Tests > Test Of The Oyster Catcher > Catching Oysters

Catching Oysters

The way catching oysters works is through a simple puzzle designed on grids of varying sizes.

Diving for a pearl inside this grid immediately has 4 affects. It changes the status of the bubbles (cells) to your immediate N, S, E and W.
(Just chipping in, it also affects the bubble you dive "on" (ie: center of the compass))
- This is true for some puzzles but not all as I understand it ~ Zintwana
(You can get a feel for the principle at This page /Oniyuki)

Depending on those cells current status the cells will change to a different status.

On clearing all the bubbles you find your oyster!

The way it works

Take the following example where we have 3 different colours of bubbles (X, Y and Z) and where O is the spot you dive. In this sequence the colours change from X>Y>Z>blank>X>Y etc..

-	-	-	-	-
-	-	X	-	-
-	-	O	Y	-
-	-	Z	-	-
-	-	-	-	-

After diving at O the following grid would appear...

-	-	-	-	-
-	-	Y	-	-
-	X	O	Z	-
-	-	-	-	-
-	-	-	-	-

Diving again in the same spot would result in this...

-	-	-	-	-
-	-	Z	-	-
-	Y	O	-	-
-	-	X	-	-
-	-	-	-	-

You can also create new bubbles by diving in areas where there previously were none, for example...

-	-	-	-	-
-	-	Y	-	-
-	X	-	Z	-
-	-	-	-	-
-	-	O	-	-

If you dived where the O is above you would get this...

-	-	-	-	-
-	-	Y	-	-
-	X	-	Z	-
-	-	X	-	-
-	X	O	X	-

Clearing the grid

-	-	-	-	-	-
-	-	-	-	-	-
-	-	1	-	-	-
-	2	1	1	-	-
3	2	2	-	-	-
3	3	-	-	-	-

The basic strategy for clearing the grid is to walk a diagonal pair of bubbles into a corner.

• If bubbles are at position 1, and you position yourself at 1, diving will
  • toggle off the 1 bubbles
  • toggle on the 2 bubbles.
• If bubbles are at position 2, and you position yourself at 2, diving will
  • toggle off the 2 bubbles
  • toggle on the 3 bubbles.
• If bubbles are at position 3, and you position yourself at 3, diving will
  • toggle off the 3 bubbles
  • toggle on the 4 bubbles but there is no position 4, so you've cleared those two bubbles.

Added difficulty

From my understanding Teppy has added an extra difficult setting in that diving in blank spaces may result in more than one colour appearing. In this case there is a difference in the sequence which takes into consideration position of the bubbles i.e. a blank N&S may change to a different state from a blank W&E. An example of this is below...

-	-	-	-	-
-	-	-	-	-
-	-	O	-	-
-	-	-	-	-
-	-	-	-	-

Diving at point O above would, considering the previous examples above result in 4 X's NSE&W but with this added twist you may find the rules for N and S cells change and the sequence goes like this... blank>Z>Y>X>blank whilst the W and E cells go blank>X>Y>Z>blank.

What you would then get is this sequence for repeatedly diving in the same spot...

-	-	-	-	-
-	-	Z	-	-
-	X	O	X	-
-	-	Z	-	-
-	-	-	-	-

-	-	-	-	-
-	-	Y	-	-
-	Y	O	Y	-
-	-	Y	-	-
-	-	-	-	-

-	-	-	-	-
-	-	X	-	-
-	Y	O	Y	-
-	-	X	-	-
-	-	-	-	-

-	-	-	-	-
-	-	-	-	-
-	-	O	-	-
-	-	-	-	-
-	-	-	-	-

That is for a 3 colour sequence btw which I have yet to see in game - as yet the only sequence I have seen so far has been two colour.

Hope that helps in understanding how to catch those oysters! ~ Zintwana

Notes on one-coloured grids:

The first I met was straight forward, but the second one I found that the diving spot never changed, aka if there were bubbles where I dived, they remained and likewise with no bubbles. Otherwise the same old rules.~ Vibe