| game information | basics | strategies |
| tips and tricks | levels | game prizes |
| related trivia | petpage memo | credits |
Welcome, dear visitor, to the world of Spinacles. A world, where conversely to the title, the world does not spin round! In fact, the only thing that spins around is a circular central metal blob unto which "spinacles", else known as colourful spheres with an inclusion, are attached. Scientifically it hasn't been proven that spinacles are dependent on magnetism or gravity, so we will leave these deductions to you. Now, let us start with our short introductory guide!
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Spinacles: Clear the spheres from the Neopian night skies by gathering them into groups of three or more. Earn additional points by getting on a streak of sphere-clearing shots. Also, keep an eye out for power-ups that might be of benefit (while making sure to stay away from those that could trip you up). Do you have the accuracy needed to successfully make your way through all three lands? There's just one way to find out: ready, aim… fire!
Date Released: 28th of July, 2009 Game Type: Action, For Kids, Puzzle, Neopia Central Average Difficulty: 5.3 |
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If you stumbled upon this guide after playing Spinacles, then this section is not for you - please scroll further to the tips section. On the other hand, if you are new to the game, you are more than welcome to read up. This section will answer what is Spinacles. Spinacles are a point farming game, meaning that in order to get many points, you have to spend lots of time on early (or mid-early) levels, hence maximizing your score. Otherwise, if you enjoy playing through games by levels, you are welcome. Mind you, however, you might not be eligible to reach a trophy score that way. In Spinacles your goal is to make as many sphere combos as possible. The more you destroy, the more points you will get. Besides, for every consecutive sphere combo (of 3 or more), you will get an additional point to the multiplier. For example, your first combo will net you 1x the number of spheres you destroy. The second one will give you 2x the number of spheres you will destroy consecutively. Mind you, however, that if no spheres are removed by the shot, a meter to the right of the holder will be reduced by one until it reaches zero and new spheres will fly towards the center. Below you may find the instructions from the game:   
From the images above, you may see 4 different objects that will be found in game. A little hint about the perimeter. Usually, if you attach perimeter to the sphere of the same color, it may remove all the spheres from the center, hence proceeding to the next level. On the other hand, after a long combo, attaching a perimeter will not result in any combo or destruction - it will remain firmly in its spot. |
So, having mastered the basics of the game, you are about to learn more about how the system works. In other words, you are now on your way to making your score better, if not trophy-worthy. This guide will not make you get a trophy without any effort, but if you heed our words carefully and thoroughly practice, a trophy will be easy.
In reality there are two ways to a trophy: risky or zen. Both of these names are completely thought of by me, so if you take a peek at the Games Chat, you may find these tactics differently named. Both of these ways have been tested and used by top trophy collectors.
Zen way to a trophy requires a steady farming starting from levels 1-3. By "farming", as you may suspect, I mean you are to spend time making consecutive combos. You are not threatened on these levels and the amount of different colors is low. Fewer spheres appear as well and you have more "free" tries next to the holder, when comparing to later levels. This way will usually net you an easy 3-5k (k = 1000) points per hour.
Risky way to a trophy involves levels 7-8. It also requires points farming but the risks involved are much greater. First of all, there are quite a few differenet colors to match. Secondly, you start out with a healthy number of spheres already attached to the center. Thirdly, you only have 4 "free" tries and the amount of spheres appearing after you use them up will increase comparing to earlier amounts. This way will usually net you a difficult but well-worth it 10-20k per hour. Bear in mind, the risks involved are much greater and you may involuntarily proceed to the next level, complicating things.
Set up combos to earn points faster. You may be tempted to clear out the spheres as soon as you can, but the majority of the points come from being able to set up combos to take advantage of the point multipliers. You should try to pair up as many lone spheres in the center as possible and when you start eliminating the spheres, aim for the smaller groups of spheres and save the larger multipliers for the larger groups.
Discard unwanted pieces. Practice discarding your pieces by shooting the sphere so that it bounces around the screen, never hitting the center, and eventually flying off the screen. (See image below.) The best way to do this consistently is to use visual markers to help you aim, such as using the background, the arrow and tick marks where you shoot the sphere, or anything else you can think of.
Cool, but how does this help? This technique will help you when you're going for a trophy and you want to stay at a level to point farm. (See strategies above for more detail.) Often times you may be forced to level up if you were to use a bomb or perimeter sphere, so just discard them instead!
Bounce spheres off the walls to add them to the side or bottom of the center. Doing this will allow you to increase the range of where you can shoot the spheres. This will also help you maintain longer combo chains. This may take some practice to become consistently accurate. Remember, the spheres will bounce off the wall at the same angle it hit.
Pay attention to the edges and number of "free" tries you have remaining. From experience, it is very easy to accidentally lose as you are setting up the spheres for a large combo. It is good practice to pay attention to the edges and number of free tries you have before more spheres are added to the center. This will help you determine when to start eliminating spheres from the center.
This section of the guide will introduce you to the basic layout of the levels in Spinacles. Bear in my mind that what you may find can (and most likely will be) different in color.
In total there are possibly 15 levels (if not more), but I havent gotten farther than level 11.
Below is a table listing required trophy scores on the 1st of previous months, courtesy of the Reset Night Scores guide.
| Month |
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| Dec 2009 | 27,129 | 21,091 | 9,310 |
| Nov 2009 | 22,821 | 16,807 | 10,146 |
Spinacles was a featured game in the New Games Challenge from July 28th, 2009 through August 4, 2009.
Related Links
Garmfay's Games' Room
Reset Night Scores
Omneo's Homepage
Special thanks to everyone who helped me out on the guide!
Talek wrote most of it.
Go Team Earthlingz!