Snow Wars II is a game that involves careful and precise use of the mouse! Speed it important in this game, like in many others, but firstly you’ll need to get accustomed to understanding how your mouse works in order to fully master Snow Wars II. As well as gaining precise mouse accuracy, you’ll need to rely on strategy in order to get to the end. This flash game version is the follow up from the oldest Snow Wars.
In this game, you’ll be playing as a grundo who’s protecting his snow men from approaching enemies, including Lupes and Snow Beasts. To do this, you need to rely on several tactics.
Snow Wars II Instructions and Controls
To start with, in Snow Wars II you’ll need to protect the snowmen from the invading Lupes and Snow Beasts that want to tear them down. To do this, your best tactic is to place large blocks of ice in the best places possible to stop them. In order to move the blocks of ice, you can use the space bar in order to rotate them into a variety of different arrangements, which we’ll cover through this guide. Therefore, be sure to keep your finger on the keyboard space bar throughout the course of the game!
Defending the snow men with ice blocks is just the first stage! Once you’ve laid down the blocks in the most suitable arrangement, you can start to fire huge snowballs at the Lupes and Snow Beasts. This is where some offensive strategy comes into play: the Lupes don’t have any way of attacking you back, but the Snow Beasts have catapults and can fight back! Therefore, once you’ve built your snow blocks around you, start targeting the Snow Beasts first before aiming at the Lupes.
The game rotates through three different stages. This is measured using a timer in the top right hand of the game.
The first stage is called the ‘Build Walls’ stage. This is where you concentrate on building your fortresses for your snowmen and on making sure your defenses are strong.
The second stage is called the ‘Launch Catapults’ stage. In this stage, you put down a catapult which is used to fire shots at the approaching enemies. This has to be considered strategically, due to the fact it will only fire one snowball at a time.
The third stage is the ‘Attack’ stage. Here you’ll actually get to use your catapault on your enemies! The controls for this are simple; just hover your mouse over your enemy’s location and click to fire at them. You’ll also need some strategy here, as some enemies will be closer than others and this affects how your shot lands and whether your fortress will be attacked.
For every Lupe you hit, you get 5 points. However, you lose 1 point for every block of ice that the Snow Beast hit! When a fortress has been completely built, the amount of points you get is equivalent to double the area size you surrounded. For example, if 10 blocks of area are surrounded and are blue, then you get 20 points.
Snow Wars II Blocks
The blocks of ice used to protect your snowmen can have a number of varied shapes, which can stretch from one square to five squares. These types are as follows:
1 square – This is the most simple kind of ice block you can place, and are very important to use in the last levels.
2 squares (placed next to each other) – These are great to plug up the little gaps that can only be filled by the single square or by two squares.
Three squares (in a row) – These are good for filling up larger types of gaps.
Three squares (placed in an ‘L’ shape, for example with two next to each other and one facing left or right out of it) – Brilliant when you’re making corners for your snow fortress.
Four squares (three squares lined in a row next to each other, with one coming out of the middle square like a small ‘T’) – Used in certain special arrangements, as you’ll find when you play
Five squares (three squares in a row as above, but with two coming out of the middle on opposite sides like a ‘+’) – These are particularly useful in the later levels and are great at stopping approaching enemies.
Five squares (three squares in a row as above, but one above the far left and another below the far right, sort of a ‘S’ or ‘Z’ shape) – This is great for a range of tactics throughout the game.
Snow Wars II Strategy
Now you know the controls and types of blocks, let’s get on with playing and getting the best score possible!
At the start, the ‘Build Walls’ phase, the best strategy is to try and build fortresses around each of your five snowmen, making it easy to place catapults effectively. You will have shapes you can rotate, which can be done by using the space key. To put down the ice block in a designated spot, just click on it. If you hear a buzzer noise, that’s because you’ve tried to put a block onto another block, which is not permitted.
Keep aware that the fortress must completely be around at least one of the snowmen, with no spaces in between any of blocks. If there’s spaces, the snowman will not be effectively defended – which means you cannot put down your catapults. The game makes it easy to detect when your walls are finished, because the section within the confines of the walls turns blue once it is completed. This may take some getting used to, particularly in terms of mouse accuracy, but once you’ve practiced this a few times it becomes easier!
You can even build a fortress around an area with no snowmen in it. This will still turn blue and be considered a completed snow fortress.
After you’ve placed down your snow blocks to protect your snowmen, it’s time to place your catapults! This is a really important phase which needs thinking about strategically just like the ice blocks. For example, if your wall is against or close to the river or to the game screen’s boundaries, you should place your catapult so it’s not right against the walls. This way, you have space to put down a big quantity of ice blocks to fill in a gap in the wall if you need to. It’s important to remember here the earlier tip: that you only get one fire from a catapult at a time. You cannot fire again until the shot you’ve fired has hit a target and disappeared off screen.
You’ll now be on the ‘Attack’ stage. Here, you should aim at getting rid of the Snow Beasts before the Lupes, as they are the ones who are actively trying to break down the walls of your snow fortresses. Afterwards, you aim for the Lupes, as they can get into any chinks in your defence and get to your snowmen.
At the very beginning, in the first Attack stage, two Snow Beasts and three Lupes will appear. In each level, the numbers increase. The Snow Beasts will increase by one per level, until they get to five Snow Beasts per stage. The Lupes will also increase by one, and will stop at six Lupes.
Once you’ve got this nailed down, you can focus on doing the same over and over again; building your fortresses, placing catapults, attacking enemies, and then rebuilding again.
Neopets Snow Wars II Cheats
- If you’re in the Attack section of the game and you notice a chink in your fortresses of one or two blocks that you think would be hard to fill with snow blocks, you can actually use your catapults in order to attack the spot next to it. This way, you can grow the amount of space that you have to rebuild your defenses.
- Place your catapults near to the enemy to reduce the amount of time waiting for a shot to hit. Otherwise, you can be waiting for a long time for your snow shot to hit a Snow Beast, while they’re attacking you.
- Once the first stage is over, a good tip is to rebuild any dents and damage to your fortress, and then build extra lines in order to make it bigger and to reinforce your defense. When a fortress has been completely built, the amount of points you get is equivalent to double the area size you surrounded. For example, if 10 blocks of area are surrounded and are blue, then you get 20 points. For example, if your first snow fortress is 10×10, if you build a thin line you could extend it to 15×10 and so on. Even if you don’t finish it in this round, you can connect it up with more walls in the next round. Remember, your points are based on having large fortresses – the more area within your fortress, the higher you can score, and the more catapults that can be put down.
- In the first stage, you can click your mouse button very fast whilst moving your pointer in a direction, in order to make a large, albeit slightly strangely shaped, fortress. This means you can quickly build a big fortress at the start of the game and grow the size of it from there. From this, you can then rebuild any broken areas as and when they appear – be sure to do this at the end of your building stage so that all the holes are filled up! This is not possible later on in the game due to the different types of block and shapes and how they come out, which need more focus to configure properly.
- Once you get more used to the basics of the game, you can start to take advantage of the orders in which the catapaults fire. The first catapults you put down are the first ones that fire when the Attack stage begins. For example, you can place 3 catapults in the middle, 3 catapults at the bottom, and 3 catapults at the top of screen. This way, the shots start in the middle, go to the bottom, then round back to the top, shortening the amount of time for each shot to travel and meaning more shots can be fired during the Attack phase.
- The Lupes will usually walk straight forward. This means it may be beneficial to shoot in the path of the Lupe so that the shot lands on them once they move. Sometimes they may move from side to side, which means it may be best to shoot on one side or the other of the Lupe.
- The entire game is based on strategy and on experience of what happens at certain points. At times, it will be necessary to focus on making smaller forts, rather than larger. Often, it may be necessary to let catapults be damaged to destroyed in order to get to the next stage.
This power-up gives you a temporary speed boost. I don’t think it’s very helpful, because you’re already pretty fast, and there are much more helpful power-ups to get.
This power-up allows you to shoot faster while it is active. I don’t like this one because if you’re trying to get a high score, your focus should be to stay alive, and to get points only when you have a good opportunity.
This power-up lets you fire two lasers at a time instead of one. I used to think this was a great one, but like I said earlier, you should be trying to stay alive, not get points quickly.
This power-up teleports you to a random spot on the screen when one of Sloth’s spaceship’s attacks hits you. While it is very helpful – it’s basically immunity to damage – there are two power-ups that I like better.
With this power-up, any of your attacks that don’t hit the spaceship will rebound off the walls of the screen, going back toward your enemy. I really like this one, because you can be facing any which way, and your attacks are likely to hit the spaceship eventually. You can be evading the attacks and still get points.
But this is the best power-up of them all. It gives you a complete shield for a few seconds. While it is active, any attack that hits you will just disappear, and your armour integrity will stay the same. You can use this time to shoot at the enemy and get at least a hundred points. It’s by far the best power-up to get. (It’s also the power-up you start off with when you lose your first and second lives.)
The least dangerous is Sloth’s death laser. If it touches you, you lose a life, no matter how much armour you had (if you have a shield, though, you’ll be safe). This might make you think it’s more dangerous than all of the others, but this is the easiest to avoid. Just make sure that the ship is never facing you directly, and the laser won’t pose a threat.
Another very deadly weapon is the turret near the middle of the ship; when it starts to charge, it charges for a few seconds and then fires a laser for a couple more seconds. However, because you’re constantly moving, you won’t be in its range most of the time.
Sloth will sometimes shoot bursts of small lasers. They travel in a straight line from the front of the ship, and two rows of them are always fired at the same time. However, there’s a space in between them that can keep you safe (although you should be trying not to let the ship face you directly, remember?).
Sloth’s most common weapon is his random blue shots. There’s no rhyme or reason to when they shoot or where they’ll go, so you just need to be on the lookout for them all the time.
And the most dangerous weapon you’ll face is the homing missle. They always fire two at a time, and they’ll be aiming for you. You need to outrun them, while still avoiding the other attacks on the screen, until they selfdestruct.
