Version 1.4 4/30/04 _______ | | | O O | | O | | O O | _______ _______ |-------|| | | | O || O | O | | O || O | | | O || O | O | |_______||_______|_______| Ultimate Brain Games Walkthrough by The Lost Gamer (ilovecartoonssomuch@yahoo.com) http://the_lost_gamer.tripod.com/ Copyright 2004 For the latest version of this guide, check http://the_lost_gamer.tripod.com/guides.html Table of Contents: 001. General information 002. Title Screen Options 002a. Single Player 002b. Multiplayer 002c. Face Creator 002d. Options 003. Games 003a. Sink Ships 003b. Mahjong 003c. Backgammon 003d. Chess 003e. Checkers 003f. Reversi 003g. Dominoes 003h. Four in a Row 004. Credits 001-General Information ----------------------------------------------------------- This is a walkthrough for the GameBoy Advance (GBA) game called Ultimate Brain Games, a compilation of a bunch of games that require you to use your brain. If you want to contact me, e-mail me at ilovecartoonssomuch@yahoo.com but make sure to make the subject blank if you do. 002-Title Screen Options ----------------------------------------------------------- Start the game, and you'll reach the start screen, identified by the "PRESS START" in small white letters at the bottom of the screen. Press start, just like the game requests. Of course, if you're in a bad mood, you can throw your gameboy against a wall, yelling, "No, I won't press start! You're not the boss of me!" But if you do that, you won't get to play any games, so you should probably just press start and yell at your gameboy later, at a more appropriate time. When you press start, the title screen pops up. You have four options: Single Player, Multiplayer, Face Creator, and Options. Press up/down until the one you want is highlighted, and press A to select it. What happens when you select them? I can't tell you. It's a secret. Okay, I'll tell you, but not here, okay? You'll find the information later on, in their respective sections. First up, we'll see what happens when you highlight... 002a-Single Player ----------------------------------------------------------- Oh boy! Single player! You should select this if you're playing by yourself. Press left/right to select a game. You can see the game's name, and your records with playing that game if you highlight. The records go like this: number of games won, number of games lost, and percentage of games won. Highlight a game, and press A to play it. You can also press select to resume a saved game. Also, you can press B to get back to the title screen. Yay, title screen! You probably want to know more about those games you can play. Unfortunately, that information doesn't go here; it belongs in section three. 002b-Multiplayer ----------------------------------------------------------- Multiplayer is the same as single player, except you don't see any records of the game. You should select this if there are two people who want to play a game. When you choose a game, a screen pops up. You can do multiplayer through hotseat, or single game pak. For single game pak, you use a link cable (a GBA accessory) and connect the GBA with Ultimate Brain Games in it with another GBA. Alternately, choose hotseat, and you can play a two-player game on the GBA that has Ultimate Brain Games on it, which means the two players will have to take turns using the GBA. Once you choose how to play multiplayer, the game begins. The games will play just like they do in single-player mode, except your opponent will be the person you're playing with, not a computer opponent. The exception is Mahjong, a single-player game. In the two player version, the players compete to see who can match up more pairs of tiles faster. More on that in the Mahjong section, of course. 002c-Face Creator ----------------------------------------------------------- Hey, face creator! You can create a face for the person you play as! Cool! A picture of the person you're playing as will show up, along with a bunch of options. Two of those options are save and load. Once you make a face, you can save it. You can save up to two faces at once. You can load a saved face to play as it, otherwise you will automatically start gameplay as the first of the two faces. Select name to choose a name for the face. Press A to select the highlighted letter (for uppercase letters, press R). To delete a letter, select DEL (at the lower right), and select OK to go with the name you've chosen. Select Random, and the character will be given a random face. Select reset, and the current face will lose all of its features, giving it a cool, all black look. The character name will turn to "Player". Select modify to modify the face. In the lower-left corner is what you are modifying. At the top are your options. Press left/right to go through the options, and R/L to go through what you can modify. For example, press R/L until hair is selected. Then press left and right to go through the various hairstyles you can put on your character. You can choose what kind of head, hair, eyes, nose, lips, eyebrows, beard, glasses, and clothes to put on your character. Additionally, you can press select to change the character's skin color. There are four skin colors to choose from. And that's how you use the face creator. 002d-Options ----------------------------------------------------------- There are four types of options you can mess around with. Audio ----- In audio, you can choose playlist. There are ten songs that will automatically play in the background while you use this game. Move songs around on the playlist by pressing R and the control pad. Alternately, you can mix songs around on the playlist by choosing "Shuffle Tracks". Choose volume to mess with the volume. Set the volume of the music (on a scale of 0 to 100 percent), and set the volume of the sound effects (SFX) on the same scale. Once you have made changes to the audio, select save settings to have the game adhere to the changes you made. And, for whatever reason, you want to undo the changes made, select default settings, and the game will go back to the original settings for audio. Memory ------ In memory, you can reset any information that gets saved. You can reset your scores, saves (that is, the games that are saved), faces (the faces made in face creator), options, or all of those, if you want to. Opponent -------- Select who the computer opponent will be (the computer opponent is the person you play against in single mode). There are twelve computer opponents you can play against (Julie, Sandy, Nikki, Ann, Sandra, Alice, Bob, Tom, Rico, Paul, Hank, and Mike). Select which one you want to play against. If you don't care, select random, and each time you play a game, one of those computer opponents will be randomly chosen. Credits ------- Choose credits to see who helped make this game, and what they did to help. Press L/R to switch between the screens that show the people who helped. 003-Games ----------------------------------------------------------- This section contains information on the eight games you play in this game, listed as they are shown on the GBA screen (from left to right). When you are playing one of these games, you can press start to bring up three menus: Preferences, Game, and Help. Standard options in the preferences menu are: a) music volume and music tracks, which allow you to mess with the music. b) difficulty, which lets you decide how difficult it is to win a game. The difficulty levels, from easiest to hardest, are very easy, easy, average, hard, and extreme. c) Perspective view, which lets you switch between two different views of look at the board. d) Human on top, which allows you to choose if the picture of your character is above or below the picture of your opponent. e) alternate colors, which lets you decide if, after a game is finished, you and your opponent will switch colors. Standard options in the game menu are: a) start new, which allows you to start a new game. b) restart, which lets you restart the game you're currently playing c) load, which lets you load a saved game. d) save, which lets you save a game, which is useful in case you have to stop playing your gameboy for some reason. e) quit, which lets you quit the game and go back to the game-choosing mode. Standard options in the help menu are: a) switch sides, which lets you switch sides with your opponent. b) how to play, which gives you instructions on how to play the game. 003a-Sink Ships ----------------------------------------------------------- Sink ships is just like a game called Battleship. The idea is that you and your opponent have ships on two different 10 by 10 grids. You want to sink your opponent's ships before he sinks yours. To begin sink ships, you have to put five ships somewhere on a 10 by 10 board. Press B to rotate a ship, and press A to put it where you've selected. Once you place all your ships, you're ready to begin. You'll see your ships on the left. You'll see your opponent's grid on the right. Select places on your opponent's grid. You will bomb those places according to how many bombs you have. When one of your bombs hits an enemy ship, that part of the ship will catch fire. Hit all parts of a ship to sink the entire ship. You want to sink all of your opponent's ships. Now for the finer point of the game: The ships are of different sizes. There is one that is five spaces long, one four spaces long, two three spaces long, and one two spaces long. Once a ship is sunk, it can no longer be used to bomb other ships. Each ship supplies one bomb (except for the big ship, which supplies two bombs). Where to bomb ------------- There are three bombing plans I suggest: Plan One: | |X| |X| |X| |X| |X| |X| |X| |X| |X| |X| | | |X| |X| |X| |X| |X| |X| |X| |X| |X| |X| | | |X| |X| |X| |X| |X| |X| |X| |X| |X| |X| | | |X| |X| |X| |X| |X| |X| |X| |X| |X| |X| | | |X| |X| |X| |X| |X| |X| |X| |X| |X| |X| | The above is a checkerboard pattern. If you bomb in all of the spaces labeled by an X, you will have hit all the ships, seeing as the smallest ship is two spots long, and there is no place for a two or more spot long ship to be on that board and not occupy a space labeled by an X. The downside to this plan is that you must bomb fifty spots. That means it'll take about eight turns to bomb each of the recommended spots. Plan Two: | |X| | |X| | |X| | | | | |X| | |X| | |X| | |X| | |X| | |X| | |X| | |X| | |X| | |X| | | | | |X| | |X| | |X| | |X| | |X| | |X| | |X| | |X| | |X| | |X| | | | | |X| | |X| | |X| | |X| | |X| | |X| | |X| | |X| | |X| | |X| | | Plan two is an improved version of plan one. In plan two, there are only 33 spots to bomb, which would take about six turns. The downside to this plan is that you can miss the two by one ship, although you hit all the other ships. Plan Three: Bomb places randomly. I like this plan. Hit! ---- Well, what if you hit an enemy ship? That doesn't do any good unless you sink the entire battleship, right? Here's my plan. Consider this diagram where you got a hit on spot X. | |o| | |o|X|o| | |o| | I recommend bombing all spots marked o. The ship will have to be on one of those spots. Using the results, you can then tell what direction the ship is facing (up/down or left/right), and then you'll know which other places to hit. There are other factors affecting where you should bomb (the ships you already sunk, which let you know which ships still are out there, and the edge of the board, which the ships must stop at). Bomb wisely, and maybe you'll be able to shout, "I sunk your battleship!" 003b-Mahjong ----------------------------------------------------------- In Mahjong, the playing field consists of many cards. You can select the layout of the cards under the preferences menu (there are 8 easy layouts, 8 medium layouts, 8 hard layouts, and two river layouts). The cards come in pairs. You can remove the cards from the layout in pairs. Most cards look exactly like the card they pair up with. The exception are the season cards, which are cards with a picture of a season (spring, summer, autumn, and winter) on it. The season cards pair off with each other, despite that they do not look exactly alike. Now, the game would not be difficult if you had to do was remove cards. To complicate matters, you have to remove free cards. A card (tile) is free if these conditions are met: a - no tiles are on top of it b - there are not tiles touching its left and right sides When those conditions are met, a tile is free. Also, you can select a tile with A. If that tile doesn't get highlighted, it is not free. Press A to select a tile, or B to deselect it. Select a tile and its pair to take it off the board. A useful move is to press select. If you press select, a pair of tiles that you can remove will be highlighted so you can see them. Most of the time, there are two pairs of one kind of card. This means that instead of taking a card off with its match, you can take it off with one of its matches. This is important, because by removing cards, you can free cards, letting you remove more cards. Be careful which cards you choose. The game ends when you cannot remove any more cards. If this is because you have removed all the cards, you win. But if there are still cards on the board when you have no more possible moves, you have lost the game. Multiplayer Version ------------------- Unlike all the other games, you do not play against an opponent in Mahjong. So multiplayer version for Mahjong is different. The two players take turns taking pairs of cards off the board. Each player's turn is a certain amount of time (15, 30, 55, or 60 seconds, which can be adjusted in the preferences menu). The strategy is the same: try to remove all the cards off the board. The player who removes more cards from the board wins the game. Rivers Mode ----------- Rivers mode is different from all the other modes. In it, the board is shaped like a rectangle. In rivers mode, you can only remove tiles that could be connected by a line with only one or two corners. I have no idea what this means; my experience playing rivers mode seems contrary to this rule. Any help would be appreciated. 003c-Backgammon ----------------------------------------------------------- Backgammon is one of the two hardest-to-understand games in this collection (the other game being chess). This seems like a downside, but it's not. That makes those games more competitive. The board will look like the following diagram. Each of the positions (in reality, they are isoceles triangles) are numbered. | \12/\11/\10/\9/\8/\7/ | | \6/\5/\4/\3/\2/\1/ | black side | -- -- -- - - - |B| - - - - - - | | |A| | | |R| | | __ __ __ _ _ _ | | _ _ _ _ _ _ | | /12\/11\/10\/9\/8\/7\ | | /6\/5\/4\/3\/2\/1\ | white side The pieces (each player has fifteen) are sorted as follows: On 1, each player has two pieces on their opponent's side. On 6, each player has five pieces on their side. On 8, each player has three pieces on their side. On 12, each player has five pieces on their opponent's side. Black pieces move in a clockwise direction. White pieces move in a counter-clockwise direction. Note that no piece can move past one of the two 1 spots. One of the players starts by rolling two dice. The two numbers the dice show are the length of that person's turn. For example, if player A rolls a 3 and a 6, player A can move any one of his pieces 3 or 6 spaces (player A can even move one piece 3 spaces, and then move that piece 6 spaces). If a person rolls a double (which means the two dice are the same number), he or she can make four turns. For example, if player B rolls two threes, player B can move four pieces three spaces. On the GBA, deciding moves is easy. Move the pointer so it's over one of your pieces. Press B to move that piece the number of spaces on the left die, or press A to move the piece the number of spaces on the right die. To make this easier, a letter A will appear on the spot the piece will land if you press A, and a letter B will appear on the spot the piece will land on if you press B. Sounds hard, but it isn't. Okay, time to talk about the limits to moving. It's simple: you can't move to a spot if two or more of your opponent's pieces are on that spot. This brings up the question: what if only one of your opponent's pieces is on that spot? Good question. A place where only one piece is on a point is called as a "blot". If you land on an enemy blot, the piece on that blot is taken away, and put on the bar. It can only reenter on a free spot on the opponent's side of the board. You can't move with one of your pieces on the bar. Here's an example from a game played between two players, Dilbert and Wally. Dilbert is playing as white (his pieces are O's), and Wally is playing as black (his pieces are X's). Here's what the bottom right of the board looks like: |B| O O | |A| O X O _ O _ | |R| /6\/5\/4\/3\/2\/1\ | white side Dilbert rolls a one and a two. He moves both of his pieces that are on the six spot. The board then looks like this: | | O O | |X| _ O O _ O _ | | | /6\/5\/4\/3\/2\/1\ | white side Since Dilbert landed on one of Wally's blots, Wally's blot is moved onto the bar. This is bad news for Wally, because Wally needs to get that piece back on the board. It's against the rules for Wally to make any moves with one of his pieces on the bar. So how does Wally get his piece back on the board? Easy. Next time Wally rolls the dice, he will have two numbers. Let's say he rolls a 4 and a 2. He can put his piece on the board on the 4 spot or the 2 spot. Since Wally is playing as black, he can only put it on the 4 or 2 spot on the white side of the table (a blot can only reenter the game on the opponent's side of the table). But wait! If we look at the board, Dilbert has two pieces on spots 4 and 2. Wally can't move to those spots because you can't land on a spot with two or more of your opponent's pieces on it. So Wally can't get back on the board. This means he can't move because you cannot move with a piece on the bar. So Wally's turn is over because he can't move. Tough luck, Wally. On Wally's next turn, he gets a 5 and a 2. Dilbert has a blot on spot 5, so Wally moves there and hits it. Now the tables have turned! Now Dilbert is stuck with a piece on the bar, while Wally is free to move whatever piece he wants. Now onto winning the game. Let's go back the game between Dilbert and Wally. After several more turns, the part of the board we're looking at looks like this: | | O |B| O O O O |A| O O O O O | |R| O O O _ O O | | | /6\/5\/4\/3\/2\/1\ | white side Dilbert has all fifteen of his pieces on his side, to the right of the bar. Now he can do a process known as "bearing off". He can remove pieces from the board, depending on what numbers he rolls. For example, let's say he rolls a piece 6 and a 3. Since Dilbert rolled a 6, he can take one of his pieces on the 6 spot off of the board. Since he also rolled a 3, Dilbert must move one of his pieces 3 spots. He cannot take away one of the pieces on 1 or 2. Once Dilbert gets rid of all of his pieces, he wins the game. Congratulations to Dilbert. And those are the rules. A Note on Blots --------------- This might seem obvious, but it's a good thing to mention anyway. I'll make my point by going back to the game between Dilbert and Wally. |B| O O | |A| O X _ _ O _ | |R| /6\/5\/4\/3\/2\/1\ | white side Dilbert has a blot on 4. It's safe from being hit, because all of Wally's pieces (the X's) have moved past it. Say Dilbert gets a 1 and a 5. He moves his pieces on spot 6. | | O | |X| _ O _ _ O O | | | /6\/5\/4\/3\/2\/1\ | white side Now Dilbert has 2 open blots, and Wally has a chance to reenter the game on either of those blots. Not cool! That's the danger of blots...you can't hit a blot without creating a blot. I recommending using one of your moves to hit a blot, and using the second move to put another piece on the blot you created. Blocking -------- Blocking is a strategy that I like to employ. It involves preventing your opponent from making any moves. Let's use an example, where I'm playing against Dilbert, the reigning backgammon champion. I'm white, he's black. | | | O | | X O O | | O O x | | X_ __ __ O O O | | O O _ _ _ X | | /12\/11\/10\/9\/8\/7\ | | /6\/5\/4\/3\/2\/1\ | white side Here, since the board looks like this, it's a good idea if I pull a blocking strategy. Notice how my pieces are arranged. I've almost got the 9-5 spots covered. This is key. I roll a two and a four. Yes! I move the 8 blot and a 6 piece so the board looks like: | X O O | | O O O x | | X_ __ __ O _ O | | O O O _ _ X | | /12\/11\/10\/9\/8\/7\ | | /6\/5\/4\/3\/2\/1\ | white side Now I have the 4, 5, 6, 7, and 9 spots blocked. Dilbert can't land on them. Which means, in order to get past them, which he has to do if he wants to win, Dilbert will have to roll at least a 5. Dilbert's in a bad position now. If he moves one of his two pieces on 1, it will have to be to 2 or 3, because I've blocked all of the other possible moves. And from there, Dilbert has to land on 8, because I've blocked all the other moves. To state that another way, Dilbert has to roll a 1-6 or a 2-5 to get past my blockade. That's bad news for Dilbert. To further show how cool the blockade is, let's say that Dilbert gets lucky and gets a 1-6 or 2-5. The board will look like this. | X O O | | O O O | | X_ __ __ O X O | | O O O _ _ X | | /12\/11\/10\/9\/8\/7\ | | /6\/5\/4\/3\/2\/1\ | white side Now Dilbert has two blots, which is not good for him. Even worse, one of the blots is one point eight. What would happen if I hit that blot and established a point there? The board would look like this: | X O O O |X| O O O | | X_ __ __ O O O | | O O O _ _ X | | /12\/11\/10\/9\/8\/7\ | | /6\/5\/4\/3\/2\/1\ | white side Now I have a blockade of six points in a row. There is no possible way for Dilbert to get past that, because a six is the highest that a person can roll. Now I simply bring my other pieces into this area, hopefully setting up more points as I go along. Here is the other kind of block, which is very cool if you ever get it. |B| O O O O O | |A| O X O O O O | |R| /6\/5\/4\/3\/2\/1\ | white side This block seems useless. Four of the spaces I've blocked are 1, 2, 3, and 4. Dilbert couldn't land on them if he wanted to! But let's say I managed to hit Dilbert's blot on 5, and I establish that point. | | O O O O O O | |X| O O O O O O | | | /6\/5\/4\/3\/2\/1\ | white side Dilbert is screwed now! He can't get back into the game! Now I can do whatever I want with my remaining pieces! Ha ha ha! This is so sweet! Keep in mind that I don't have to already have a big blockade on the table to get something like that. For example, if I had something like this: | X O | | O O O | | X_ _O __ O O _ |X| O O O _ _ _ | | /12\/11\/10\/9\/8\/7\ | | /6\/5\/4\/3\/2\/1\ | white side I could pull off a block like that with a little luck. As long as Dilbert doesn't roll a 1, 2, or 3, it will be my turn without him having moved any of his pieces. That's a 50% chance. If that happens, say, twice in a row, I can easily slip my pieces into position to set up a blockade there. Bearing Off with a Block ------------------------ This might seem obvious to some, but if you have a block- like setup, bearing off must be done carefully. Say the board looks like this: | | O O O | | O O O O O O | |X| O O O O O O | | | /6\/5\/4\/3\/2\/1\ | white side The board doesn't have to look exactly like that, but you get the idea. The basic idea is that somewhere in that area you have some enemy pieces there (or else you wouldn't be blocking anything, in which case there wouldn't be a block, right?). Here's the two general rules: #1: Do not leave blots. #2: Move the pieces which are farthest away. #1 is important as hell. If you leave a blot, an enemy can hit it. Now you're the one who is deep in enemy territory, trying to get out. As for #2, this means you want to get all of your pieces off of spot six first (not off the board, necessarily, just off that spot), and then spot five and so on. The reason being that if the opponent gets back in the game, he will reenter behind all of your pieces, where he cannot hurt them at all. Now he has to move his pieces all the way back to his board, while you continue bearing off. 003d-Chess ----------------------------------------------------------- Chess is played on an 8 by 8 board. The pieces are set up like this: |R|C|B|K|Q|B|C|R| |P|P|P|P|P|P|P|P| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |P|P|P|P|P|P|P|P| |R|C|B|K|Q|B|C|R| P - Pawn R - Rook C - Knight B - Bishop Q - Queen K - King Pawns ----- A pawn is considered the weakest piece. You can only move it forward. The first time you move a particular pawn, you can move it two squares, but from then on, you can only move it one square. Pawns attack enemy pieces diagonally. So if an enemy piece is one square away (diagonally) from a pawn, the pawn can capture it. A captured piece is removed from the board. Knights ------- Knights move in an L-shape. It moves two squares in one direction (left/right or up/down) and then one square in the opposite direction. Here's a diagram: | |E| |E| |E| | | |E| | | |S| | | |E| | | |E| | |E| |E| | From S (start) the knight can land on any of the E's (end). If you try, you can visualize an "L" shape from the S's to the E's. Like this one, which is a L on its side: |E| | | |S| Don't worry too much about moving the knight; it seems harder than it is. One more thing about the knight is that it can make a jump no matter what pieces are in the way. It will simply pass over any other pieces to finish the move. If the knight lands on an enemy piece, the enemy piece is captured. Bishops ------- Bishops move diagonally. This means that whatever the color of the square a bishop starts on, that is the color of the square it lands on. Bishops cannot jump other pieces. If a piece is in the way, it cannot move. Bishops capture enemy pieces by landing on them. Rooks ----- Rooks are useful. They can move left, right, up and down. You can move them as many squares as you want. Rooks capture enemy pieces by landing on them. Queen ----- The queen is just like the rook, with one difference: the queen can move diagonally in addition to up, down, left, and right. This makes the queen the most useful piece. King ---- The king is bad at moving. It can only move one square at a time. Luckily, it can move in any direction at all. The King is the most important piece. A person wins the game if he/she capture the enemy's king. This is the objective of chess: to capture the enemy's king. When a move is made that puts a king in danger of being captured, this is known as "check". The game lets you know whenever a check is performed. When your king is in check, you must stop it from being taken, or else you lose the game. When a king is taken, this is known as checkmate. Valuable -------- In chess, on a scale of 1 to 10, here is how valuable the pieces are: Pawn - 1 Knight - 3 Bishop - 3 Rook - 5 Queen - 9 King - 20 This is considered in capturing and exchanges. Sometimes, you must sacrifice a piece to capture one of the enemy's pieces. You shouldn't sacrifice a piece to capture a piece of lesser value than the one sacrificed. GBA Features ------------ Since chess is such a fantastic, wonderful great game (I don't like it that much, myself), it comes with a bunch of features that don't come with the other games in this pack. One of the good ones is tutor, under the help menu. Tutor analyzes all of the moves you can possible make, and makes commentary on the moves. Press left/right to move through all of the possible moves and see the commentary. In case you can't see what the move is, press select to solve the problem. AI options, under preferences, lets you mess around with your opponent. You can change how much defense, offense, and strategy (all measured from 0 to 100) affect the computer's gameplay. Solve problem, under game, lets you have the game's computer figure out how to complete a task. Say you want to get a checkmate in 3 moves. Set up solve problem to find a way to do so. If it's not possible, the game lets you know. Set up board (under game) allows you to set up the board in any way you want to. Once you set up the board, select start new (also under game) to start that game. Select task (under game) lets you choose one of one hundred chess scenarios that come with the game. Your goal is to get a checkmate in the fewest number of moves (usually 2 or 3; the game tells you what the fewest number of moves are). 003e-Checkers ----------------------------------------------------------- Checkers is a game played on the same board as a chess board. Each player has twelve pieces. They are placed on the board like this: | |O| |O| |O| |O| |O| |O| |O| |O| | | |O| |O| |O| |O| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |X| |X| |X| |X| | | |X| |X| |X| |X| |X| |X| |X| |X| | On an actual board (my picture isn't too good), you'll see that the pieces only go one the darker-colored squares. You move a piece one square, diagonally. This way you will only be on the dark-colored squares. Additionally, all moves must be made toward your opponent, away from you. So here's a diagram, just in case you couldn't understand that. It's of a piece (O). It can go to the spaces marked (G). | | | | | |O| | |G| |G| Hopefully, that diagram explains everything for now, because things are going to get more complicated. In the game, you will eventually meet an enemy piece. You can jump over an enemy piece and remove it from the board. Here's how: |O| | | |O| | | | |X| | | |X| | | | | | | | |X| In the left diagram, the O can make a move to the lower- right. He jumps over the X piece, and the X piece is removed from the board. In the right diagram, the O cannot jump over the first piece, because the spot he would land on is occupied. He cannot simply jump over both of the pieces at once. |O| | | | |X| | | | |a| | |X| | | | | | Here's how to jump over two pieces at once. O jumps over the X piece to get to spot a. From spot a, O can jump left/down over the X piece there. In checkers, you can do this in one move. This is known as a double jump. You should get to like jumping over enemy pieces. Why? Because you have to. If you can jump a piece, the GBA won't let you make any other move. You have to jump a piece if you can. Say that, perhaps, you make it to the far end of the board. You can't go past that. What happens then is the piece that made it to the far end of the board becomes a king. The king (a little crown appears on all pieces that are kings) can move diagonally in any direction it wants to. So if the O piece is a king, then it can move: |G| |G| | |O| | |G| |G| The game ends when one of these things happen: a) you remove all of your enemy's pieces from the board b) you set up the board so none of the enemy pieces can make a move c) you and your enemy do the same exact moves over and over again If either (a) or (b) happens, you win the game. If (c) happens, the game is a draw. To play checkers on the GBA, use the control pad to move across the board. Press A to select a piece (it will become enlarged). Move the pointer to where you want the piece to go, and press A again to make it go there. If you accidentally chose the wrong piece, press B to deselect the piece you chose. Give-away Mode -------------- The above rules are for normal mode. If you wish, you can select another mode under the preferences menu. This mode is give-away mode. Give-away mode complies with all the rules for normal mode. The only difference is that a person wins give-away mode if he loses all of his pieces to the enemy (in normal mode, that would be a loss, not a win). King Strategy ------------- Near the end of a game, you might be in a situation where you're a king, and the enemy has a few king pieces left, trying to get you trapped. Here's one way to deal with that: | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |X| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |O| |X| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | O is your piece, X is the opponents. Remember, all pieces are kings. It's your turn. Move in between the two enemy pieces. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |X| | | | | | | | | |O| | | | | | | | | |X| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | That's the important point of this strategy: You want to make a move so you are in between two of the enemy's pieces. You can jump either of the enemy's pieces now. The enemy will move one away, so jump the other one instead. This is a pretty good strategy. Cheating Strategy ----------------- Switch the game to give-away mode and lose most of your pieces. Then switch the game back to normal mode, and switch sides. Jumping Moves ------------- Since jumping is mandatory, your overall game strategy will have to adapt to that. For example, look at this: |X| | | | | | |X| | | | | | |X| | | | | | | | | | | | | |O| To get the O piece, X must move its lower/right piece to the lower/right, like this: |X| | | | | | |X| | | | | | | | | | | | | |X| | | | | | |O| O is forced to jump that piece. |X| | | | | | |X| | | | | | |O| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Now X can easily jump the O piece. This is a general strategy for getting an opponent's piece. The downside is that you lose a piece in doing so. 003f-Reversi ----------------------------------------------------------- Reversi is played on the same kind of 64-square board as chess and checkers are played on. Reversi is also known as Othello for some reason. The board looks like this: | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |X|O| | | | | | | |O|X| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | You have to place your piece so that some of your opponent's pieces are caught in a diagonal, row, or column between your pieces. To illustrate this, here's the diagram, with the spaces O can go marked G. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |G| | | | | | | |G|X|O| | | | | | | |O|X|G| | | | | | | |G| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | If you can see, an X piece is directly in between a G and an O. You have to place your pieces like that, so an opponent's piece is in between the placed piece and another one of your pieces. Say O places his piece at the topmost G. Then the board will look like this: | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |O| | | | | | | | |O|O| | | | | | | |O|X| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Do you see that? The X that was caught between the piece you placed and the piece that was already there became flipped. Now it's an O piece. That's the way Reversi goes. Now it's X's turn. X will put down his piece, turning some O pieces into X pieces. The game ends when all the spots on the board are covered or when one player loses all of his pieces. On the GBA, Reversi is really simple. You move the cursor over where you want to put your piece, and press A to put your piece there. Any of your opponent's pieces that will become your pieces will then appear gray. The number of pieces each player has is listed underneath that player's picture. Something to look out for ------------------------- Here's a board, with spot a being important. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |O| | | | | | |a|O|O|O|X|O|X| | | | |O|X| | | | | | | |X|X| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | If it's X's turn, X would be tempted to go there, because then X would have four more X pieces. If X did that, the board would look like: | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |O| | | | | | |X|X|X|X|X|O|X| | | | |O|X| | | | | | | |X|X| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Then, O would simply put his piece on the far left to make the board look like: | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |O| | | | | |O|O|O|O|O|O|O|X| | | | |O|X| | | | | | | |X|X| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | So that's something to look out for. When making moves, keep in mind if that move would help your opponent. Corner Pieces ------------- The corner spots are important. If you get a piece on a corner spot, there is no way your opponent will be able to take control of that piece. This also makes side pieces very important. Your opponent can only get your side pieces in one way (left/right or down/up). I'm not going anywhere with this, I just want to point out the unique properties of those pieces to state their importance. 003g-Dominoes ----------------------------------------------------------- Dominoes! This is a classic game, not the title of a Rolling Stones song. Dominoes is played with dominoes (duh), which are called bones for some reason. Each bone has two sides, with each side having a number of dots (0-6) on it. No two bones are the same. The game starts, with each player getting seven bones. The bones that don't get chosen by the players are put to the side, called the boneyard. The player with the highest double bone (a bone which sides have the same number of dots) puts down his or her bone to start the game. You can put one of your bones on the board, but it has to match the piece you put it against. I'm not sure I did a good job explaining that, so here's a picture: - |6| - - - - - |6|5| |5|2| |6| - - - - - Okay, you see how the 6-5 is put down next to the 6-6? It's done so that the two 6's are touching. And see how the 5 in the 5-2 is put up against the 5 in the 6-5? That's how you put bones on the board, next to a matching number. Something to notice: you can't have more than one bone connecting to the same piece, unless that piece is the first piece that got put down. Go up/down through the bones you have. If one can appear on the board, its outline will appear. Press A to put it on the board. Sometimes, a special situation comes up. Take the above diagram. If I have a 2-6, where do I put it? - here? - - |6| - - - - - - |2|6| - |6|5| |5|2| |2|6| - - |6| - - - - - - here? - As you can see, there are two places to put the 2-6 piece. To switch between the two places, press the R or L button. There are three types of domino games you can play. They differ in their rules about the boneyard. I'll go over all of them. You can select which type of game to play by selecting start game from the game menu. Draw Variation -------------- Say you don't have any bones that you can put on the board. What then? In draw variation, that means you have to take a bone from the boneyard. Press A, and one of the bones from the boneyard appear on your side. If you can't use the bone that you got from the boneyard, you have to keep taking bones from the boneyard until you can use one of them. Block Variation --------------- Say you don't have any bones that you can put on the board. What then? In block variation, you're screwed. You can't get any bones out of the boneyard. Just press A to pass, giving up your turn. I'll talk about 5-up variation soon. But now we need to go over: Winning a Game -------------- The games all have the same rules about winning a game. The first person to score enough points (50, 75, 100, 125, 150, 175 or 200; you can select the number of points needed for a win by selecting start game from the game menu) wins the game. How do you get points? Here's how: a round of dominoes ends when one player uses all of his bones or when both players cannot use any of their bones. If you use all of your bones, you can count the number of dots on all of your enemy's bones. This becomes added to the number of points that you have. If both players cannot use their bones, the player who has the least number of dots on his bones is declared the winner. The number of dots on the loser's bones is added to the number of points that the winner has. 5-up Variation -------------- 5-up follows all of these rules, but with a twist. It involves counting all of the end pieces (pieces that bones can be put against. If, when they are all counted, the number is a multiple of five, you get that many points added to your total. Here's an example: - |6| - - - |6|3| |6| - - - The end pieces are a 6, 6, and a 3. When added, they equal 15. 15 is a multiple of 5, so 15 is added to your score. Just in case you don't know about multiples, a number is a multiple of five if it ends in a 5 or a 0. While playing dominoes, the only multiples of 5 you can get are 5, 10, 15, and 20. Note on Block Variation ----------------------- In block variation, you cannot get bones from the boneyard. That means the rounds of dominoes go much quicker. The downside is that the game will often end with both players having to pass. You don't know what bones your enemy has, so you will have no way to predict this. That's stupid. That is one of the appropriate times to throw your GBA at the wall, like I mentioned earlier. The plan I follow is, that when playing block mode, pay attention to when your opponent passes. That means that your opponent cannot put a domino on one of the end pieces. Look at the end pieces. Remember those numbers; your opponent cannot match a bone to an end piece with that number. The idea is to put down end pieces that your opponent can't match a bone to. This way, your opponent will skip turns, giving you an advantage in the "use up all your bones to win" category. 003h-Four in a Row ----------------------------------------------------------- Four in a Row is just like a popular game called Connect Four!. The board is made up of seven columns. Move left/right to select a column, and press A to drop a chip down into that column. Your opponent and you take turns dropping chips into columns. The first person to get four chips in a row wins the game. If the board fills up before anyone can do so, the game is a draw. This game comes with a demo mode, chosen under the game menu. If you choose demo mode, the computer will automatically take turns for both players. If you make a move you don't like, you can take it back using the "go back one move" feature under the help menu. A Good Strategy --------------- Try to set up the game so there are two intersecting ways you can get four in a row, so that no matter what you do, you will win. Put another way, try to have two three in a rows that whose possible four in a rows are adjacent points. Here's an example of a game between X and O: 2 X X X 1 O X O O X O X O It's O's turn. If O does not put his chip in spot 1, X will put his chip in spot 1 and win the game. So O will put his chip in spot 1. Since spot 1 is full, X can now put his chip in spot 2. If X does so, he will win the game (he has four in a row diagonally). Just like in the tic-tac-toe game, no matter what O does, X will win the game. Here's another example: X 2 X X X 1 X X O O O X O O O X can take spot 1 and win. But if O takes spot 1, X can then take spot 2 and win. Here's another example: X O X O O 2 X X 1 X O X can win by taking spot 1. If O takes spot 1, X can then take spot 2 and win. In all of these examples, X can win if he takes spot 1 or 2. Note that spot 2 is always directly above spot 1. That's the general strategy. Try to set up the game so the board looks like that. 004-Credits ----------------------------------------------------------- This FAQ is copyright of The Lost Gamer, 2004. If you want to use any part of this FAQ, ask me first (instructions under general information)