Living in Somerville!

We finally found a place to live and just signed a lease today. We'll be around Teele Square, near Tufts and Davis.... Hopefully, moving will be done in mid-June.

Fun blogging thing

Here's something I found on another blog. Do this:
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don’t search around and look for the “coolest” book you can find. Do what’s actually next to you.

So for me, it is John Dupre, The Disorder of Things: "It is undeniable that the chemical conception of genes has been indispensable in investigating such fundamental biological phenomena as replication, mutation, and the expression of segments of DNA as polypeptide chains."

Yum.

Hints for Yoshi Touch and Go

Introduction
I've been playing Yoshi Touch and Go for a month now, and thought I'd share some tips on getting higher scores.

Yoshi Touch and Go consists of four games, each split into two stages. There are, therefore, eight overall stages, each requiring unique strategies. I'll start at the beginning. Since this is a strategy guide, I shall assume general familiarity with the game. You should have already played enough to unlock all the levels....

I. Score Attack, Baby Mario stage

This is the most straightforward Baby Mario stage. The map you get in the Yoshi stage depends on how well you perform in this stage. Higher-level maps permit higher scores, so make sure you score over 160 points to get the highest-level map. I have no tips on this: just do the obvious: 1) get Mario to touch every coin and 2) circle every enemy and throw it at Baby Mario, trying when you can to group enemies together for a bonus. At the end, you can touch the trees to reveal coins underneath them. If you need more time at the end, draw large horizontal lines straight across to delay Baby Mario's fall.

II. Score Attack, Yoshi stage

To get the highest scores, you not only need to hit every enemy and coin: you also need to get combos. To score a combo, hit five or more enemies/coins with a single egg, or capture more than one enemy in a single bubble. Remember that you can use cloud lines to influence the position of coins or enemies. Use this technique 1) to line up coins/enemies so you can hit five or more of them in a shot, or 2) group enemies together so you can capture many of them in a single bubble. These two operations are crucial to getting the highest scores, so make sure you master them.

The secret to (legitimate) high scores on Score Attack is to hit the Bonus Latiku's that go across the top screen in a cloud. The scoring for hitting them is progressive: the first is 5 points, the second 10, etc. all the way up to 30. If you miss one, the score goes back to 5. You generate Bonus Latiku's by scoring combo's, so try to hit as many as you can...

There is a flaw in the Stage 2 map for the Black Yoshi, which allows someone with patience to max out the scoring. One enemy, which appears only on the Black Yoshi map, will fly above and drop a shy guy on the ground. This will repeat, indefinitely. If you stop Yoshi so he cannot move forward, you can simply wait for shy guy's to be dropped, circling each one for another point. Eventually you will max out your score (at 999).

The trick, then, is to find a way to stop Yoshi. You cannot simply draw a cloud in front of him: Yoshi will eventually push his way through. There is only one way to stop Yoshi indefinitely: walk him into a vertical solid wall. You will find a suitable wall towards the end of the stage.

This is, of course, a cheap technique for maximizing your score. Don't use it if you want to compete legitimately. But, stopping Yoshi is perfectly fine in Marathon, where sometimes walking Yoshi into a wall is the best way to retrieve important items (like food).

III. Time Attack, Baby Mario stage

The goal of Time Attack is to finish in the shortest amount of time. You contribute to this goal in the first stage by guiding Baby Mario to the ground as quickly as possible. The map provides "speed stars" to help you with this: once Baby Mario touches a star, he falls much faster, and is also invulnerable to enemies. The map, however, also includes rubber bumpers, which will slow you down a lot....

The fastest way down is to go straight down, turning only to avoid rubber bumpers, all the while throwing stars at Baby Mario so he never slows down. (And make sure you throw the first star at Baby Mario before the timer starts). I've gotten Baby Mario down in as quickly as 52 seconds using this method.

The problem is that different color Yoshi's walk at different speeds. To get the fastest time in the next stage, you'll need a Black Yoshi, which requires Baby Mario to collect enough coins and kill enough enemies to get 160 points before he reaches the ground.

By the way: the White Yoshi is not an option. You get a White Yoshi if you get no points at all through the entire stage. Since you can do this without moving horizontally much at all, this lets you get to the ground the fastest. But it will handicap you in Stage 2, since White Yoshi walks slowly compared to Black Yoshi. Unlimited eggs---which is White Yoshi's advantage---is not going to help, since, as we shall see, the more you shoot in the Yoshi stage, the slower your time will be, and you can theoretically finish the Yoshi stage using exactly seventeen eggs.

So the goal is to get Baby Mario to the ground quickly while maximizing points. This requires a bit of strategy. To get points, you will need to use cloud lines to ensure Baby Mario falls through coins and enemies. You will also need to make sure Baby Mario hits enough stars so he never slows down. But every horizontal movement will cause you to lose time. So, it is a trade-off between points and time, and you must weigh things judiciously. You could, for instance, use cloud lines to get Baby Mario to fall through a horizontally-spaced line of four or five gold coins (each worth one point). But the time loss there is not worth the points. If they were blue coins, perhaps it is worth it.

It goes without saying that you will need to use bubbles whenever possible to get additional points and stars. Thankfully, Baby Mario in "super speed" mode will not shift when you hit him with a bubble, so you don't need to worry about his going off track. Throw as many bubbles as possible, remembering to group enemies together for bonuses. Also remember that you can use cloud lines to adjust the position of enemies, coins and stars. Sometimes nudging a few coins means less horizontal movement for Baby Mario, and less horizontal movement means a faster time....

The maps for Time Attack are fixed, so you can use trial and error to figure out the best path. To get a good score, you'll need to get your Baby Mario stage time to around 1 minute. (My best is 0:59:2) Note that if you play stage 2 right, any point score over 160 is worthless. If you're getting over 160, let Baby Mario fall down "straighter", missing some coins so he gets there faster.

IV. Time Attack, Yoshi stage

To get a fast time in this stage, you need to do five things:

      1) Always walk on clouds

      2) Don't jump

      3) Don't eat

      4) Don't shoot

      5) Hit the red toadies

1-2) Always walk on clouds, don't jump. The idea here is simple: in Time Attack, Yoshi walks very slowly on the ground. You must make sure he never touches the ground: Yoshi starts the level jumping, so draw a line underneath him immediately. Also, Yoshi walks much faster downhill than uphill or on a level. In places where he must fall (such as avoiding the first group of briers), try to make sure he walks downhill rather than fall straight down: this will help him go a bit faster. I'm not sure if jumping slows you down, but it is distracting. You never need it.

3-4) Don't eat, don't shoot. This is a simple principle: each shot costs you time, so the less you shoot the faster you will finish. Also, if you only shoot when you must, the 50+ eggs that come with a Black Yoshi are enough to finish the level, so you don't need to waste time eating. When must you shoot? There are three times before getting to the red toadies, and each is to clear a path through an otherwise impassable field of briers. (In each case, I've found that clearing a path through the top of the lower screen is fastest.) It is possible, assuming you time your shots to get combo's, to get to the toadies having fired exactly three shots. All other times, avoid enemies by walking around them. There is one tricky section: two blue fly guys will zoom from above while a spiked fun guy is on the ground and two plants are on the right throwing spikes at you. To get through this without shooting a single egg: draw your cloud line a bit above the ground so Yoshi avoids the spiked fun guy, and angle that line upwards so Yoshi walks above the plants. Also, draw a cloud line across the top of the screen to block the fly guys just as they zoom in. You can make that line go across the entire screen, since Yoshi can break through it without losing any speed.

5) Hit the red toadies. This is, by far, the hardest task. There are four toadies holding Baby Luigi. You need to hit the group three times to force one of them off, and you need to hit that one again to kill him. You need to kill the first two toadies, but you only need to force off the last two toadies. So basically, you need to score fourteen hits to pass the stage. And, you can't just shoot machine-gun-style and hope you get the necessary hits: after each hit, the group becomes invulnerable for a second, giving it time to move away. So you need to space your shots out in time, reaiming between each.

It goes without saying: you'll need to make sure Yoshi walks on a cloud line this entire time. Otherwise, Baby Luigi will escape your reach. The only exception is at the very end: if you can kill the last toady quickly, don't bother with drawing the cloud line. And be careful to avoid the food that comes up: food is dangerous here, since it will slow you down and break up your rhythm. Don't worry about enemies on the ground: if you finish quickly enough, you'll never encounter any.

The trick to finishing quickly is to 1) never miss and 2) develop a rhythm. Shoot, pause, shoot, pause, shoot, pause, shoot shoot shoot. Here the first four hits are on the group; hence, they are separated by pauses. The fifth hit is on the toadie who got separated from the group (no pause is needed here), and the sixth is on the group again (again, no pause because the fifth shot counts as your pause). The idea behind this rhythm is: once you separate a toady from the group, he will move to a random location, but the group will stay in approximately same place. Shoot the group again, using that moment to figure out where the separated toady is located. Then, shoot the toady, and shoot the group again. This gets rid of one toady and scores your first two hits on the reduced group.

Eventually you'll get to the point where you've just detached the second-to-last toady from the group holding Baby Luigi. You will have a lone red toady holding Baby Luigi, with the other one trying to rejoin him, and a cloud of purple toadies forming. If you can get three quick hits on the red toady carrying Baby Luigi, you will win. You don't have to kill the toady who just separated. Avoid hitting the separated toady and all the purple toadies---they only get in the way of the real target.

V. Marathon, Baby Mario stage

The Baby Mario stage in Marathon mode is pretty much the same as the one in Score Attack. Except here, what happens in Baby Mario stage doesn't matter as much, since in the Yoshi Stage, you will upgrade Yoshi's every 1000 yards. So just get Baby Mario to the ground. I've been able to get over 25,000 points without worrying about maxxing out my Baby Mario score.

But then again, I died because I ran out of eggs. Egg capacity is more important past 20,000 yards, so eventually you'll have to get scores significantly over 160. The best I've done is 197. Every point above 160 is an additional egg capacity for Yoshi in the next stage, so a 197 Baby Mario score translates to 87 egg capacity. I don't have any hints for doing this beyond what I said for Score Attack.

VI. Marathon, Yoshi stage

This is where the action is for Marathon mode. The strategy for this is simple: just don't die. Unlike Time Attack, you can take as much time as you like, and unlike Score Attack, you can kill as many or as few enemies as you like. So generally, you should shoot only to avoid death and to activate Super Baby Mario. There are specific techniques for avoiding death for the particular level you are playing. Eventually, I'll get around to providing hints for each of the different levels, but until then, these general comments will have to suffice.

1) Get melons and coins in the bonus levels by walking Yoshi up to a wall. As I mentioned in Score Attack, walking Yoshi into a wall will stop his forward movement. This gives you time to aim properly to get hard-to-reach items...

2) Try to gather as many coins as possible. This will maximize the time you spend in Super Baby Mario mode, and that is key for solving the higher levels.

3) Turn off the "blow into mic" feature. The marathon level is, well, a marathon. You don't want an ill-timed sneeze to cause a death. Learn to get rid of unwanted clouds by quickly drawing multiple lines underneath Yoshi.

4) Don't rush into enemy-infested territory (unless you are Super Baby Mario). You need to get good at stopping Yoshi. There are two techniques. The basic one: draw vertical cloud lines in front of Yoshi. The advanced one: draw a horizontal cloud line in front of Yoshi, approximately at chest level. As long as you draw the line so that Yoshi cannot walk on top of it, he will try to break through. Yoshi will break through the first cloud chunk, only to face another chunk. This gives you plenty of time to get a lay of the land, circle/shoot/block enemies, etc. This latter technique is particularly important past 20,000 points, since Purple Yoshi walks suicidally quickly...

5) Know when you are near the end of a level and when your coin score is close to 100. It sucks when you've got a few more yards left and you must waste a Super Baby Mario. The aim is to get 50-100 points each time you enter Super Baby Mario mode.

6) Try to conserve eggs by circling rather than shooting. Sometimes it is better to block enemies than to shoot or even circle them. You can block enemies from the top (blue shy guys, beaked green guys) by drawing a cloud line across the top of the screen. You can block enemies on the bottom (like rolling moles), by using vertical lines. This rule changes past 20,000 yards. Purple Yoshi moves too quickly, and sometime the only effective way to slow him down is to shoot at enemies. So make sure you have lots of egg capacity!

VII. Challenge, Baby Mario stage

Your goal here is score, score, score. You need an insanely high score in the Baby Mario stage so you have enough egg capacity in the Yoshi stage. To set my high score in Challenge, I had to get 199 points in Baby Mario (giving me 89 eggs in the Yoshi stage). Obviously, to do this you must use Super Baby Mario to fall through enemies to get points. There is, however, one trick. Sometimes (not all the time, though), you will get a flood of blusties, each worth 4 points, towards the end of the stage. This flood is your ticket to high scores. Draw a vertical line to trap them, and make sure Super Baby Mario falls through as many of them as possible. This means, of course, that he will only fall through one side of blusties: use bubbles to trap the ones on the other side (grouping them together for bonus, of course!) and throw them at Super Baby Mario. Yoshi's maximum egg capacity is 99, so there is no need to get a score higher than 209 in this stage.

I don't think Purple Yoshi is an option. You get purple Yoshi by collecting no points through the entire stage. Purple Yoshi gives you a 50-egg capacity and very high speed. The high speed actually helps you to survive, because the faster you move the more food you will encounter. But I think the advantage gained by having a Black Yoshi with 40 extra eggs (assuming you get ~200 points in Baby Mario mode) outweighs Purple Yoshi's speed benefit.

VIII. Challenge, Yoshi stage

To keep going, you need food. I think the system will give you more food if you 1) kill things in the top screen (esp. blusties and the bonus lakitu who moves across the top in a cloud) and 2) score combos (> 5 hits in a single shot) on either screen. So learn how to aim for things in the top screen, and learn how to time your hits to get combo's. (When the briers retract their spines, they do not stop your eggs, thus enabling combos.) If you hit the skeletal birds carrying red briers in the top screen, then you will only have green briers in the bottom screen. All green briers extend and retract their spines at the same time, making combo's easier.

It goes without saying that you need to learn how to hit any shy guy who comes bearing food in the top screen. If you're extremely low on eggs and a fly guy comes bearing fruit, you can dislodge the fruit without shooting by making a bubble and throwing it at fly guy. This has saved me once or twice. You also need to learn how to hit POW's---they are crucial for getting food-generating combos. Generally, if you're getting POWs, combos and top-screen enemies, time and food should not be too much of a problem.

It can seem that the game alternates between "lean periods" where you will not get much food and "fat periods" where you get lots of food. I don't think the game has just decided to be mean: these periods are likely nothing more than the natural consequence of probabilistic "clumping" of pseudorandom events. To handle this, make lots of shots when you have plenty of ammo (50-90) to maximize food generation. Slow down when you start running down (~30-40), so you won't run out of eggs. But don't stop shooting altogether: do that, and you will get no food at all, ensuring a quick death.

Once you reach 10000+ points, the game will begin to give you packed forests of briers. This is good, because this lets you score massive combos if you time your shots correctly. You will quickly max out your time: by 14000 points, your time should be pegged at 999 for the remainder of the game. Food and enemies become your only concerns.

Once you reach 18000+ points, the game will slow down. This is clearly a performance glitch, but it is one which will work in your favor. (I haven't had the game crash on me, even though it may feel like it might, at times....) Take advantage of the slow-down to think and plan your shots carefully. The screen will be packed with green briers: this is great for combo's, but it also makes it likely that you will drop food through gaps in your cloud lines. Clear out a space in the spiney forest for a cloud line, then clear out a space for you to walk.

Once you master these techniques, the only reason a Black Yoshi with 90-egg capacity will die is because you hit a brier, a bat (which appears in the bottom screen at 3000) or a zooming blue fly guy (who appears at 8000). Or, if you pass 30,000 points, a brown shy guy that shoots black bullets will start to attack you. Gusties, which appear at 5000, are relatively slow-moving and thus easy to avoid. As long as you pay attention, they shouldn't kill you. But still, be paranoid! Kill bats as soon as you see them---don't worry about occasionally having to give up food and POWs. Losing a melon or a POW is a huge psychological hit: just get over it and press on. Block zooming fly guys with lines across the top of the screen. (But this will prevent food from falling down, so use judiciously.) And kill briers that are close---forget the timing and give up combo's if need be.

My wife has gotten the best results by walking Yoshi on a straight horizontal line in the middle of the screen. This has two distinct advantages. First, walking on a level means you never go up or down; thus you avoid the dangerous speed-up that happens when you go downhill. Second, walking across the middle of the bottom screen means your cloud lines can block bats underneath Yoshi, and you also have room to block fly guys above him with another cloud line.

Concluding general remarks

Play all the games. The skills you develop in one section will transfer into the others, thus helping all your scores. Both Challenge and Time Attack, for instance, require you to develop the skills needed to hit things in the top screen. Good luck!

Thanks to Karen, gbagcn and Eclipsed Echo for their ideas and suggestions...

Here are the scores my wife and I have been able to get so far: