Bilging
Bilging is one of five duty puzzles and the first puzzle new players are assigned to practice. Its mechanics heavily borrow from Nintendo's Tetris Attack and Popcap's Bejeweled.
Good bilgers help to empty water that gradually gathers in a ship. The higher the bilge level, the slower the ship goes.
Contents
[hide]Basic Gameplay
The mouse or arrow keys move a two-piece target around the board. Clicking or pressing space swaps two selected pieces horizontally. Forming rows or columns of three pieces clears them and the bilge is pumped away.
Combos
The best bilgers can create combos that clear more than three pieces. Clearing four or five pieces offers a slight bonus, but one should try to aim for clearing more than one column or row with one move. There are different messages for each combo:
- 3 - no message
- 4 - Good
- 5 - Great
- 3x3 - Arrr! 3x3!
- 3x4 - Arrr! 3x4!
- 3x5 - Yarrr! 3x5!
- 4x4 - Har! 4x4!
- 4x5 - Yarrr! 4x5!
- 5x5 - Yarrr! 4x5!
- 3x3x3 - Bingo!
- 3x3x4 - Bingo!
- 3x3x5 - Bingo!
- 3x4x4 - Bingo!
- 3x4x5 - Bingo!
- 3x5x5 - Bingo!
- 3x3x3x3 - Sea Donkey!
- 3x3x3x4 - Sea Donkey!
- 3x3x4x4 - Sea Donkey!
- 3x3x3x5 - Vegas!
- 3x3x4x5 - Vegas!
- 3x3x5x5 - Vegas!
Chaining
It is possible to create chain reactions when bilging, but as chain reactions are often serendipitous, they do not add a great scoring bonus.
The Water Line
The water line across the base of the screen shows the bilger how much work he or she has left to do. Below the water line, pieces move more slowly. All bilge puzzles have at least three lines filled with water, even with no bilge damage.
Crabs, Puffer Fish, and Jellyfish, Oh My!
Crabs are an immovable piece that is cleared when it reaches the water line. Crabs offer a high scoring bonus when cleared, that increases with the height of the water. The puffer fish expands when clicked and clears itself and the eight adjacent pieces. It is detrimental unless it results in a chain reaction clear. Swapping a piece with a jellyfish clears all the pieces of the same type on the board.
Bilge scoring
Bilge scoring comes from your efficiency to clear pieces. Unlike sailing, bilging also takes time delay directly into account. A delay of about ten seconds is acceptable when searching for a new move. A good balance of strategy and speed is best for a bilger.
Historical Notes
In release 2005-07-12, the bubbles and droplets were added. The overall animation speed also increased.
