Updated: September 19, 2011

Angry Birds Golden Mooncake #1 Walkthrough

Pay attention to the tracker

Don’t just pull that slingshot back and fire off those birds willy-nilly.

ABCNEWS.com

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As each bird flies through the air and (hopefully) lands on its target, the game traces its trajectory with a white dotted line. Use that line to your advantage, Patel urged. If you missed your target, place your next bird above or below that line, depending on how far you want the bird to travel.

And, when you find a path that works, stick to it. Some levels require that you fire at the same place up to four or five times.

Know your birds

Not all birds are created equal. For the red birds introduced at the earlier levels, there’s not much more than meets the eye. But in later levels, the game offers up different birds that excel at different tasks.

“There are a lot of ways to beat each level, but if you want to get three stars, you need to use the right kind of bird for the right kind of thing,” he said, adding that if you strategically use your birds, you have a better shot at earning the bonus points awarded for leftover birds at the end of the level.

At the start of each level, Patel said, look at the set-up your birds need to break in order to smash the pigs, and then use your birds accordingly.

 Blue bird – If you need to break ice, this is your bird of choice. It doesn’t do so well with wood or stone, but Patel said it blows right through blocks of ice. It also splits into three pieces if you tap the screen after releasing the bird into flight.

 Yellow bird – The kind developers behind Angry Birds didn’t want to leave players totally without clues, so they matched the color of the birds to the items they are best at breaking. The yellow birds’ forte? The yellow-colored beams of words. They also speed up when players tap the screen after firing them off.

 White bird – White birds mean double trouble. Not only can they do damage when they drop their “egg bombs,” they can wreck even more when they bounce and ram into structures protecting the crafty green pigs.

“A lot of people think you want to use the egg bomb,” he said. “But it’s really less about the bomb, it’s more about the bounce.”

 Black bird – Patel’s favorite, the black bird looks like a bomb and acts like one too. After you release the bird, it explodes if you tap the screen while it’s in flight.

BASIC TIPS

Angry Birds depicts the life-long struggle of bird-versus-pig, and its your job to catapult these kamikaze birds into the pig’s towers, knocking down their houses and defeating the green swines inside.

High score

Simply killing all the birds will unlock the next level, but if you want to get the maximum three stars on each stage, you’ll need to aim for some high scores.

The key to getting a high score in Angry Birds is a mixture of deadly efficiency (unused birds net you an automatic 10,000 points each) and unrelenting damage (smashed objects give off small, but quickly accumulated points).

You’ll often need to use both strategies at once, though: simply using a very small number of birds might not get all three stars if you didn’t make much damage.

Get physical

The iPhone packs a powerful processor that’s more than capable of pumping out a pretty convincing simulation of physics. That means that offsetting balance and attacking weak points is always a more effective strategy than blindly firing at the main reinforced walls.

Plus, some materials are sturdier than others. It’s no use fruitlessly bashing away at a stone wall (especially because it takes about three direct hits to finally smash one) when you could focus on the easily destructible wooden platform that’s holding it up.

Assorted tips

Pinch and zoom to see the entire battlefield on one screen, so you can quickly see how far away your catapult is from the pig’s base.

Every bird leaves a trail of dust behind, meaning you can replicate (or slightly deviate from) previous throws without the tedious guesswork.

You don’t always have to attack from left to right: if you aim the bird high enough you can attack from above. Perfect for levels with fortified walls, but exposed roofs.

Wait until your previous bird disappears. If you hit your last bird’s dazed body, your attack will be significantly dampened.

But it’s definitely not easy, and it’s full of secrets you might not be aware of. We decided to throw together this Angry Birds walkthrough guide, which covers everything from basic tips to secret goodies, to help you get the most out of Angry Birds.

UPDATES

Want to know what came when? Here’s our handy guide of when developer Rovio Mobile unleashed the extra Angry Birds goodies. Angry Birds first launched on December 10th 2009, with just one world (Poached Eggs) and a meagre 63 levels for you to play.

The first major update (1.2.0) came out on February 11th 2010, bringing the Mighty Hoax world and all 42 levels therein.

After that, Rovio began to dole out new levels in much smaller quantities. It kicked off the Danger Above world in update 1.3.0 on April 23rd, with just 15 levels. To be fair, it also introduced a new avian pal: the hateful boomerang bird. It also introduced the golden eggs.

Danger Above continued in 1.3.2 (May 18) with 15 more levels and another golden egg, and concluded in 1.3.3 (June 22nd) with the final 15 stages and a special level by five-year-old Ethan from Texas.

It’s a good level, we’ve got to admit.

We didn’t have to wait long for more. The Big Setup, a new world featuring reconstructed levels, landed in update 1.4.0 on July 16th, with 15 new levels and the last bird: the whopping Big Brother bird. We got 15 more stages and a golden egg in 1.4.1 (Aug 30th) and a final 15 in 1.4.2 (Sep 30th).

The game’s penultimate world, Ham ‘em High, opened for business in version 1.5.0 (Dec 23rd), a wild west themed world with cowboys, Indians and watermelons. Oddly enough. The last 15 levels of Ham ‘em High arrived on 18th March.

Rovio dropped yet more levels in version 1.6.0 (June 16th) by unleashing the first 15 stages of Mine and Dine.

How 3 star ratings are calculated

3 Star ratings are calculated by your points. You have to reach a certain amount of points using as little shots as possible. If you’ve already been playing Angry Birds then you already know each leftover bird is worth 10,000 points. You could clear a stage in one shot but not get a 3 star rating. A prime example of this is Stage 1. It only takes one shot to clear the stage but it’s a pain to get 3 stars on.

Why? Because damage counts as well. Not only do you need to clear the stage using the least amount of shots possible but with the most destruction to the building as well. Master that and you’ll start seeing a lot more 3 star ratings appear.

Horizontal Support Beams

Horizontal support beams are key to getting 3 star ratings on a lot of levels. You want to hit them with as much force at the right angle to have the best effect. Using Stage 1 as an example because I already know someone who can’t get 3 stars on it…you want to hit the lower of the two beams.

Hit the beam with as much force as you can and you’ll create the most damage and get yourself a 3 star rating! This works on a lot of levels as a shortcut to not having to use all your shots to clear a stage. Stage 1 will give you a 3 star rating once you pass 31500 point or somewhere near there.

Extreme Angles

Sometimes it is good to shoot your bird at an extreme angle whether it’s a horizontal angle or an upward angle. This is especially true with the blue bird (the one that splits into three) and upward angles. Extreme sngle shooting works well on some stages such as stage 12.

While on the topic of the blue bird, timing on when you split the bird makes a difference as well. If you are doing an extreme upward shot don’t split them too early or late. I have found between half way and 3/4 of the way down is the best time to split them if you are doing an extreme upward shot, also depending on what you’re trying to do of course.

Roll Your Bird!

Rolling your bird, the yellow one especially, is a great way to not only get those pesky pigs when they are on the ground but also to clear out extra leftover lumber etc etc when near the end of the stage. Be careful though for stone blocks as they will basically stop you in your tracks when you are doing this.

This is just like skipping a stone on water so you don’t want your angle too crazy or anything, just slightly off from being parallel and the best time to tap the screen for the boost is when you are real close to the ground. Tap to set off the boost and you’ll roll right through most objects and kill your leftover pig as well.

This is also a good way on some stages to take the support out from under the building.

Bomb Birds

You get introduced to the bomb birds in the end stages of the Beta. The best use for Bomb Birds is to be as close to as many adjacent blocks as you can before you blow up. This works really well in corner areas. Another good way to use them is to explode them while they still are moving but just after they land, however this depends on the stage though.

Lastly if you land close enough to a TNT Box you’ll be able to take out much more of the structure and possibly pigs when your Bomb Bird explodes and sets off the TNT Box as well.

Patience!

Don’t be too quick to shoot your next bird either! Sometime things on the stage are still settling, pigs rolling, blocks shifting and so on. Wait till everything is done before shooting as you could save yourself a shot by not having to worry about something that would have ended up falling anyways if you had waited.

This goes for both pigs rolling and the structure. When the game moves you back to the slingshot, wait a few seconds and make sure you aren’t still gaining points, then shoot. If a pig rolls off the platform they die and it’s one less target to worry about.

So hopefully some of these general tips and tricks for Angry Birds help you out in your quest to get 3 stars while we all wait for the full version to be released. When it is there will be even more tips and tricks added along with hopefully some sort of walkthrough although each stage can have a variety of ways to clear it out.

If you have anything else you want to share that is a tip or a trick for Angry Birds leave a comment with it! If you have tips or tricks for any other game, even if it’s not listed, just use the Tip Us! Form up in the top right corner of the site (red square icon with ‘!’ in it).