Big Kahuna Reef
Help File
Welcome to Big Kahuna
Reef!
Go Hawaiian as you
discover new and exotic fish in this gorgeous underwater adventure! Lead on,
Kahuna… your quest awaits!
Please choose from
among the following categories below:
Move game pieces into matches of 3 or more in a straight line horizontally or vertically. Doing this on top of boxes will break them. The object of Big Kahuna Reef is to break all the boxes on each level, and to do this before the time runs out. Keep going until you run out of lives or you have beaten the last level and won the game.
In addition, you are “unlocking” fish as you progress through the game. These new fish are not only “rescued” from some of the boxes in later levels, but they can be played with on the “My Fish” screen accessed from the Main Menu or in-between levels.
The Basics:
Why do you care about
points? For starters, every 50,000 points gives you another life. After that,
bragging rights for a level high score and then… you just like the way that
your score looks, especially if it’s higher than the last time you played.
The “Tiki Head” in the lower right corner of the screen has a colored liquid in its mouth. This liquid slowly drains from its mouth as the level progresses, and if this liquid disappears, the level has been lost. As it drains, it changes colors, running the spectrum from blue to red so you can tell at a glance how much in danger you are.
NOTE: The timer only ends the level in the standard
play mode. In “Relaxed Play”, the timer does not end the level.
The amount of time that you have per level can change, so a “full” Tiki Head on one level may be 9 minutes, while on another level it may be 7 minutes. The times have been balanced on a level-by-level basis.
You also get a bonus for time remaining at the end of
the level of 10 points per second. However, all time “purchased” at the One
Minute Remaining Warning does not provide a bonus. So, if you extend the time
on a level at the cost of a life, you do not get bonus time for that extended
time.
This mode of play is
exactly like the standard or “normal” mode of play, except for one large
exception…the timer does not end the level if it runs out. In Relaxed Play, the
timer acts simply as a way to get bonus points for finishing early, but does
not penalize you for taking more time than the timer has. This style of play is
for those players that like to take their time when playing and do not want to
have to worry about how much time they have to finish a particular level.
You are rewarded in Big Kahuna Reef for breaking boxes in rapid succession. You are rewarded with increasing amounts of points and increasing the size of your “Tiki Totem”.
· Matching 3 objects and breaking boxes causes a special sound to play. Continuing to do this WITHIN 6 SECONDS OF THE LAST MATCH that broke a box will cause another sound to play that is progressively higher pitched.
· The “Tiki Totem” on the side of the screen will get slightly larger as this sound increases in pitch. This is a physical representation of just how high you have progressed your sound. The Totem reaches its peak at 51 box-breaking matches in a row.
· You get more points for each progressive match that breaks a box WITHIN 6 SECONDS of the last match that broke a box. You get 3 points for the first match, and then +3 for each box after that. This looks like:
First Boxes in a Match: 3 points each
Second set of Boxes: 6 points (if broken within 6 seconds of the first match)
Third set of Boxes: 9 points (if broken within 6 seconds of the second match)
Fourth set of Boxes: 12 points (if broken within 6 seconds of the third match)
And so on…
If you notice, a subtle sound will play after 6 seconds when your Sound Progression “Chain” is broken. This signifies that you have missed that opportunity to make another match and progress your sound and increase the size of your totem. If your Totem has increased in size, you will notice that it will also decline back to its starting position if you have missed your consecutive box break.
This is the Big Kahuna equivalent of Multiplayer. However, the twist here is that you can have UP TO 8 PLAYERS AT ONCE ON THE SAME COMPUTER! Each player will control a mouse and will be clearing the board cooperatively or competitively with the other players.
To play Mouse Party, you will need:
1. A Mac.
2. More than one mouse. One for each player. The trackpad on a laptop counts as a mouse.
To get started:
1. Plug in other mice to your computer. If you have a USB mouse and an available USB port on your computer, this is easy to do. Just plug the mouse in outside of the game and then restart Big Kahuna Reef. If you don’t have a USB slot available, it gets a bit harder. <For help on putting another mouse onto your computer please go to www.mouse-party.com >
2. Select “Mouse Party” from the Main Menu and a screen will pop up with a list of colors.
3. Each player with a mouse picks a color. Each player must have a color selected to begin.
4. Choose either Cooperative or Competitive.
a. In Cooperative Mode, everyone helps in clearing the board, so there are no separate scores on a per-player basis.
b. In Competitive Mode, players play against each other to color the most squares by breaking the most wooden boxes on a level. Each broken wooden box will give the player that broke it a square of the player’s color. Trust us, this is a lot of fun!
5. Press “Play” when all options are selected. Then you will pick a level to start on, and hit “Start”. Pick a big board, as everyone will be on the same playfield!
Competitive Mode: Additional Information
· Making a match for the first time in a square will cause the background to change to that color. Sometimes a square will not be broken directly or even what the game considers indirectly by the player. In this case, this space is “clear” and can be claimed by the next player to make a direct or indirect match over it.
· The player with the most colored squares wins. In addition, the player that breaks the last wooden box on the level gets 5 bonus points.
· Directly matching the Skeleton Fish of Kamehameha will cause the matching player’s colored boxes that were underneath the skeleton match to become clear and up for grabs. It will not affect the other player’s colored boxes, so it is possible to “re-break” these boxes only to find that someone else’s color is already there.
· There are no individual score counters in the level. This is on purpose so your attention is purely on playing the game.
· Once the last box has been broken, you will be taken to a special screen that has a Tiki Totem for each player.
TOTEM SCORING
1. The height of the Totem represents how many boxes were cleared. The higher, the better.
2. The Tiki Totem that shows the Tiki Mask is the winner. Please stop complaining about how your mouse was obviously broken and move on.
3. Once the Tiki has reached the top, numbers will appear below the Totem. There may be up to 3 separate numbers listed. Adding them together will obtain your total. Here is how these numbers break down:
4. EXAMPLE: The numbers below the Totem read: “34 + 2 + 5”. This means that you broke 34 boxes that gave you a colored square, you broke 2 locks (which give you 1 point each) and you got the last box on the board, giving you a 5 point bonus.
There are four special objects during play in Big Kahuna
Reef to watch out for.
1. Delete a piece that makes one piece closer to two
others so it can be easily swapped to make a match.
2. Delete a piece in-between 3 Skeleton Fish pieces to
force them to match to clear them off the board and give you bonus points.
This screen is accessed from the Main Menu or in-between levels of the game. It shows the ocean floor, and provides a “play area” where you are welcome to create and look at the fish that have been “unlocked” so far. Please take your time to look this screen over, as even in the Demo Mode, the demo time will NOT count down while you are on this screen.
Fish “buttons” ring the “My Fish Screen”. Clicking on a button that is “active” will spawn a fish that will swim around. Fish buttons that are active will show a colored version of the fish. The top three in the upper left hand corner of the screen are unlocked by default.
There are also buttons that line the bottom of the screen. Here is what they do:
· Change Reef. This button will change your view to another part of the ocean floor. It will also clear the area of fish, so you are welcome to start putting new fish in from scratch.
· Hide Buttons. This button will hide all of the buttons on the screen so you can enjoy the full view of the ocean without anything in the way. Simply click the mouse again and the buttons will return.
· Main Menu. Pressing this button will save the game in progress (if accessed from between the game levels) and will take you back to the Main Menu.
· Next Level (This button only appears if accessed between game levels). This button will take you to the next level.
The Level Editor for Big Kahuna Reef can be used to make
your own levels. The Editor can be reached through the “Options” menu.
While we believe the Editor
is easy to use, it is “unsupported”. This means that Reflexive is not
responsible for providing adequate documentation or answering questions that
pertain to the Editor or its use. This also means that it may be possible for
the player to create levels that don’t work correctly, seem broken, or don’t do
what the creator envisioned them doing. Reflexive Entertainment is not
responsible for assisting designers create their levels, or “fix” features that
work fine in the shipped game but might not in some extreme condition found by
a player using the Editor.
The Level Editor requires the
use of right-click and the scroll wheel for certain features. If you only have a single-button mouse,
you can simulate a right-click by holding down the Control key on your keyboard
while clicking. You can simulate
the mouse wheel by holding down the Control key and pressing the up and down
arrow keys.
Once plugged in, move the mouse around. A cursor
“update” should occur, allowing the new mouse cursor to be seen.
USB Hubs are available at
computer stores that will allow multiple USB devices to be plugged into one
port. These are easy to connect, and are really the equivalent of just plugging
it in and having it work.
Go to www.mouse-party.com for general assistance.
· OTHER PROBLEMS
Please contact us at macsupport@reflexive.net.