The mermaids of Mermaid Cove have been salvaging magical stones from a local shipwreck “The Thrice Shy” for the past few weeks. Now they’re looking at you to help unlock their secrets.
-Meteor Games’ Description of Wavecharmer
Mermaids and Pirates! This is a dream come true…ok…calm down Pink!
Wavecharmer is an amazingly fun game that involves matching, combos, and strategy. This is the first game in VPN that not only rewards Coins, but also a variety of items if your character is Level 10 or above (Potions, Charms, a Pet, and an Outfit).
In this game, you need to make rows or columns of 3 or more stones to make them disappear and allow more to drop into your gaming window.
This is the page you’ll see when you start a game of Wavecharmer. For the moment, our Mermaid friend appears to be nameless, but we’ll call her Marina…that seems appropriate. Now, you’ve been hanging with the Mermaids for a while now and they finally trust you enough to show you their stash of magical stones…they’re asking for your help to figure out what they do and what they’re good for. Why do they think you have any sort of qualifications for such a venture? Who knows…but they’re willing to reward you for your help with items and coins, so you don’t complain and pretend like you know what you’re doing…I mean…you offer them your expertise.
There are three different methods the Mermaids have been trying and you don’t see any reason to dispute it…you just have to decide which way you’re going to go about figuring out these stones.
In Wavecharmer, there are three modes of play: Normal, Infinate, and Chain. In Normal Mode, you have 1 minute to get as high a score as possible. In Infinate Mode, you don’t have a timer. You just play until you have no more moves left. In Chain Mode, you have a certain amount of moves allowed to get a certain number of chain combos. Let me expand on this one a bit. A chain combo is when you match three or more and it creates a sort of domino effect, that is, it makes another combo from the stones that drop.
This is what the Mermaids are giving you. You try not to show your nervousness as you go about trying to figure out what these things do…this is actually quite easy behind your diving helmet.
As previously mentioned, the point of the game is to match 3 or more of the same stone in either a row or column. You can only move a stone one space if it is going to make a match. When you do this, it creates an empty space and more stones drop in to fill the spot. There are 7 different kinds of stones. When you get a combo of four, it leaves one behind and it’s special…when you click it or use it in another combo, it does cool things. They don’t technically have names, so I’ll just give them names…like I named Marina.
Earth Stone: When this stone goes special, it randomly turns a few stones into Earth Stones
Electric Stone: When this stone goes special, it randomly dissolves a few stones on the game board.
Explosion Stone: When this stone goes special, it blows up it’s surrounding stones.
Fire Stone: When this stone goes special, it destroys all stones in its row.
Quake Stone: When this stone goes special, it shakes a few stones off the game board
Water Stone: When this stone goes special, it destroys all stones in its column.
Wind Stone: When this stone goes special, it blows away the stone above, below, and on each side.
Super Special Stone: This stone appears when you match a row or column of 5. It stops the board for 5 seconds and allows you to move any stone in any direction for as long as the red timer is going.
Well, you did what you could…you at least helped the Mermaids a bit in trying to figure out what these stones are…now it’s time for your reward…
You’ll get the obvious coins for sending in scores, but if you get a high enough score, you’ll also get items. Also, you’ll get an item every 5 games you play.
There are also a number of achievements for this game:
- Troubled Waters – Unleash all seven 4-combo bonuses in one game of Normal mode (10 points)
- A Fish to Water – Earn 10,000 points in Normal Mode (5 points)
- Don’t Hold Your Breath – Earn over 1,000,000 points in Infinite Mode (10 points)
- Treasures of the Sea – Earn either the Clam Pet or the Mermaid Outfit (15 points)
- Salvage Expert – Collect 7 different types of stone (10 points)
- Making a Splash – Earn 60,000 points in Chain mode (5 Points)
- Mer-Mage – Create enough 4-tile combos so that 6 tiles are glowing simultaneously (10 points)
- Chain Reaction – Get 6 combos from a single move on chain mode (10 points)
- Wrinkly Fingers – Play any mode for an hour (10 points)
That’s it…that’s all I have for you. Have fun!
Guide by Pink (Captain Pink Hawkins)
Tips/Strategies:
Tips from Flying Fox:
-Bonus multiplier charms (ones with x2 or x3 on them) will appear after a certain amount of chain combos from one move. I believe what triggers them is if you clear a certain amount of charms with only one move. From what I can tell, if you get a chain combo of 4 groups of 3 (that is, with one swap, have a chain reaction of 4 groups of 3), a bonus multiplier will drop down.
-Try to trigger those bonus multipliers early and often! It’s especially important in Normal mode, as if you can get up to x5 or x6, you can start scoring major points quickly.
-There’s a secondary multiplier that is triggered from how quickly you can make matches (it’s on the upper right side). Each combo you make within 2 seconds will increase that time multiplier, up to a maximum of x1000. I believe the scoring works by multiplying the bonus multiplier (on the upper left) with the time multiplier (upper right) and some base value for every charm group cleared, but you might want to double-check that =P.
-Basically, try to match up 3 or more in at least 2 seconds or less to keep that time multiplier maxed for the whole game! It makes a difference!
-Try to create as many matches of 4 as you can, and use the glowing stones that are left in other matches for maximum pointage.
-Work your way from the bottom of the game upwards, as clearing groups from the bottom can often lead to unexpected chain reactions (which are always great!)
-Always try to have your next move already planned out. That makes it easier to keep the time multiplier maxed out.
The above tips/strategies are courtesy of Flying Fox.
Tips from Razella:
For the four combo ’shiny’ stones, id guess they are named same as their wavecharm counterpart: nature, energy, stormy, spirit, fiery, earthern, icy and windy.
secondary multiplier: is actually an addition to the score, not a multiplier. The score system follows BIMDAS. so say your on x5 multiplier and +700 addition. you would get 30 points for a 3 combo, times 5 to get 150 points, then plus 700 to get a grand total of 850 points.
I’ve also noticed multiplier charms show up when you have a high addition value, as well as chain reaction.
lastly. ‘Work your way from the bottom of the game upwards’. except for on chain mode, I don’t entirely agree with this. you get no bonus from chains, and they don’t increase the additon value. not saying its a bad tactic, just pointing out the flaws.
Want to add to this minigame guide? Send in your own suggestions, corrections or strategies with the name you wish us to include (character name/forum name) and we will add it. You can email these to: mail@themeteorites.net
