The object of this game is to walk around, collect balls by dragging
them behind you, and deposit them into designated receptacles in
exchange for money. When all balls have been deposited into their
proper receptacles, the game is over and the person with the most money
wins!
- The HUD: Your Controls
At the bottom of your screen is a pale yellow bar where any combination
of five buttons will appear: Help, Eat, Car, Drop, and Throw. The Help
button shows these instructions. The others will be explained below.
They may appear or disappear depending on whether they are applicable
at the moment. To use any button, just click on it when it's visible.
- Walking around
Use the arrow keys on your keyboard to make your character move one
space in any of the four cardinal directions.
- Dragging Balls
To pick up a ball, simply walk over it. If you have enough strength to
carry it (in addition to the current load you are dragging), you will
pick it up. If you aren't strong enough, you won't be able to walk
over it - you'll just have to go around!
You can drag as many balls as you have strength for at any time. When
you pick up more balls, they get added to the line that you are
dragging around, forming a sort of chain behind you. As your load
increases, it gets harder and harder to drag them around; thus you'll
start to move more slowly.
- Depositing Balls
There are seven types of balls, and seven corresponding ball
receptacles throughout the Fun Center. To deposit all of the balls you
are currently dragging, simply walk into any receptacle. For each ball
that goes in, you get an amount of DMoney determined by the ball weight
and the number of balls you've dragged into the receptacle. Order
matters! The amount of DMoney you get for any ball is equal to the
ball weight times how many balls went in before it at the receptacle.
Therefore it is smart to put heavier balls last in your order (which
means pick them up first) so they get multiplied by larger numbers.
| Ball Type | Weight | Home Receptacle |
Beach Ball |
3 |
 |
Billiard Ball |
4 |
 |
Bowling Ball |
15 |
 |
Kiddie Ball |
2 |
 |
Pinball |
1 |
 |
Skeeball |
3 |
 |
Basketball |
10 |
 |
Baseball |
3 |
Tennis Ball |
3 |
For example, let's say you enter the receptacle, dragging some balls in the following order:
You would receive DMoney as follows:
| Green ball | 1 x 2 | + |
| Bowling ball | 2 x 15 | + |
| Billiard ball | 3 x 4 | + |
| Beach ball | 4 x 3 | + |
| Pinball | 5 x 1 | = |
| 61 DMoney |
However, by rearranging the order in which you pick up the balls, this
combination could return a maximum of 105 DMoney.
Normally when a ball is returned to a receptacle that isn't its Home
Receptacle, you get the points and it randomly reappears somewhere else
in the Fun Center, back in play. If you return a ball to its Home
Receptacle listed above, you get 10 times the points and the ball goes
out of play for the rest of the game. The game ends when all balls are
out of play because they've all been returned to their Home Receptacles.
- Strength
You start with strength 1. To increase your strength, you need to
eat. As your strength goes up, the maximum load you can drag also goes
up, and you can drag balls around faster.
- Eating
Go to Mat & Don's restaurant, Good Eats, in the middle of the Fun
Center to have a bite to eat and increase your strength. When you
stand next to the service counter at the north end of the restaurant,
you'll be able to pay for your food and eat. The Eat button will
appear in your hud, so just click it.
The first meal costs 50 DMoney; the second, 100; the third, 150; and so
on. As you get stronger, you should be able to earn DMoney more
quickly, so keep the pricing in mind as you play!
Tip: tired of walking through the zig-zagging line to get to the food
counter? There's a shortcut. See if you can find it!
- Dragging People
If you get strong enough, you can drag other players around too, just
like any ball! All people have weight 50 and are worth that much if
you manage to drag them to a receptacle. However, you'll need a lot of
strength because people can fight back and try to break free. You
can't drag anyone who is stronger than you.
If you're caught being dragged along by someone else, the best thing
you can do is hit your arrow keys until you break free. The stonger
they are, the harder it will be and the more you will have to try. If
they manage to get you all the way to a receptacle, you're in big
trouble: you'll go back to the entrance of Mat & Don's and your DMoney
will go to 0, so be sure to fight hard!
- Breaking the Chain
Any time you pick up a ball that is part of another chain already being
dragged, you will add that ball to your chain and break the remainder
of its original chain below it. This is a great way to foil the plans
of your opponents: if someone goes walking by with a long chain of
balls, just walk into one of the balls to break it up!
This also applies to your own chain. If your chain gets long enough
that you can loop back around and walk into it, be careful! Doing so
will break off any part of the chain below that point, just as if
someone else had walked into it. Also, if you turn around and walk
into the first ball in your chain, guess what: the entire chain will be
broken!
- More Ball Control: Dropping and Throwing
Any time you are dragging at least one ball around, two buttons will be
visible in your HUD: Drop and Throw. The Drop button is pretty
simple: click it and drop all of your balls, free to run away without
dragging them along anymore.
Throw is a little more fun: click this button to throw your closest
ball in the direction you're facing. To throw a ball, you will
necessarily have to drop any others you may be dragging (this happens
automatically when you click Throw: no need to click Drop first). As
your ball flies ahead, it can bump into and pick up its own chain of
balls behind it, just as if you had run along in that direction.
Throwing has some fun applications to use against your opponents. You
can throw a ball at your opponent's chain to break up the chain. You
can also throw your opponent if you've just picked them up! Or if you
throw a ball at your opponent, the ball can pick them up and drag them
along itself.
- BallDraggers
Yes, a few BallDraggers have gotten into the Fun Center as well. Their
mission is to annoy you in any way they can. They'll drag balls and
throw them around haphazardly. But more importantly, if they spot you,
they'll come after you and try to drag you to a receptacle!
BallDraggers have strengths varying from 10 to 25, so you'd be smart to
eat up and get strong to defend yourself from them.
- Bumper Cars
No good Fun Center would be complete without bumper cars. To get in a
bumper car, simply walk onto it. The Car button will show up in your
HUD, so you guessed it: press the button. You'll be inside the car and
able to drive around. To get out, hit the Car button again. Do note
that entering or exiting a bumper car forces you to drop your balls.
Driving the car is pretty easy. To go in any direction, simply press
the arrow key of that direction once, and off you go! The only
restriction is that you can't go in the direction opposite the way
you're facing until you turn left or right first. No quick U-turns!
Instead, pressing the arrow opposite your current direction will stop the car.
The bumper car allows you to pick up more balls than you would have
without it, and drag them faster than before. However, even the car
can get bogged down from too much weight. When this happens, it can
stall when you try to turn, or it will sputter and die with each step.
You'll still be able to go, but you'll be back to manually hitting the
arrow keys each time. Oh, wait a pain!
Bumper cars also can't go into receptacles. So, after you've dragged
your huge chain of balls to the receptacle, you'll have to get out, go
pick them up again, and drag them in on foot.
You may also notice that the BallDraggers don't pay much attention to
you while driving your car around. This is because they know the car
is too strong and too heavy for them to bother with. It's a safe haven
from nasty BallDraggers and opponents alike.
