Ancient Games

## Summary

**Ancient Games** was an Event that took place on the 13th to the 18th of December 2017. This Event was supposed to be recurring, but didn't happen a second time.

This Event introduced two new Merge Chains, the Forgotten Flowers and the Ancient Objects, as well as a new Dragon breed - the Stadium Dragons.

Unlike the holidays Events, this Event was a competitive one. The goal was to merge Forgotten Flowers and Ancient Objects as much as possible in order to reach the highest score possible. The promised prize for the #1 player was a Stadium Dragon Kid.

## Gameplay

During the Event, similar to the holidays ones, a button was available in the bottom left of the screen. After tapping it, two windows would pop up.

To the left was the amount of hearts (lives) the player had left, offers to buy power-ups (boosters) and a button to play the game. Each game would consume one heart, and it took an hour to replenish one heart, similar to the Dragon Chalices. Once all of a player's hearts have been consumed, offers to purchase hearts showed up.

To the right was the Leaderboard. Every player was grouped with 9-14 other players. The player's goal was to get the highest score. The scores were accumulated, so the player should've played as much games as possible in the Event's given time and got as much score as possible in every game. The rewards for the participants were divided into 5 sections: Diamond (1st place), Platinum (2nd and 3rd place), Gold (4th-6th place), Silver (7th-11th place) and Bronze (12th-15th place).

The level itself was a 4x4 grid and a 1x4 spawning grid. First, the player tapped the Ancient Plinth found at the bottom. 3 random objects, either Forgotten Flowers or Ancient Objects, from level 1 to 4 spawned on the 1x4 grid. The player was then forced to leave or drag an object to the 4x4 grid. Once an object was placed on the 4x4 grid it couldn't be moved again (without the use of The Swapper). On the other hand, the objects on the 1x4 grid could be moved and even merged on it. The player could summon more objects once all 3 objects were removed from the 1x4 grid. Once no more objects could be placed, it's Game Over. The player was then offered to purchase power-ups to save the game or to finish it by tapping the "Finish" button. It is worth noting that even if there was no free tile physically, if two adjacent objects were of the same kind, and a third of the same kind was on the spawning grid, it wouldn't have been a game over, and the player could merge all three and continue playing. Something that is also worth noting is that merging 5 didn't yield two objects of the next tier and any merging of more than 3 created one higher tier object without leftovers.

## Prizes

### Event Reward

As mentioned above, the rewards were divided into 5 sections:

 Silver
 Gold
 Platinum

By the end of the Event, the rewards were given to the players.

### Game Spinner Wheel Reward

In addition to the Event's main rewards, at the end of every game a Spinner Wheel appeared and could be spun for free, giving the reward it was upon when it stopped. There were 10 rewards, with the same probability to earn each. Every Spinner has a slot for a Premium Spinner spin.

The rewards were decided by the player's score in the game and divided as follows:

If a player wished, an additional spin could be purchased for an increasing price of 3, 5, 7, 10 or 12 (max) Dragon Gems.

### Premium Spinner

If the play succeeded to hit the Premium Spinner slot on the regular Spinner Wheel, the player was given the option to get premium rewards from the Premium Spinner Wheel. It had 10 slots, like the regular Spinner.

#### List of Possible Rewards

* Moon Dragon Egg
* Skeleton Dragon Egg
* Wood Dragon Egg
* Stadium Dragon Egg
* Green Dragon Nest
* Toadstool Dragon Nest
* Golem Dragon Nest
* Tribal Dragon Nest
* Grass Dragon Nest
* Crimson Dragon Nest
* Sharp Dragon Nest
* Pegasus Dragon Nest
* Midas Duck Nest
* Roc Dragon Whelp
* Spotted Dragon Whelp
* Crimson Dragon Whelp
* Gargoyle Dragon Whelp
* Rock Dragon Whelp
* Grass Dragon Whelp
* Stadium Dragon Whelp
* Toadstool Dragon Whelp
* Sharp Dragon Whelp

If a player wished, an additional spin could be purchased for an increasing price of 10, 20, 30, 40 or 50 (max) Dragon Gems.

## Power-Ups

Various power-ups were offered throughout the Event, which could be purchased with Dragon Gems before entering the Games and also in the level itself.

 The Bomb
 The Swapper
 Lives (Hearts)

**\*** Full, can be less than 5 if more hearts are represented.

The ShovelThe BombThe Swapper
## Strategy

One effective strategy is to treat the 4x4 grid as 4 2x2 grids. In each, build in a pinwheel fashion, starting from the outside and work in, like so:

[v][v][<][<]

[v][v][<][<]

[>][>][^][^]

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The actual direction of each 2x2 grid will change during gameplay as things are merged, but the method seems to help extend play past 1,000 points, and 2,000, and even 3,000 are possible (if you are lucky).

Take a few moments before deciding where to place your pieces. A little thought to how each piece will affect the board will help extend the play--it is not always advantageous to merge if the final position of the merge blocks something else. Whenever possible, it is better to keep any single objects in play with an adjacent empty space open; if you have 2 already in play, the third can lay atop either of the first two to be merged (think about which one will leave your merged item in a better position). The bulk of the 'big' points come from merging higher level objects; if you can last long enough to merge a couple sets of level 4s into level 5s, you should get nearly or better than 1,000 points; merge a couple of sets of 5s into sixes and you can break 2,000.

Try to keep your higher level products in the corners (not always possible of course); each corner only has 2 possible merge points, so if you can end up there with level 5s and 6s you will keep available the spaces with more possible directions to combine: the center spots have 4 directions to merge and the edges beside the corners have 3. So building from outside to inside leaves you with more choices, helping to prevent getting blocked in.

Do NOT immediately merge a trio when it appears in the placement queue. It may be better to lay them into the grid for either a combo merge, or to help with shifting (through merging) the pieces already laid out on the playfield.

Do note that combo merging grants more points toward each object created, and the larger the combo chain, the more points you'd get for each object created.

## Gallery

The competition level at the beginning. Notice the markings on the tiles and the Ancient Plinth.The Ancient Plinth