golf solitaire

Here’s a sneak peek of the upcoming Mix-n-Match badges for September 2009. These will be released on the last day of August. There are the following 12 challenges for 16 gems a piece:

BOGGLE Bash – Cubicle Badge
Find 64 words of 5-letter or longer in 5 hours!

Blackjack Carnival – Feathered Mask Badge
Get 21 Blackjacks in 12 days! (A Blackjack is a 21 with only 2 cards)

Crazy Cakes – Side of Bakin’ Badge
Serve 100 Dwarves in 12 days!

Everyone Wins Bingo – Happy Squirrel Badge
Reach the Team Goal 20 times in 2 days!

Fortune Bingo – Cracked Crystal Badge
Win 500 tokens in 5 days! (Includes Jackpot Spins)

Golf Solitaire – Water Hazard Badge
Clear 13 Hazards in 13 days!

Jigsaw Detective – Detective Agency Badge
Solve 10 puzzles in 5 days!

Mahjong Garden – White Dragon’s Badge
Match 50 White Dragon tiles in 2 weeks!

Monopoly Slots – House Hunting Badge
Land on Chance 2 times in 2 weeks!

Perfect Pair Solitaire – Rock the Boat Badge
Collect 30 Hearts in 1 day!

Thousand Island Solitaire – J.P.’s Outpost Badge
Get 5 Jackpots Spins in 10 days!

Tumble Bees – Happy Hive Badge
Get 30 tokens or more in a Jackpot Spin 7 times in 3 days!

In addition, there is the Pogo 10 Year Anniversary Limited Edition Badge, which will cost 28 gems (please note, this is separate from the free 10 year anniversary Special Badge which will automatically be awarded on Pogo’s 10th anniversary in September):

Monopoly Slots – Pogo 10 Year Anniversary Limited Edition Badge
Win 25000 tokens in 15 days! (Including Jackpot Spins)

Fortune Bingo – Foggy Glasses Badge
Win 1000 tokens this week!

Golf Solitaire – Snow Golf Badge
Complete 25 bonus puzzles this week!

Pogo and McDonald’s have teamed up for the You Too Can Be a Champion Sweepstakes. Starting today and continuing through the 16th of this month you can win prizes by playing Pogo Bowl. Then, head on over to Golf Solitaire from the 20th through the 24th. For each jackpot spin you get, you’ll be entered into the drawing. There are lots of prizes to be had, from free tokens to McDonald’s gift certificates and game consoles and games.

We’ll also be adding this to our free tokens page, but from August 16-19th you can earn 500 free tokens a day by playing Golf Solitaire to train for the sweepstakes.

Golf Solitaire – Golfin’ Away Badge
Win 4,000 tokens this week!

Mahjong Safari – Aardvark Badge
Complete a puzzle in 3 minutes or less 50 times this week!

This challenge was changed just before this week’s challenges came out; it was originally 100 times. Yay!

The Flawless Victory special badge in Golf Solitaire is tricky to get, but not impossible. With a little patience and these tips, the coveted badge could be yours.

First of all, the requirements: win all five games on a course.

* Our hints and tips will help with overall game-play, but you’ll want to fine-tune your plan of attack for getting this badge.

* Play in a Regular speed room. This will give you time to plan out long streaks. This will also give you time to play the Bonus Round and possibly get a wild card or a Golden Shot card for the next round.

* If you are playing alone (or can always choose your course), pick Fiddler’s Green or Icicle Cliffs. Some people have reported better luck with getting the special badge on those courses.

* A lot of what this comes down to is a little strategy and a lot of luck, so good luck!

If you have received this badge and can offer some advice to people on how to get it too, let us know!

Here are a few things of note that we haven’t had time to cover in a single post this week:

The mini pets are on their way! Pogo’s artists have created two new backgrounds — a pet shop and a dog park.

The Flawless Victory badge in Golf Solitaire is now being awarded.

There were a lot of problems with this week’s patch for Word Riot Deluxe (especially for Windows Vista users). Some Vista users have had luck by running it as administrator, but others have not been so lucky. If you are having problems playing Word Riot after the latest update patch this week, we suggest you contact Oberon directly (support at Pogo will just tell you to contact Oberon, anyway).

The badge is now being properly awarded for the 8th Mix-n-Match album completion. It’s called “Jumpin’ for Joy”. It shows up in your Special Edition album and you will be credited 5,000 tokens. WTG Pogo.

Those of you who wanted to know what it was, Poker Pop is now available for online play.

If you haven’t taken advantage of it yet, we added a new token offer for 3,000 tokens to our free Pogo tokens page. Yay for free tokens!

Pogo is starting to work on the upcoming Hasbro releases Operation and Pictureka. Operation Deluxe will be a downloadable game with badges, ranks, and probably mini items. Pictureka may be called Pictureka Museum and if you’ve never played this fun game, you can check out a game demo off this page.

Here are a few tips we’ve compiled in the first week of Golf Solitaire on Pogo. Feel free to submit your tips to us via email and be sure to let us know your BadgeHungry username (if you use our tracker) so we can give you credit as we add more tips to this post.

Wait until the end of a run to play a hazard card, that way you won’t have to use a Golden Shot Card.

Try to remove 1’s and 11’s; they only have one card that can remove them (2 and 10 respectively), so stastically they’ll be hardest to get rid of.

If you are playing for score, you may want to play in the Normal Speed rooms, as you’ll have more chances to play the bonus game and therefore more chances to earn a -1 Stroke card, a Wild Card, or a Golden Shot card.

If you’re playing for rank, play on Super Speedy — you’ll have more rounds in less time, and therefore more opportunity to clear hazard cards from the play field.

Try to look ahead to plan long streaks.

If you have the choice, remove cards from columns with more cards in them before removing others, especially the last ones at the top of a column.

If you have the time, use your undo button — try removing different cards to see which is most beneficial.

The game isn’t currently awarding the Flawless Victory badge; if you happen to get the 5 perfect games, take a screenshot and contact Pogo.

If you are playing for the Flawless Victory badge, play in one of the slower rooms and take your time! Use your extra seconds to plan out your streaks/runs and if you can, save up your Golden Shot cards so you always have a few available if needed.

Those of you who were concerned: Golf Solitaire is now properly awarding badges. Those of you who cleared enough hazards to earn a rank badge will be awarded them when you start the game. As far as those of you who previously had completed the requirement for the “Flawless Victory” badge, we’re not sure if you’ll have it automatically or have to repeat your, ahem, “Flawless Victory”.

Update: Our friend Ashley wrote in to let us know that the game is not awarding the “Flawless Victory” badges. Even worse, when she contacted Pogo, they gave her the excuse that the game is in a “Sneak Peek” stage and, in not so many words, don’t play it if you don’t like the bugs. (Collective sigh, anyone?) So, don’t work too hard on your perfect games, at least until Pogo gets this badge straightened out. Thanks Ashley!

A lot of people are reporting that they have surpassed rank 5 in Golf Solitaire and did not receive the first badge, “Bogie the Ghost”. In fact, users are reporting that NONE of the badges are being awarded — a problem that was happening in beta testing, oddly enough — including all five rank badges and the “Flawless Victory” badge.

We expect this to be addressed by Pogo in an upcoming Letters to the Editor, but in the meantime, rest assured that you’re not alone!