I have a QQ Number. 591046434. QQ is huge in China. When you visit any clerk at the ubiquitous street corner stores, they are always on QQ if there’s a computer available. I went to the Shenzhen SEG, and one guy was playing QQ on a cash register that his shop was selling. The full package is actually rather impressive. It’s got elements of facebook, blogs, and chat all connected through one system. If you like someone’s blog, you can chat with them or become friends with them with a few clicks. The picture storage was awesome, and the interface was better than anything flickr has done. You can crop, change colors, add captions, everything. The chat has cool features. You can be a DJ and play music for someone else. Everyone trades crazy animated gifs like these ones. Animated gifs are huge in China.

Bad things? Plenty. It is a walled garden in that if you don’t have QQ, you’re invisible to the rest of the world. The software is annoying to someone that writes code in vim. Active-X is used everywhere. It puts files everywhere on your computer. It tries to set up its own anti-virus software at installation. It never gives up focus, and frequently steals it away from you when you’re working. The suite of software doesn’t play nice with your user experience if you use your computer for working. And it really likes bugging you with various updates. It’s like realplayer circa 1999 on steroids.

Another thing it has is a gaming section. Again, the presentation style and the way it allows you to play a game with people over the internet is miles ahead of what anyone has done in the West. If you have a QQ login ID, it’s all a few clicks away. There’s all kinds of games, but I spent a lot of time on one in particular, a simple puzzle game. I called it the QQ Animal Game.

The object of the game is to score points by placing three or more alike animals together. More animals, more points. Chaining, which is the removing of animals due to the the pieces moving after a player’s move, is awarded even more bonus points. Some animals have special items attached to them, and “eating” those items causes certain events, like losing points or stopping play, to happen. When a certain amount of points have been obtained, the game is won. The winner takes away avatar points from the other players, just like scoring is done in online chess games. You can move two animals at one time, and if the moving doesn’t result in a score, or three or more animals together, the pieces are moved back. the three animals together disappear, the pieces move down to take their place, and more pieces are added to the top. In that screen shot, the next move would be to move the panda in the bottom left corner to the right to make a chain of three pandas. Then move the frogs in the top area of the rightmost column together, causing the monkey currently in the middle of the frogs to be placed at the row above the two monkeys in the bottom. When those monkeys are gone, the three cows in the bottom second corner will be automatically removed, causing a chain reaction to happen, and bonus points… and then…

There’s an americanized version that QQ is running in the states called QQ Treasure Hunter. It has some pirate motif. What is wrong with pandas? Regardless, I want to play it. The Chinese servers are viscous. The one score up there on the screen shot is over 14,000 points, which would mean the girl has played, and won, at least 700 times. The Chinese servers are a great place to hone your skills. I think I’d stand a fighting chance against someone from Wisconsin.

Strategies.

• Time is the most important factor in winning or losing a game.
• Work from the bottom, this allows for a greater chance of a chain happening.
• When stuck and unable to find a new set of animals to move, it is best to focus on the area where the new animals have been placed.
• Before you play, you have to choose a table to play at, and then you have to wait for everyone to play. Saying “kkkkkkkkkkkkkkk” seems to make people hurry up for some inscrutable reason.
• Removing animals in a row is better than columns. It is less disruptive to the configuration, and it seems easier to know that an animal is moving down just one space than it is to know that the animal is moving down three or more spots.
• I’ve found that as an intermediate player, it’s best to concentrate on speed rather than finding the best point for chains. Chaining skills will be obtained later, and time is the most valuable resource in this game. I’ve never lost a game for lack of chaining, but I have lost while searching for a valid move to make.
• The best item is the stop player item (the smiley face), it would be best to work towards getting this. If you have two animals and one has the smiley face, try not to break these two animals apart.
• When you start getting good, pass the wand item (it shows you where a valid move is) to other players. The animation it makes takes up their time.
• Sometimes it makes sense to hold back, especially at the end. If you’re to far ahead of the other players, they can send you the stop item, and they may race ahead of you past the 100% mark without you being allowed to make one move. Of course, if you’re so far ahead this may not be a factor. This is risky, I prefer to just go as fast as possible.
• Don’t read the numbers to see who is winning, use the racecourse at top.
• Pressing “s” allows one to switch (or cycle) through your store of items to use against other players or on yourself. “d” deletes the current item.
• Sometimes, the backgrounds above the avatars will change color; that means they wish to form a team where the points are combined. If you’re not on an opposing team, leave the game. You can join a team by pressing the A or the B in the bottom left corner.

It was a great time, and I managed to almost reach 1000 points. Yes, a thousand points in an online game. Amazing it is, yes, and thank you.

Oh, a good thing did come of this: I now know what a panda sounds like.