Jawbreaker II(Apple) FAQ/Walkthrough version 1.0.0 by schultw.andrez@sbcglobal.net(anti spam spoonerism) Please do not reproduce for profit without my consent. You won't be getting much profit anyway, but that's not the point. This took time and effort, and I just wanted to save a memory of an old game and the odd solutions any way I could. Please send me an email referring to me and this guide by name if you'd like to post it on your site. ================================ OUTLINE 1. INTRODUCTION 2. CONTROLS 3. POINTS AND STRATEGIES 4. GETTING THROUGH A LEVEL 5. CHEATS 6. VERSIONS/CREDITS ================================ 1. INTRODUCTION Jawbreaker 2 is a bit of an awful game, I'm afraid. While Jawbreaker had fun ways to beef up your score, Jawbreaker 2 doesn't even offer that. You're still a clacking pair of teeth, but this time you don't have a real maze or anything. It's just five rows of dots. Jawbreakers roll around the rows, unable to turn. You drop or rise through portals above and below you. You have power pills at the corner, and while jawbreakers roll at you, it's generally easy to sneak in behind them or even catch up to them as you gobble dots. If you just gobble whatever's at the corners, and take out a fourth of the board, you should be okay. Though at earlier levels you can gobble both pills and get through things rather quickly. You may get bored before the game decides to turn impossible, letting the jawbreakers run back on you. Jawbreaker II is Jawbreaker on the Atari 800, though actually Atari 2600 Jawbreaker has more rows. Chuck Bueche("Chuckles") wrote this before writing a lot better games, like 2400 AD. It looks like it was a port of the Atari 2600 version, and I'd guess it was done as a programming exercise, or for some quick cash. (Bueche deserved it, for all he went on to do.) Maybe it'll give you confidence your second game will be a lot better than your first. Otherwise, this game isn't particularly worth your while. 2. CONTROLS It's interesting that you can choose the up/down/left/right keys and be able to stop. I go with YHJK. That allows you use either thumb to hit the space bar. This feature is one of the few innovative things you'll see in Jawbreaker II. You lose all ties when going for a power pill, but on the bright side, you can catch an enemy when he is 4/5 out of bounds and you are charged up. 3. POINTS AND STRATEGIES 5 for dot, 20 for power pill. 100-200-400-800 for the monsters. Eating two power pills in a row saves the doubling bonus. 200 for candy cane, 400 for watermelon, 800 for lollipop. Overall these values are about half what they should be, in keeping with a game with a half-assed concept. You get an extra man every 10000 points. You have 17 dots on each level, minus the center square, for a total of 80*5+4*20=480 points per level. Most of your points will, thus, come from gobbling enemies. You should go to the left to start out, then back to the right. An enemy will come at you from the left. He will be useless. Then work your way up(or down, if he comes from the bottom. Go where they ain't.) On later levels you will not be able to get all the way to the left on the second-top row, but you can bail by eating a power pill at the top. Kill the jawbreaker at the top then work your way down and repeat. Watch for enemies going off the screen. They always reappear on the row where you aren't, unless you have a power pill. On early levels, enemies roll off one side of your row and back out the other. On later ones, they bounce back at you. If an enemy changes his row, he always comes out on the opposite side. It's best to drop on enemies, or near them, when you have a power pill. That way they can't run. You can probably catch them, but it wastes time. Make sure you can get to the edge when you drop to another level, or be prepared to go up and around. You can and should divide the board into ten sections: Row 1 left and right, 2 left and right, etc. Rows 1 and 5 are easy, you can get row 3 at the start, and that leaves 2 and 4. If an enemy appears on row 2/4, go the opposite direction and be prepared to move up or down. Hang out on an edge row and then drop in behind a row 2/4 enemy if things get tricky. Row 3 is also good for mucking around since you'll clear it first thing. You may wish to run against the grain to be sure you avoid an enemy you want to sneak behind--run past them so you have a half-width of room. Also beware that if you drop down, you're not safe til all of you is below at the next level. You don't need the sound if you know the color coding of the boundaries. blue = no pill white = pill about to expire orange = pill Around wave 5(wave=1 trip in dentist chair) the white disappears. 4. GETTING THROUGH A LEVEL For the first few levels, it is pretty easy to plow through. Though you may wish to get points by moving up and down the rows and eating enemies. In general I find it's worthwhile to take out 4 enemies with 2 pills in the early going--it's safe, and remember, the 800 is the big reward. If you get 4 enemies with 2 power pills, that is better than 3 with 1 each. What I would do is clean up the bottom 2 enemies with a pill in the upper left, then clean up the other 2 with one on the bottom. Then zigzag bottom to top. After a few levels it's only practical to nab the guy in front of you, and the main point getter may be ducking in for the treasure at the center. You can hop over enemies a bit at first, but on later levels, they turn around instead of cycling from one side to the other--and then they turn around sooner and sooner. So you have to plot your escape valve, whether it is above or below you. After about level 5 or so, there's no white warning, which makes the game much trickier than before. You can barely double back at a monster running at you at the top. You need to stop, get the pill and turn around. The enemies also turn around earlier, so it is not so good to follow after them. Drop down and run into the corner, and you may have to run at enemies if they are close to you. Remember the chutes/rises are faster than the enemies. 5. CHEATS None known. ================================ 6. VERSIONS/CREDITS 1.0.0: sent to GameFAQs/Honestgamers 4/20/2009, complete. Thanks to the usual GameFAQs/honestgamers gang, current and emeritus. They know who they are, and you should, too, because they get/got some SERIOUS writing done. Good people too--bloomer, falsehead, Sashanan, Masters, Retro, Snow Dragon/Brui5ed Ego, ZoopSoul, War Doc, Brian Sulpher, AdamL, odino, JDog and others I forgot. OK, even Hydrophant in his current not-yet-banned message board incarnation. I am not part of his gang, but I want him to be part of mine. Thanks to the NES Completion Project for keeping it going and especially for Da Hui for pointing out this game to me. All you people at honestgamers, YELL AT ME if I forgot you and you deserve to be in there. I mean, it's partially because of HGWars I wrote this FAQ, and I want to add to this in the future.