Meerca Chase II -- Guide for Legit Players & Score Senders
By Cost
For clraik users only
This is mainly going to be a guide for legitimate players, but I know a lot of you use score senders, so if you do use one and you do not give a shit about playing this game legitimately, skip to the bottom of this guide where I tell score senders which times and which scores I recommend that you use, depending on whether or not you are going for a trophy.
Intro
Meerca Chase is the Neopets version of Snake. It is one of the oldest and most classic Neopets games, and even if you score send, this game is still a lot of fun to play. Back when I used to play legitimately, I played this game for hours and achieved bronze and silver trophies (which was much more difficult back in the day) on multiple occasions.
Yes there is a "guide" on here already, but...it's not a good guide to put it lightly (don't take my word for it, go read it yourself while it's still up), so I feel it is entirely appropriate to replace it with a better one. I will also give you some information that other guides (such as JellyNeo’s guide) do not give you. However, this will still be a relatively short and concise guide. I will give you exactly the information that you need to know, including several personal tips.
1000nps is 960pts, avatar score is 1250pts and trophies are 1600-2300pts.
Guide for Legit Players
1. Always play on gravity mode. If you don't know already, to unlock this mode, type “superextrahypergravitymode”. Do not even think about playing on other levels as the neggs do not give you as many points. That is basically all you need to know. If you suck at gravity mode then I suggest you get used to it. The physics, in my opinion (as someone who is not an avid gamer), are not too difficult to get used to.
2. Negg Values. There are 8 neggs total and honestly only 4 are important. From most points/rarest to least points/most common: Fish Negg (900 pts), Power Negg (594 pts), Rainbow Negg (360 pts) and Gold negg (180 pts), then green, grey, blue and yellow. Note the gold negg is extremely similar to the yellow negg – it’s basically the yellow negg with a gold-ish outline instead of a black outline.
3. General strategy. You will NOT play out every single game, hoping for a fish negg halfway through the game. INSTEAD, you will constantly be restarting the game until a Fish or power negg*** spawns first. This is the strategy that players use when trying to achieve a high score. This is because you can spawn neggs faster (thus, getting a fish negg faster) by constantly restarting as opposed to playing out a game and getting neggs that way, if that makes sense. There is nothing you can do to increase your chances of getting a Fish Negg. One time I got 2 fish neggs almost back to back (Fish Negg, yellow Negg, Fish Negg). I have a screenshot of this somewhere but unfortunately I can’t find it atm.
*** If you are playing for the avatar (1250 pts) or even just for 1000 nps (960pts), you can get away with starting with a rainbow or even a gold negg depending on how good you are. If you are not a good player, I recommend waiting for only a fish or power negg.
This is what a fish negg looks like, by the way (click to enlarge):
(you need an account to see links)
To speed up restarting games, click end game with your mouse, press the “t” key to “try again”, and press the space bar to start the game. This is what I do to speed up games. I will warn you though, do not go to fast or you WILL miss a fish negg. It has happened to me probably a dozen times in my life (not exaggerating at all). Expect to wait an average of around 5 or 10 minutes for a power negg or fish negg. You may get a fish negg on your first try, or it may take you up to 20 or 30 minutes if you're really unlucky.
Once you become a good player, you can somewhat easily reach the avatar score of 1250 pts without any good neggs. I will go over gameplay techniques in the next section. Here I am just under the avatar score with only yellow, blue, green and grey neggs (click to enlarge).
(you need an account to see links)
4. Gameplay techniques.
a. First of all, I will share with you my finger placement. I place my right middle finger and right index finger on the top and bottom arrow keys respectively. Then, I place my left middle finger and left index finger on the left and right arrow keys respectively. In fact this is the fingering I tend to use for every game I play. If you are used to another orientation, I honestly suggest you try yours, but you are welcome to use mine.
b. Next, I want to talk about being patient. Patience is important in this game. If you are dying at 200 or 300 points, let me ask you, are you holding down the up arrow key? If you are, stop that. There is no rush when you are trying to get a high score. What you should be doing is TAPPING the up arrow key, propelling yourself forward bit by bit. You’ll soon realize that this is especially important at 30+ neggs because the red neggs will start popping up everywhere and if you make one wrong move obviously the game is over.
c. Sometimes, Neggs will appear very, very close to the black hole in the middle. Long story short, you’re fucked, depending on how close the negg is to the middle. If the negg is exactly in the middle then you are supremely fucked as there is no way to get those without dying in the process. But when the negg is just outside of the black hole, even when its barely touching it, you can still slowly lower yourself down to pick up the negg and then immediately come up. You have just milliseconds to press the up key after you pick up these neggs so your timing must be very good (and be patient).
d. My rule of thumb is do not try to be cute and switch directions just because the negg spawned right behind you. If you’re practicing, it’s probably okay, but if you have a fish negg and you’re going for a high score, you don’t want to risk it.
e. Keep an eye on red negg placement throughout the game (but also don’t stop concentrating on the meerca). If you find yourself having to squeeze through two red neggs every time you get to that particularly area, do what I do and raise yourself up a bit, let yourself fall down, turn your meerca using the left and right arrow keys such that you’re ready to go through, and then fucking gun it. That’s the only thing you can do a lot of the time, depending on the situation. This is one of the only times you should hold down the up key in the mid/later stages of the game. Otherwise you should be inching along.
f. If there is a negg near one of the 4 corners, and red neggs are everywhere, you gotta plan what you’re gonna do. You just have to inch your way VERY SLOWLY in between the red neggs. If you are simply tapping the up key very patiently (as you should be doing), you will not pull your tail very far (or at all) giving you enough time to plan out what you need to do. Another related tip is if the negg is up in a corner, and you find that the path to the negg AND OUT from the negg is the same straight path, meaning your tail will be directly behind you, you really need to make your path SOMEWHAT circular. What I mean is if you just go straight up to the negg and come right back down the way you came, you WILL run into your tail. So you need to curve your line up to the negg, and you only need to do it a little to be successful.
g. Be fearless and do not hesitate in this game. While red neggs, gravity and your tail are all constantly trying to kill you at any given moment, you are always in control. Never forget that. Everything is predictable, other than the random placement of neggs. Gravity never changes, your meerca speed never changes, tail physics never change. The only thing that keeps you from getting a trophy, more or less, is your lack of control, lack of intuition with the physics of the game, and lack of patience.
h. You must keep your meerca moving when picking up the second negg. If you stop right as you pick it up (moving away from the center), the second negg will spawn right on you in tail form and kill you. Protip: if you let yourself fall into the second negg, this fixes the problem.
i. Another general rule of thumb is try not to move and turn at the same time. Do them separately. This strategy is important and comes intuitively to me after playing for so long, but if it's not as intuitive for you, that's okay. Constantly think "tap, turn, tap, tap, tap, turn, turn, tap..." etc. where "tap" is moving forward with the up key.
j. When in doubt, take the outer-most route (o shit it rhymes). This is not only because gravity is weaker farther away from the center, but also because it makes avoiding your long tail easier.
***
I have now given you all my best tips, although I feel like I could sit here and type many more tips for you guys. For whatever reason, if you are serious about wanting to get better and achieve a trophy score (legitimately), PM me with whatever questions you have and I will answer them using screenshots of gameplay if needed. We can even go to skype.
Final notes
If you are going for a trophy, I recommend you wait for a fish negg or a power negg only. It will hurt to skip over the rainbow neggs but just do it. If you are going for the avatar, depending on how good you are, you can start on other neggs. If you are even just a decent player, you can get the avatar from just starting on a gold negg or rainbow negg.
Here I am, less than 24 hours after posting this guide, obtaining a score of 1530+ starting with just a rainbow negg, and I did end up getting a bronze trophy (the high score boards are pretty soft right now). If the rainbow negg was a fish negg (i.e. if I was more patient lol) I would have gotten a gold trophy instead.
(you need an account to see links)
For Score senders (Game ID: 500)
Note: I am assuming your time goes from page load to sending score (this is how Joe’s score sender works).
1. Are you only going for 1000 nps? If so, use scores of 1000-1400 and a time of 5 minutes. Reasoning: I timed myself from page load to sending score, and a 1000pt game takes 3 minutes. Assuming 1 restart (let’s say you spent 2 minutes getting to 700 points and then died because a negg went in the middle, or some stupid mistake), it can theoretically take someone like me to reach 1000 points in 5 minutes.
2. Are you going for a trophy? If so, use scores of 1700-2300 and a time of 15-25 minutes. You could honestly go to 2600-2700 and still easily be legit (use 30-60 min imo for that), but lately high scores haven't been that high because nobody plays that much anymore. The increase in time accounts for the time you would need to restart the game hoping to get a fish negg or power negg.
IMPORTANT: Your scores must have a mod of 18, in other words they must be divisible by 18, as all negg point values are divisible by 18 in gravity mode.
If you do this, there should be little to no chance of you getting frozen because these are 100% accurate scores and times coming from my own experiences with the game.
***
Thank you for reading and please post or PM with questions or comments.
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