles contain star powerups)
Win this badge plus 2000 Tokens!

Even though Play Buddy didn't have a Buddy for this challenge, I completed it in 10 minutes (but only got an extra 10 tokens, too) because I discovered a great trick. Of course this completely defeats the purpose of playing the game fairly, or solving the puzzle, or trying to obtain tokens, or using your brain. ;-P If you're interested in this tactic, then read on!

Click on the word that contains the star powerup. Now click on Pogo's "Hint". Now a "Solve" button will appear. Click it. Notice that the word has been solved and the powerup star has been placed in your bucket. Voila! Repeat this process on every star on the puzzle and then press the "All Done" button. Now repeat this process on the next puzzle until your badge is completed. This will ensure you don't get tokens or points, BUT it DOES result in getting the badge. :-)

April 7, 2010: Canasta and Aces Up

2010-04-07T11:20:00.000-07:00

Aces Up! Badge Challenge
Goggles Do Nothing Badge
Remove 1500 cards in this week! (Cards removed by planes do not count. Finish the game to check your progress)
Win this badge plus 3000 Tokens!

With the badge completed, and an extra 2,649 tokens earned in 1 hour 30 minutes, I thank Aces Up Buddy for allowing me to enjoy the sunshine and get a little bit of yard work done! :-) This challenge was very straightforward so I just opened the bot and hit autoplay and I suggest you do the same... unless you'd prefer knocking through 1,500 cards, in which case, to each his own! lol

Canasta Badge Challenge
Hip Cat Badge
Meld out before your opponents 7 times this week!
Win this badge plus 2000 Tokens!

Even though Play Buddy has Canasta Buddy, I ended up doing this challenge on my own because I have some knowledge of the game now (from the last challenge) and felt I was able to get things done more quickly. It took me 52 minutes and I got an extra 2,772 tokens. HOWEVER you can still use the Buddy to autoplay through the challenge if you don't know the game. I recommend going to the Settings and selecting "Never pick up discard pile" and "Meld cards immediately" before letting it run, as this is likely to get the challenge completed within 2 hours (just check back in on it around that time).

March 31, 2010: Crazy Cakes and Lottso

2010-03-31T08:48:00.000-07:00

Crazy Cakes Badge Challenge
Upside Down Cake Badge
Meet the Goal for 25 rounds without losing any customers this week!
Win this badge plus 3000 Tokens!

Play Buddy didn't have an auto for this game so I went solo on the challenge. That said, I played - and recommend you play - on "Beginner" or "Easy" since we puny humans can complete the badge much easier and faster on these levels. Even though it took exactly 1 hour (and 2,286 additional tokens), I found this game to be engaging and fun; it was non-stop clicking and action until VOILA! up pops the badge.

Helpful Hint: If you're like me and never played before, when a customer is asking for a piece of fruit (i.e. a cherry), they don't want the actual piece of fruit (you can try and give it to them but it won't work, as I discovered), but they want any PASTRY that is flavored with that kind of fruit. So for example, customer shows a cherry. Click on the cherry AND a cookie, cake, or whatever pastry.

Lottso! Badge Challenge
Lottso Lava Badge
Activate 30 silver-bordered cards this week!
Win this badge plus 2000 Tokens!

First of all, the majority of cards SEEM silver-bordered but are actually black. An example of a black border is the "Team Lottso" cards which are always black. The silver cards look more like the color white (at least on my comp). That said, play in the "COMPETITIVE" rooms because then you have greater odds of getting more silver-bordered cards (no team lottso cards means less black bordered cards). ALSO when I joined a room, I personally made sure I had at least 1 silver-bordered card... if there are none it's going to take that much time to clear some cards to get a silver card to drop.

So, there are a couple of options in getting this badge - a slower option and a faster option; one involves working with Lotso Buddy, the other involves letting the Buddy do all the work. :)

Option 1: Team work
So since the bot doesn't have a setting for this particular badge, I'd click on all the numbers in any silver bordered cards I had at the beginning of every round. Then I'd press "autoplay" and let it fill in the rest of the spaces and scratch any scratch cards. BUT REMEMBER to stop it again before the next round if you want to place any more balls on any new silver cards. Using this strategy took me and the Buddy 1 hour 55 minutes and granted us an extra 5,770 tokens.

Option 2: Let 'er ride!
This one is definitely the easier choice, albeit slower. BUT if you have other things to do, just hit autoplay and walk away. :-)

March 24, 2010: World Class Solitaire and Dice City Roller

2010-03-26T18:16:00.000-07:00

Class World Badge Challenge
Middle Seat Badge
Complete 6 cities this week! (To complete a city, win the required number of games between the departure and the destination cities)
Win this badge plus 3000 Tokens!

It's challenges like this that make me say "thank you" to Play Buddy. I opened the game and got out Class World Buddy and just hit the play button and walked away. :-) After 1 hour 33 minutes it was done and I had an extra 8,045 tokens. As an added extra bonus, I saw I got 2nd place on the high scores list.

Dice City Roller Badge Challenge
Remodeling Badge
Win 10 auctions this week! (Play in Auction rooms to participate in auctions)
Win this badge plus 2000 Tokens!

Unfortunately no Play Buddy for this challenge, but at least it was easy and fast. So, that said...

Want easy and fast completion of this badge? Use an auction room but jump into an EMPTY room (or near empty). This guarantees you'll win all the auctions and for the cheapest amount.

The number of auctions you've won will not appear until all of the quarters have been completed. So after the 4th round and any jackpot spins, you'll receive credit for and be notified of the current auctions won.

NOTE: Be sure to participate in all your auctions! I accidentally missed one and had to go a whole extra 4 quarters for 1 auction. :-( So that said, you'll probably complete this challenge faster than I. That said, it took me 32 minutes and I earned an additional 1,750 tokens.

March 17, 2010: Pogo Bowl and Mahjong Garden

2010-03-17T09:19:00.000-07:00

Pogo Bowl Badge Challenge
Pin Monkey Badge
Bowl 100 Spares or Strikes this week!
Win this badge plus 3000 Tokens!

With Play Buddy's auto Bowling Buddy, this badge challenge was a breeze. Just open a fast room, and let 'er rip and check in after about an hour and a half; my badge appeared after 1 hour 31 minutes with an additonal 2,939 tokens and I expect you'll have a similar result.

Mahjong Garden Badge Challenge
Year of the Tiger Badge
Make identical matches for all 8 of the Seasons tiles in 8 puzzles this week!
Win this badge plus 2000 Tokens!

Just like on the previous Mahjong Garden badge challenge, MahjGar Buddy was more efficient when I played with it, instead of letting it autoplay straight through. That said, I'll refer you to my previous blog here - just replace "flower tile" with "season tile". :) One difference was that this time it took less time (1 hour 18 minutes) and gave 1,604 extra tokens. And as usual, you'll have to complete the entire puzzle and get through the jackpot spin before the game is counted and the badge awarded.

March 10, 2010: Chess and Lottso! Express

2010-03-10T09:27:00.000-08:00

Chess Badge Challenge
Pwned! Badge
Capture 50 pieces this week! (Players will not receive challenge progress if a player resigns)
Win this badge plus 2000 Tokens!

Unless you have a friend to play with (and who can purposefully lose to you), I recommend playing against computers since this is always a faster, easier route. And of course like me, you'll be using Play Buddy's awesome auto Chess Buddy.

I began by letting the Buddy autoplay on its own. However, it was so efficient at winning that I stopped it and used "play hint" to get more pieces. I'd use the hints until towards the end of the game at which point I'd capture stray pieces when the opportunity presented itself, whereas if I had let the Buddy continue, it would have gone straight for the kill. In other words, its goal was to win ASAP but since our goal is to get as many pieces as possible in one game, I chose to nab pieces whenever I saw the chance to do so. Again, I recommend doing this towards the end of the game where it's easier to see what pieces to nab without losing the game. Then again, you can just let it autoplay... would probably only take a little while longer but the badge would still be won. :-)

So when it was all said and done, it took us 19 minutes to acquire the badge and an extra 1,207 tokens. Not too shabby!

Lottso! Express Badge Challenge
Refill Badge
Complete 200 bingos this week!
Win this badge plus 3000 Tokens!

I remember a Lottso Express challenge from not too long ago. The blog I wrote on it here has some good overall play tips if you'd like to revisit it.

Unfortunately still no auto from Play Buddy. So I earned my extra 2,646 tokens over the 1 hour 6 minutes it took to complete the challenge. HOWEVER you'll be able to do it much quicker - a lot of my time was spent experimenting. :-) That said, here's what I found to be the most efficient and FASTEST way to get this badge:

If you fill up the entire board, that guarantees 14 bingos. However, this can become tricky to do towards the end when all you need is a 3 and a 1 and they're not coming up and you run out of balls. So the next best thing I found was to do that initially and then do a rotation thereafter so that one side is filled, and one side is free. This enables you to get almost as many bingos in the same time and in a tad easier fashion.

Here's what to do:

1. Begin by filling up ALL the cards. You want to fill up every space until the entire board is filled for your initial "million" bingos.
2. Now scratch the scratch tickets of ONLY ONE SIDE of the board and then refill
3. Now continue to fill up the empty side and collect your bingos. When only a space or two is left and it's time to refill, scratch the FULL side FIRST then refill.
4. Remember to finish filling up your "almost full" side.
5. Repeat 2-4. :-)

Some extra FYI and tips:

You have to complete the game to see and get credit for your bingos. This means playing all the way to the end 'til you see the play again screen or badge window pop up (even if you get your 200th bingo on the first ball of Goal 1!)

Look for lines where you can put multiple balls. For example, you have a 2, 2, 8. You could put those anywhere the numbers appear, but if all 3 of those numbers can be put on the same line, you're that much closer to a bingo.

If you have extra balls that won't fit anywhere on the cards, remember to look to the side bets of the scratch cards before refilling.

March 3, 2010: Bingo Luau and Keno Pop!

2010-03-03T10:21:00.001-08:00

Bingo Luau Badge Challenge
Hula Hoop Badge
Get 10 bingos this week!
Win this badge plus 3000 Tokens!

Even though this badge challenge took Bingo Luau Buddy 1 hour 51 minutes and gave me an additional 4,359 tokens, I know how you can complete it in about 15 minutes (albeit for a lot less extra tokens, too). With only 3 bingos left, an "EUREKA!" lightbulb popped on in my head and I completed my remaining 3 bingos in less than 3 minutes. Here's how you can fly through your challenge:

1. Click on the "Super Speedy" game tab
2. Then choose the "Blackout" game
3. Select an empty room, or room that has only a couple people in it

VOILA! You'll be getting triple bingos every couple minutes and your badge will be completed in no time at all. :-)

P.S. If you're in a room with a few other people, it's common curtesy not to call BINGO until there are only 5 numbers left to be called. That way everyone gets triple bingos!

Keno Pop! Badge Challenge
Light Up the Meter Badge
Play any power-up 25 times this week!
Win this badge plus 2000 Tokens!

This was an extremely easy challenge, although the luck factor combined with having to wait for the balls to find their slots and waiting for jackpot spin rounds makes it lengthy (no way around it, as far as I can tell). That said, I opened Kenopop Buddy and just let it autoplay on max bet (you get the most amount of balls this way), while I did other things. After all was said and done, Keno Buddy completed the challenge in 1 hour 42 minutes and gave me a whopping extra 33,000 tokens!!! This game is definitely on the top of the "Best game for most amount of tokens" list.

February 24, 2010: Yahtzee Party and First Class Solitaire

2010-02-26T10:26:00.000-08:00

Yahtzee Party Badge Challenge
Roll the Hard Six Badge
Roll 6 Yahtzees with 'sixes' this week!
Win this badge plus 3000 Tokens!

If you want to complete this badge as "quickly as possible" (hahaha... ROFL... I use the term lightly considering it took an hour and 20 minutes to get my first which was actually my second but my first didn't count because I already had a Yahtzee in the Yahtzee slot!), click the "Fast Rooms" and then choose the "Wild" rooms, too. Playing in a wild rooms gives higher odds of Yahtzees since wild dice (jokers) are available. At two hours and only 2 Yahtzees, I gave up on this badge - I'll wait for Play Buddy to release a Yahtzee Buddy so I can let it run for the 10+ hours it's going to need. lol!

First Class Solitaire Badge Challenge
First to Board Badge
Complete 12 foundations this week!
Win this badge plus 2000 Tokens!

Even with Class First Buddy and an extra 2,806 tokens, the 32 minutes it took to complete this challenge seemed to take forever (but of course is nothing compared to the Yahtzee challenge)! The first two wins (8 stacks) happened within 10 minutes and then waiting for the final win (final 4 stacks) took all the rest of the time. This is a very tricky game that requires a lot of strategy and could really drive ya bonkers if you try to think about it too much so my personal advice is to turn on the Buddy and let it run!

February 17, 2010: Word Search Daily and Boggle Bash

2010-02-17T08:22:00.000-08:00

Word Search Daily Badge Challenge
Pretty Word Badge
Find 20 'Gift Words' this week! (Gift Words appear with letters missing on the word list. Progress granted for replaying completed puzzles)
Win this badge plus 3000 Tokens!

Playing manually I completed the badge and acquired 3,496 extra tokens in 44 minutes. If you follow these guidelines, your time will probably be faster:

1. Open Word Search Daily and make sure that the difficulty level is set to "easy"
2. Press the "new game" and "random" until you see a word in blue appear (the "gift word") on your word list
3. Even if the bottom of the puzzle has a message saying "This Game Does Not Count Towards Earning a Badge", this message is INCORRECT in this case: as soon as I finished the puzzle, it gave me credit for the blue gift word.
4. Refer to my previous Word Search Daily badge post here for helpful puzzle-solving advice and tips.

Some tidbits I learned are to NOT USE HINT on the blue gift word because you will NOT receive credit for it. If you can't figure out what the blue word is immediately, just look for the most consecutive letters in the puzzle. For example, if it says c_ard, look for "ard" in the puzzle and voila.

BOGGLE Bash Challenge
Bashful Badge
Find 100 words that do NOT contain the letter 'e' this week!
Win this badge plus 2000 Tokens!

Hello gorgeous! When I originally opened Boggle Buddy it was plain 'ol Jane and now the updated version that works with the black bar is a total makeover! Very nice. Okay, so on to the more important stuff...

You can let it autoplay and just walk away and eventually it will get the badge. If you want to really speed things up, you can do what I did: I double clicked on all the words in the Buddy's word list that did not have "e"s in them (really nice when one puzzle didn't have an e in it!). A few minutes of the 12 (that's right - only TWELVE minutes... and 665 extra tokens!) it took to complete the challenge were spent waiting for the time to run out and the next round to begin so you'll definitely finish this up in no time by playing manually with the bot as a helper.

February 10, 2010: Hog Heaven Slots and Sweet Tooth 2

2010-02-10T11:19:00.000-08:00

Hog Heaven Slots Challenge
Wingin' It Badge
Collect 30 halos this week!
Win this badge plus 3000 Tokens!

It's badges like this that make me so excited and thankful for Play Buddy! Instead of spending the 2 hours (exactly 2 hours!) clicking a mouse button non-stop, I just downloaded Hog Heaven Buddy and hit "autoplay" and away it went - and away I went to grab some lunch! So aside from just letting the bot run and checking in on it every so often, there isn't really anything else I can say to make this challenge go by smoother or faster. One cool thing: I hit the jackpot a few times because in addition to the 3,000 tokens for the badge, the Buddy snagged an extra 22,995!!!!! Now if only I could nab that kind of luck in real life...

Sweet Tooth 2 Challenge
Holey Molar Badge
Match 3000 pieces of candy this week!
Win this badge plus 2000 Tokens!

Thank you Play Buddy for the sweeeeeeet TootSweet Buddy! I downloaded this bot and had it play caramel on level 5 because you get more pieces and takes longer to clear all the caramel squares which is good because a) you get more matches and b) the less amount of "downtime" (i.e. jackpot spins and end of game scoring, etc) the faster it goes! That said, this badge was the heavenly one compared to Hog Heaven... only took 25 minutes. Of course I only got an additional 2,223 tokens too. Even so, I think I prefer the shorter time anyway. :-)

This might be helpful info for some: running out of time does NOT matter - any matches you made still count regardless of whether or not the time runs out. Also, you have to wait until the end of the round to get credit. This means that you have to wait for either your time to run out, or until you successfully complete the round.

February 3, 2010: Puck's Peak and Perfect Pair Solitaire

2010-02-05T11:50:00.000-08:00

Perfect Pair Badge Challenge
Hearts on Fire Badge
Visit 7 ports this week! (Reach 7 spaces marked with a star on the game board)
Win this badge plus 3000 Tokens!

This was pretty tricky since Perfect Pair Buddy does not know how to land exactly on a star (that's right: to get this badge you have to land directly on top of a star space, not just pass it!). So I would help the bot by counting how many spaces it was to the next star and if it were, say 6, I'd "guide" the Buddy to get 6 hearts during the game. HOW? Well that was tricky and it's tricky to explain. But basically I had to use common sense and deduce / estimate at the beginning and during the game when to allow the bot to do "perfect pairs" (matching the couple directly across from one another which gives a full heart immediately) and when to use the K heartbreak cards to keep from getting another heart. Once again this requires use of the HINT options so conveniently displayed on the Buddy. Otherwise if you let it autoplay, it'll get too many or too few hearts.

Whew! Well I know that is kind of difficult to understand, but once you start playing you'll see what I mean and pick it up. Good luck! And may you finish faster than I - it took me an hour and 17 minutes but towards the end when I figured out a good routine, I landed on the stars back-to-back-to-back which wrapped things up quickly and finished up with an extra 3,886 tokens.

Puck's Peak Badge Challenge
Mountain Climbing Badge
Reach 30 checkpoints this week! (Checkpoints appear every 100 meters)
Win this badge plus 2000 Tokens!

At 1 hour and 11 minutes this badge was another long one to complete (and not very rewarding: only an extra 1,088 tokens) since Play Buddy didn't have an auto. Thankfully I had never played this before so once I figured out that it was a glorified Tetris, it was just a matter of stack, stack, stacking away 'til I hit the marker. It's a lot easier if you're Rank 1 because the game is easier to play since the pieces are blocky. The last 10 of my checkpoints had to be aquired at the next rank and it was noticeably harder and therefore more time consuming (harder because the blocks turn into strange shapes). A pretty captivating game overall though - the hour I played seemed like no time at all!

A tip you might find helpful is to play the 1,000 meter game since you can complete more checkpoints without reaching a new rank (ranks are given after the round is completed), and you only need to build up and the pieces don't have to fit perfectly together. Just keep stacking things on top of eachother - make sure they're sound and stable though... no wobbles! - and you'll reach the levels faster than if you try to neatly fit every piece together like you have to do in Tetris.

January 27, 2010: Mahjong Safari, Thousand Island Solitaire, and SCRABBLE

2010-01-28T11:02:00.000-08:00

Mahjong Safari Badge Challenge
Tile Tree Badge Badge
Make 30 5X combos this week! (10X combos count double and 15X combos count triple)
Win this badge plus 3000 Tokens!

MahjSaf Buddy is so cute and such a good player. I wondered if the difficulty level would give more or less combos and I found that the easy gives 6 and the normal gives 7 so I would assume hard gives 8 or 9 but why have the bot waste time working harder than it needs to when it can complete the levels lickity-split on easy? Actually this badge would have been completed faster than my 6 minutes if I wasn't investigating this! LOL! (and BTW I got an extra 1,378 tokens in that short amount of time!). Anyway, that's part of my curiosity and if I can find something helpful then it's worth it. :) In short: nothing difficult or crazy about this quick challenge.

Thousand Island Solitaire Badge Challenge
Captain's Log Badge
Play 200 Distance cards this week! (Distance cards have numbers like 25, 50 or 75 on them)
Win this badge plus 2000 Tokens!

An amazingly similar situation as Mahjong Safari. Bottom line: just let it run! Thankfully IslandSol Buddy doesn't have to WIN the game, it only has to FINISH the game to get credit for the distance cards. This was all wrapped up in 13 minutes, with an additional 1,616 tokens. Easy Breezy.

SCRABBLE Badge Challenge
Scrabble Rousers Badge
Create 30 5-letter words this week!
Win this badge plus 2000 Tokens!

This challenge attested to my brilliance and stupidity. How so? Well, allow me to elaborate.

Play Buddy doesn't have Scrabble Buddy (unfortunately) BUT I do remember Quirty Buddy and that you can enter letters into Quirty Buddy's GUI and use the solve feature to generate a list of words (dang I'm smart!)!!! WAHOO! Sure it's not as fabulous as an autoplayer but ya gotta admit it's pretty dang cool (love Play Buddy's one-of-a-kind features!!!) and certainly better than no help at all! <--- BRILLIANCE

However, one hour in I realize that I'm not receiving credit for my 5+ letter words and I realize that the words have to be EXACTLY FIVE LETTERS! So in other words, all my fancy 6 and 7 letter words I was proudly entering, DON'T COUNT! <--- STUPIDITY

So once I figured that out, I used the "solve" AND the 5-letter word filter on the Buddy and then it only took me 21 minutes to get my remaining 18 5-letter words. ALSO you have to FINISH the game completely to get credit for the words so make sure to play it all the way to the end.

And there it is. Hopefully you can glean from my brilliance and attain some wisdom from my stupidity and finish this badge more efficiently (and with more than an extra 1,060 tokens) than myself.

Late late LATE!

2010-01-21T10:22:00.001-08:00

Just an apology to all my followers, readers, and fellow badge challengers for my huge delay in posting the weekly challenges! I completed them but had not posted them, so now here they all are! Again, I'm sorry for the late posting.

January 20, 2010: Everyone Wins Bingo and Turbo 21

2010-01-21T10:15:00.000-08:00

Everyone Wins Bingo Badge Challenge
Frozen Acorn Badge
Pass 100 wilds this week! (Wilds passed to yourself do not count)
Win this badge plus 3000 Tokens!

One word: WOW. And this is in a good way and bad way. LOL Bad is the amount of time the challenge took. Good is the amazing mad skills Play Buddy's auto has. So allow me to elaborate.

One hour and forty three minutes later my EW Bingo Buddy acquired my badge and an additional 2,770 tokens. This challenge was like pulling teeth, and not because of the Buddy but just because it took that long to be able to start passing wilds. Anyway, the good news is that I definitely have some tips for making this challenge go by faster (I use the term lightly LOL).

First open up a 5-card room in the speedy games section.

Second open the Buddy's Options and select the "use wild card for wild bingos only" setting. "WHY?" you ask? Well, quoted from Pogo, "Wild bingos are regular bingos that also pass a wild to another teammate" and the goal of this challenge is to pass wilds. By turning on this option I got the "most wilds" award in 15 out of 17 games!

Lastly also in the Buddy's options, select the "Hold wilds" setting. "WHY?" you ask? Well, this setting is smart because it knows that you can only have 5 wilds held at a time so it will always "spend" the fifth one. Otherwise, it saves all of the wilds until AFTER all the numbers are called. This means that it won't waste a wild on a number that would have been called - only on numbers that weren't called! In other words, it maximizes the amount of wilds you will pass.

ALSO if you're an avid bingo player, this FYI from Pogo might be helpful to you: "If you reach rank 50 in Bingo Luau and Everyone Wins Bingo, you’ll unlock Double Wild Bingo buttons! Double Wild Bingo buttons will appear randomly on your bingo cards; calling a valid bingo with that button will pass two wilds to two different players on your team!"

With all that said, good luck and happy badging!
:)

Turbo 21 Badge Challenge
Convertible Badge
Get 200 Blackjacks this week! (A Blackjack is a 21 with only 2 cards)
Win this badge plus 2000 Tokens!

Ya know, I'm really getting used to Play Buddy providing such an efficient bot for these challenges! 21 Buddy also made it so I could just open it up and let it play - this was one of those challenges where a smart bot combined with the luck of the draw made it so it could be completed only so fast; 1 hour 19 minutes in this case, with a doozie of 16,612 additional tokens for the time and effort. Thankfully the auto was self sufficient as usual so once again I just let it run and occupied my time elsewhere.

On an aside note, I think for this specific badge challenge, it would be nice to have a couple of new options in 21 Buddy such as skipping the time bonus round and purposefully focusing on putting ALL 2-card 21's together, even if it means busting other lanes and getting less tokens. This would save a lot of time, although I'm sure as a result we'd only get a smidgeon of the tokens but hey, that's why they're called "options" right? :)

January 13, 2010: Lost Temple Poker and Addiction Solitaire

2010-01-21T10:10:00.000-08:00

Lost Temple Poker Badge Challenge
Rope Bridge Badge
Win 75 hands this week! (Your payout must be more than your wager to win)
Win this badge plus 2000 Tokens!

I'm not sure that it matters because it's probably all the same mathmatics wise BUT just in case, I set my default bet amount to 1. In my head, I figured this is good since one rule of achieving the badge is that the payout must be greater than the wager and the smallest wager is 1. *shrugs*

So 40 minutes and 2,429 tokens later, Lost Temple Buddy completed my challenge for me. Since the drawing of the cards is completely random and the Buddy uses poker strategy to keep and discard the right cards, this challenge pretty much came straight down to luck of the draw. That said, I don't have any revolutionary ideas that would help make this challenge easier or faster.

Addiction Solitaire Badge Challenge
It All Adds Up Badge
Get 12 Jackpot Spins this week!
Win this badge plus 3000 Tokens!

Even though this took 47 minutes (cha-ching cha-ching tho: 10,295 extra tokens!), Addiction Buddy made it so the game went as quickly as it could, and enabled me to get some chores done around the house while it worked. I mean, Play Buddy really knocked it outta the park with this amazing auto - I really fell in love with it, as I watched it play the first 10 minutes or so. Quick, smart, and good looking - what a package! Once again the efficiency of the bot rendered useless any ideas or suggestions: I have none for this challenge!

January 6, 2010: Trivial Pursuit and Jungle Gin

2010-01-21T10:06:00.000-08:00

Trivial Pursuit Challenge
Rainbow Wedge Badge
Win 6000 tokens this week! (Completing this challenge requires playing several Daily Episodes)
Win this badge plus 3000 Tokens!

12 MINUTES and a whopping 7,187 extra tokens - ohhhhh yeah - doesn't get much better than that! Play Buddy sure has a winner with their Trivia Buddy. All I had to do was open it up and press autoplay and wham, bam, thank ya ma'am - DONE!

Jungle Gin Badge Challenge
Thorny Thicket Badge
Score 750 gin points (not tokens) this week!
Win this badge plus 2000 Tokens!

Well, this challenge was the opposite of Trivial Pursuit: an hour playing time and only 1,432 tokens for the effort. Ack. But hey, it can't all be rainbows and sunshine now can it?! And at least I had Gin Buddy to conquer the challenge as I did other things. And even though the time was long, I'm pretty sure that it was faster than it would have been, if I had not changed the Buddy's Knock Limit (in the Options) to 6 instead of Gin. Oh goodness... if I had let it try to wait for Gin before knocking for every game, it'd probably still be playing! I mean, it was hard enough to the point where I swear Pogo rigged this one... half the time by Buddy didn't get to play because the computer robot was knocking and ending the round within three draws! Sheesh it was a doozie. But hey, like I said - rainbows and sunshine!

December 30, 2009: QWERTY and Pop Fu

2010-01-21T10:00:00.000-08:00

QWERTY Challenge
Connect Effect Badge
Score a Connection Bonus 2 times this week! (Connect your own letters to your opponent's letters first)
Win this badge plus 2000 Tokens!

I could not believe my luck - whatever was Pogo thinking to gift TWO easy and fast challenges this week?! Wahoo! Of course then again if I wasn't using the amazing Quirty Buddy I probably could have tacked an extra hour or two to my time. BUT lucky for me it was Play Buddy to the rescue and with the help of this stellar auto, I completed the badge in 13 minutes and accumulated 1,955 more tokens. However, I quickly observed a couple of ways to make this time go by tons faster than if I had let the bot autoplay. Here's what I figured out:
When autoplaying the Buddy automatically plops out a word horizontally along the bottom BUT for this particular challenge we want to go up up UP since we have to make connections, and eventually over. So follow these steps:

Step 1: Instead of sticking the Buddy on autoplay, press the "scan" button at the start of your turn.

Step 2: Once the Buddy has scanned the board and your letters, press the "solve" button so the list of available solutions pops up.

Step 3: Click down the list until you find a word going in the direction you want (up up up then to the right), and play it!

Things to consider:

Play against a robot computer because they are faster and easier to beat than another human player (esp if that human happens to be using a bot, too!)
Be careful that you don't use words that are too big until closer to the end of the game / closer to the connection because if you go over the 800 points the game ends. In other words, you want to make the connection FIRST and then get mega words / mega points to end the game AFTER that connection happens.

So that should do it! Follow these guidelines and you're guaranteed to finish the badge as quickly as I did. :)

Pop Fu Badge Challenge
Kung Fu Cactus Badge
Pop 1000 balloons this week! (Balloons popped in the Speed Round do not count. Finish the game to check your progress)
Win this badge plus 2000 Tokens!

One word: WOW! 16 minutes and an additional 2,010 tokens tacked on top of the awarded 2,000 was impressive. Thank you Play Buddy! Aside from recommending the hardest level to pop more balloons at once, I don't have any helpful hints or tips for this challenge. In fact Foo Buddy was so fast and efficient that all ya have to do is turn it on and let it go and presto. Easy breezy (just how I like it!).

December 23, 2009: Dice City Roller and Aces Up

2009-12-23T16:34:00.000-08:00

Aces Up Challenge
Pilot Wings Badge
Serve 500 customers this week!
Win this badge plus 2000 Tokens!

Play Buddy has a great bot in Aces Up Buddy - as my extra 3,791 tokens can attest to - but during the 1 hour 43 minutes it took to complete the badge, I noticed a few little buggies that could make this bot even more of a flying ace. For instance, one time-waster was a loop that the Buddy would get stuck in when it ran out of moves; sometimes it would keep pressing "undo move" time and time and time and time again. So if you happen to see this, you can complete the badge faster just by clicking new game on behalf of the bot. Similarly, sometimes in those "dead end" game scenarios, you can see the dead end on the board before the Buddy does... starting a new game immediately at that time also speeds up the process.

Dice City Roller Challenge
Slice and Dice Badge
Correctly place 350 dice this week! (Finish the game to check your progress.)
Win this badge plus 3000 Tokens!

Sadly no Play Buddy for this game, but at least the game was pretty fun and easy! So first off, bid for extra dice if you're playing the auction round, but I highly recommend playing the "No Auction" option since it goes a lot faster. I started out with the auction verson, not immediately realizing there was a no auction version and this definitely contributed a chunk of time to the 42 minutes it took to complete the challenge. Once I was in the no auction room, the dice count sped up noticeably and at the end of it all I earned an extra 1,937 tokens.

WARNING: You must get through all 4 quarters before you're awarded the final dice count.

December 16, 2009: Makeover Madness and Canasta

2009-12-23T16:26:00.000-08:00

Canasta Challenge
Hooray Beret Badge
Make 25 Canastas this week!
Win this badge plus 2000 Tokens!

Thanks to Canasta Buddy I CAN CANASTA! Honestly, I never knew what a canasta was, let alone how to get one so thank goodness for this canasta Pogo cheat. And actually, now I have a pretty good idea about how this game is played, thanks to my helper. Anywho, on to the juicy badge challenge details...

If I had known how to play and had been paying closer attention at the start of the challenge, I could have reduced the 57 minutes it took to achieve this badge (but hey, can't shake a stick at the appealing 6,346 extra tokens I won in addition to the challenge token bonus!). HOW?! You ask? Well, I had "meld cards immediately" checked under options and during Canasta Buddy's play, I noticed that it would use a 2 and joker wild cards to make a meld with cards in my hand (ex. I have 244777 in my hand so it selects ALL the cards to meld, applying the 2 to the 4's) but I'd place it with cards that were already melded, to increase my canastas (ex. I have KKKKK already melded, so instead of using the 2 in the prior example to go with the 4's, I apply the 2 to the KKKKK instead).

Final comment: remember to play against a computer robot, as they are easier and faster to beat (and is only 1 player instead of the group canasta games that you can play).

Makeover Madness Challenge
You're Gonna Make It Afterall Badge
Serve 500 customers this week!
Win this badge plus 3000 Tokens!

Ahhhh, for a while there I forgot how nice it is to have a Play Buddy. And now this week it's back to two (YAY!). I love love LOVE that Makeover Buddy was available - I shudder to think how long this badge would have taken me on my own - as I wrapped this challenge up in 24 minutes with an extra 1,198 tokens. Make sure to put the difficulty level on "Holy Cow" because you get a whole room full of seats and clients, and Makeover Buddy is able to handle it all. I watched, mesmorized, at how game pieces were flying around the room and customers were zooming out of their chairs... it really is remarkable, especially considering my bumbling struggle with three chairs / customers on the easy level! Anyway, the challenge flew by and was a breeze thanks to my Buddy.

December 9, 2009: Lottso! Express and MONOPOLY

2009-12-09T13:28:00.000-08:00

The Lottso! Express Challenge

Express Yourself Badge
Reach the fourth goal 6 times this week!
Win this badge plus 3000 Tokens!

Sadly, no Lottso express Play Buddy to be my partner in crime this week (although there is a really awesome Lottso! pogo cheat available). And WHAT A SURPRISE from Pogo! The badge on the game page and badge challenge page says that you need to reach the 4th goal 6 times BUT after exactly 2 HOURS of playing (and 6,178 tokens) later, the green text that displays the progress in the chat room said I had reached 6 out of 15 4th goals! And once you log out of the game and return to the badge area, it says "COMPLETED" after the 6, even though the "badge complete" does not pop up and you don't receive the extra 3,000 bonus tokens. Of course who knows with this Pogo glitch... is it truly completed after 6 or did it suddenly change to 15, I dunno. As I was completing the MONOPOLY badge, Pogo put an announcement of this issue in the chat room but it had not yet been resolved.

At any rate, I did discover that it's helpful to get the big Lottso card early in the game like goal 1 or 2 so you have time to fill it up. It gave over 800 points on average, which is a significant amount more than the single cards which would give me around 60 points on average. HOWEVER it's hard to fill that large card up when you're running out of balls to play, so stick to the single cards later into the game. Also, get at least 1 bonus ball on the single cards so ya get 1.5x extra... do 2 balls if you can spare them since that gives 2x bonus.

BTW, to make things move even faster, start a new game as soon as the green sign pops up saying you've reached the 4th goal; even though you're prompted with a "are you sure you want to start a new game? All of your credit will be lost" your 4th goal accomplishment IS counted towards the badge.

MONOPOLY Badge Challenge

Monopolizing Badge
Roll doubles 15 times this week!
Win this badge plus 2000 Tokens!

The bad news: be prepared to have your butt kicked by robots and watch everyone get doubles except for you!
The good news: this is an easy no-brainer challenge... just requires you to keep clicking "roll" and cross your fingers and hope for the best (and while there isn't a PB Monopoly Buddy yet, I did see one for Monopoly Slots)!

WARNING: even when you make your 15 doubles, do NOT stand up in the middle of the game; Pogo doesn't say this, but the doubles are counted up only at the end of games so you have to complete the entire game even if you get your 15th double on turn 1 of the game like I did (I had to learn the hard lesson... thought "great! Now I'll leave since I know I have 15 doubles!" WRONG!). By learning from my mistake, you'll likely complete the challenge faster than my 1 hour 32 minutes. And if you're really lucky, you'll beat my extra 2,120 tokens too!

Helpful ways to make this challenge go by faster are to:

1. Play against robots (they're much faster than humans)
2. Checkmark "Speedy Dialogs"
3. Buy everything when you land on it (otherwise auction has to transpire)
4. Reject all offers (otherwise have to transpire through that process)

December 2, 2009: Word Search Daily and BATTLESHIP

2009-12-03T07:59:00.000-08:00

The Word Search Daily Challenge

Winter Search Badge
Find 120 words this week!
Win this badge plus 2000 Tokens

And as Heidi Klum would say... "One day you're in, and the next day you're out." Last week I had a Play Buddy to help with every challenge and this week *poof*. No Buddies. *sad face*. Anyway... at least this game was fun (in my opinion). Now, on to the challenge details.

Three words: PLAY ON EASY! I started this challenge on medium and while medium provides more words at once, it's not easy finding all of those words and it took a lot of time. On average my puzzles took over 5 minutes when on medium; switching to easy I was breezing through 'em like Super Woman. To solve the puzzle even faster, do what I did: use the HINT feature. You can use the hint (that's right, ya only get one hint for the whole puzzle) and the word will still count towards the badge. I suggest using my strategy of saving the hint until you've solved all but 2 or 3 of the words. If you can't find them in a few short seconds, blast that hint on the shortest word since those are harder to find than longer ones.

PLAYER BEWARE: the "Random" puzzles don't count towards the badge. Unfortunately for me it took a couple of those to figure it out. So, all in all, my 34 minute finish with an extra 1,266 tokens was well done indeed... especially towards the end - I figure I did as well as any bot could on my last few puzzles! ;0)

BATTLESHIP Badge Challenge

Direct Hit! Badge
Get 300 hits this week!
Win this badge plus 3000 Tokens

45 minutes into this badge and I realized WHY I LOVE Buddies, and why - if it weren't for them - I'd have pulled out all my hair and quit Pogo games a long time ago! LOL This was a doozie at 1 hour 33 minutes of blasting ships out of the water and receiving a doozie of an extra 6,903 tokens in the process. Thankfully I was playing against the computer robot which is MUCH easier to beat than a human player, and on the basic game (NOT classic which lets you shoot only once per turn... oh goodness that would take years!). Basic math will tell you that if you win the game, you're closer to clearing the 300 hits than if you're losing the game. So definitely DEFINITELY play against the helpful robots for this challenge.

Some strategy for winning: go for the powerup squares on your first move to get an advantage; I placed a hit in 3 different squares, trying to get a powerup AND hit a target simultaneously. Try to get a powerup almost every turn, especially if you're not hitting / sinking targets. BUT SAVE 2 POWERUPS! If things get desperate (i.e. computer sinks 2 of your ships) OR if you're close to winning but can't find the last ship, this is when you hit BOTH powerup squares so that you can get 2 powerups at once which turn into the heat seeking missles (i.e. your sure-fire win).

Oh please Play Buddy... what I want for Christmas is a Battleship Buddy before the next Battleship challenge!

November 25, 2009: Mahjong Garden, KenoPop! and World Class Solitaire

2009-11-27T12:17:00.001-08:00

The Mahjong Garden Badge Challenge

Mystic Garden Badge
Match identical Flower tiles 60 times this week! (Flower tiles are Bamboo, Plum, Orchid and Mum)
Win this badge plus 2000 Tokens

It's so nice when Play Buddy has all the autos for the weekly badge! This Mahjong Garden challenge was completed for me courtesy of the MahjGar Buddy Pogo cheat. I started out on the Medium level then switched to easy since I didn't care about earning more tokens, only about matching those flower tiles. Sadly this was not an option in the Buddy... if it were, it would drastically reduce the time it takes to complete these kind of badges. That said, it took me an hour and 12 minutes! Eh well, that's significantly better than the 1 day and 12 hours it would have taken me on my own. ;-) And at least I was compensated for my time, with an extra 7,472 tokens... wowza!

I found it helpful to play with the Buddy instead of letting it 100% autoplay... I started this about half way through and towards the end of my challenge I noticed the collections going much faster. What I did is stop the Buddy before the start of the new game and I'd immediately match all the flower tiles I could. Then I'd let it autoplay until more flower tiles were uncovered, which I'd then match. Otherwise the bot would put any 2 flower tiles together which made the progress slower (good for its strategy but bad for my badge!). I sent in a Play Buddy feature request so here's hoping this option gets added for future challenges.

The KenoPop! Badge Challenge

Soda Pop Badge
Win 7000 tokens this week! (Including Jackpot Spins)
Win this badge plus 3000 Tokens

With the help of Kenopop Buddy I easily completed the KenoPop! challenge. In fact, I let it play while I finished up my dishes and laundry (cute game with fancy graphics, but a bore to sit and watch). It took 21 minutes and earned an extra 2,215 tokens in addition to the badge award. Not too shabby!

The World Class Solitaire Badge Challenge

Black Friday 2009 Badge
Win 5 games between 12 AM PT November 27 and 12 AM PT December 1!
Win this badge plus 2000 Tokens!

The good news is that the Class World cheat got my badge for me in 36 minutes along with 2,072 extra tokens. The not so good news is that it could have done so a lot faster if it didn't get stuck in a few loops. Although the strategy was better because my game win percentage was over 60% and the last version was around 40-50%. The nice thing about Play Buddy is that I sent in a bug report and can now wait for the improved update.

Nov 18, 2009: Toot Sweet 2 & Pogo Bowl

2009-11-20T10:00:00.000-08:00

The Pogo Bowl Badge Challenge

Pinned Down Badge
Knock down 400 pins this week!
Win this badge plus 3000 Tokens

I used Play Buddy's Bowling Buddy Pogo cheat to accomplish this badge. It took 33 minutes and in addition to my 3,000 tokens, I made an extra 1,396. If you're like me and feel that these rounds take FOREVER, definitely use the FAST rooms like I did. I used the default setting on Bowling Buddy and had 14 strikes and 27 spares. I noticed it almost always bowled so that the two front left pins were left. So I thought about changing the settings but it seemed that randomness comes from Pogo... for example, even though my bot is doing the exact same roll, Pogo would have the pins sometimes split, or even give me strikes. And keeping a vigilent eye on the leader board, I noticed that the same people gravitated towards the top or bottom, but that the actual winners or losers definitely varied. So, in short, Bowling Buddy probably did about the best ya can do when considering Pogo's programmed results (not proven, just my own theory based on what I just said).

The Sweet Tooth 2 Badge Challenge

100 Percent Cacao Badge
Collect 7 Chocolate Coins this week!
Win this badge plus 2000 Tokens

This challenge was completed by a Sweet Tooth Pogo cheat (Tootsweet Buddy). I was so grateful to let this bot get this badge, because this game is soooooo tedious and hard to do on my own (especially on level 5 which was required to complete the challenge!). It took 37 minutes and I earned an extra 1,703 tokens (wowza...what a token earner!). I imagine the speed would be much improved if a "chocolate coins" option was included in the bot (here's hoping for an update) - I was surprised it wasn't there since Play Buddy is usually on top of that kind of stuff. I did notice a high score option, though... cool for people who play Sweet Tooth 2 to be on top of the leaderboard.