Peggle is probably the best iOS game of all time. It's colorful, fun, and sports a roster of characters so sweet they'll give you cavities. But some of the game is so difficult, you can feel more burned than orange pegs after Lord Cinderbottom's fireball skill shot. Luckily, we've got a (really, really) comprehensive guide to becoming the next Peggle Grand Master.
Peggle noobies (Poobies, as we call them) might waste their first ball shooting straight toward an easy-to-access orange or purple peg and miss out on a better shot. When the level is full, our best shots have always started at the very top and bounced their way down, where they often fall into purple and green pegs after racking up a dozen or so blues on their way down.
These two are grossly overpowered--it that's a thing you can actually call a bunny with a top hat and a friendly jack o'lantern. Whatever you call them, their special shots are a force to be reckoned with. Renfield's Spooky Ball will almost always take out dozens of pegs and score over 25,000, and Warren's special shot, when it lands on triple score, can garner the highest single shot scores in the game.
Furthermore, if you can clear the last peg and activate their special shot in the same turn, you'll get a truly ridiculous fever score. Watch this video to see what we mean.
When there are a handful of pegs between you and the bucket, it can be easy to take a sloppy shot and hope for the best. But a true Peggle Master waits for a likely catch, even when it's almost impossible to predict if you can actually catch the ball or not. You definitely won't catch it all the time, but you'll be surprised how often you will.
When it's possible, clear as many orange pegs as possible without using your special shots or clearing the level. As you clear orange pegs, your fever meter will multiply all pegs on the level to be worth x2, x3, x5, and x10. Now consider that Purple pegs are worth 50 times as much as blue pegs, and you can quickly see how hitting a few pegs at x10 will instantly grant you a free ball. You'll get a higher score and increase your chances at 100 percent-ing a level.
Long shots are worth 25,000 points and are incredibly easy to hit, Super Long Shots are worth 50,000 and a little harder, and any slides you can get (when your ball rolls across tons of pegs, super fast) are worth 50,000 and fairly easy to set up.
Each ball in the que is worth 10,000 points at the end of the round. If you've only got a few orange pegs left but there's no way you'll clear everything else, save your balls and go straight for the win. If the number of balls is inconsequential, just try and rack up some more points with the ones remaining.
Master Hu is every new player's favorite character. His fancy skill shot calculates your shot and then makes it better, often hitting purple pegs and sometimes even catching the ball in the bucket. The only problem is, despite looking incredibly snazzy, these shots aren't usually worth that much. Plus, he's been nerfed hard in Peggle Nights and his special shots are often so bad that you'll start to question if your shot would have been better without him.
Computers have an unfair advantage in video games. They know everything, without really knowing anything. When you duel against a computer, they'll often take wacky shots that strategically bounce from moving targets, score thousands of points, and then magically get caught by the bucket underneath.
It's easy to want to pull your hair out in these unfair challenges, but there is a solution—-instead of taking the best possible shot, take one that makes it physically impossible for them to hit an orange peg. This is more simple than you think and will guarantee that they lose 25% of their score.
It might sound unfair, but the random placement of orange and green pegs means not all levels are created equal--even when they're the same level. If you're on one of the difficult score challenges (like, say, score 750,000), you'll likely need the green pegs in perfect position. Get it set up by continually restarting. It might sound like cheating, but even PopCap recommends it.
While slowly completing the challenges, it's obvious that some levels require something like a fluke to complete. While PopCap offers sound advice on how to beat their hardest challenges, it's easy to start getting sloppy after retrying a level over and over. Be patient, shoot for the bucket, and get as many free balls as possible. Eventually, you'll have a story to tell the grandchildren.
