Quinn’s Aquarium Badge Guide

This guide lists strategies for all of the different types of badge challenges for Quinn’s Aquarium. It’s a story-based game, which guides you through the process of restoring an aquarium as you play mahjong puzzles to collect enough currency to upgrade and purchase the needed repairs, parts, and aquatic life. You must complete the storyline in order — there is no way to go back a level or choose what level you want to play until you’ve unlocked Bonus Puzzles after completing all three parts of the Tropical Tank.

If you’re struggling with completing the Tropical Tank, start with our Quinn’s Aquarium Tips and Tricks which might help you get through some of the trickier levels.

Below are tips for each type of badge in Quinn’s Aquarium:

Complete a game in under X minutes

This is a fairly straightforward challenge. If you’re having a hard time completing a puzzle fast enough, try a different tile set. Using a tile set you are familiar with, for ease of finding matches as you scan across the puzzle. A lot of players like the Accessible Tile Set, which uses a larger font with numbers and letters on the tiles:

To access this menu, open a puzzle and click on the orange gear in the upper right hand corner of the game. Choose Tile Sets and then choose from the six tile sets available.

Complete X levels / Win X levels / Complete X games

Despite the different wording, these badge challenges are all the same. Match all of the tiles in a puzzle and you’ll earn badge credit.

Collect X Flower Tiles

The nice thing about flower tiles is that they do not need to be an exact match. Any flower tile can be matched with any other flower tile. For example, a cherry blossom tile can match with an orchid tile. The images and names on the tiles may differ from tile set to tile set, but you can still match them interchangeably.

Flower Tiles look a little different depending upon what tile set you are using. Typically these have a picture of a flower or a plant along with its name or an abbreviation of its name on the front of the tile. Starting from the top left in the graphic below, the flower tiles look like this in each of the tile sets:

Upper left: Mahjong Garden Nature Tile Set, Mahjong Garden Animals Tile Set
Upper right: Jolly Bear Games Tile Set
Lower left: Classic Tile Set, Accessible Tile Set
Lower right: Aquarium Tile Set

Collect X tiles

This is a straightforward challenge. You will get credit towards this challenge by matching tiles. There are 144 tiles in normal puzzles and 288 in Challenge round puzzles, if you’re interested in figuring out how many puzzles it might take you to complete this one. Ultimately, this is one of the best challenges to pair up with when you activate multiple Quinn’s Aquarium badges at the same time, especially since some of these “Collect X tiles” badges can be fairly long.

Clear X Lock Tiles

This badge requires you to match a Key Tile with a Lock Tile and then complete the puzzle to get credit. The problem with this is that as you are playing Quinn’s Aquarium in the beginning, you must play the puzzles sequentially and not all puzzles have Lock and Key tiles. That means if you get stuck on a puzzle, you will have to finish it before moving on and hopefully getting Lock and Key Tiles in your next puzzle.

That said, there is a workaround: by using Bonus Puzzles. You get access to the first set of Bonus Puzzles when you complete all three parts of the Tropical Tank. This will require you to do a total of 180 puzzles, but if you can get through those, completing this type of badge challenge and others will be a LOT easier in the future. For more information, check out how to unlock random/bonus play puzzles in Quinn’s Aquarium.

In order to clear a Lock Tile you need to click on a Key Tile first, then click on the Lock Tile to remove it. This puzzle has three Lock Tiles to clear:

If you’re struggling with completing all three parts of the Tropical Tank to unlock Bonus Puzzles, start with these Quinn’s Aquarium Tips which might help you get through some of the trickier levels.

Match X pairs of Shell Tiles

After you match a pair of Shell Tiles, you have to make 10 more matches of regular tiles before new Shell Tiles appear.

Once a set of Shell Tiles appears in the puzzle, work quickly to match them, then make 10 more regular matches and you will get another set of Shell Tiles to match. The tips for badges that require you to match all six sets below will also come in handy for this, because the more you can earn per game the faster you’ll get through challenges like this.

Tip: ranking up in Quinn’s Aquarium is based on Shell Tile pairs made too, so the better you get at matching Shell Tiles quickly and efficiently — at up to six per puzzle — the faster you will rank up. The sixth pair of Shell Tiles you make in a puzzle is worth 5 rank points!

Match all six sets of Shell Tiles in a game

After you match a pair of Shell Tiles, you have to make 10 more matches of regular tiles before new Shell Tiles appear. You will need to unearth and match the Shell Tiles within as few matches as possible in order to pair enough Shell Tiles to fill all 6 slots.

The reason for this is that there are only 144 tiles per normal puzzle. If you make too many non-shell matches after the shell tiles show up you won’t have a chance at getting all six sets to show up before you run out of tiles.

Given this, if you play a Challenge Round you’ll be able to match all six pairs easier because Challenge Rounds contain 288 tiles each puzzle. Challenge Rounds appear in the storyline at every 5th puzzle, however if you unlock Bonus Play (also referred to as random puzzles or bonus puzzles) you will be able to reload until you get a Challenge Round as you work on this badge.

The Most Important Thing
Do not use undo! You cannot use undo because it will remove any Shell Tiles in the puzzle and stop all additional Shell Tiles from showing up. When you are working on this badge, slow down and take your time, carefully planning out your match before clicking on the tiles.

If you are activating other badges at the same time, you might want to avoid the “Complete a game in under X minutes” badges because you might need the extra time to make sure you don’t have to use the undo for a move made in haste.

Out of Moves? Don’t Just Quit or Restart!

Download a guide & printable checklist of things to try when you think you’re out of moves on a puzzle. The method is called SNUG and it might open up some more moves for you! Enter your email address here and then check your email to receive your guide:

You’ll also automatically be subscribed to the BadgeHungry Insider newsletter, which is full of tips for Club Pogo that you won’t want to miss!

If you’re still having a hard time with Quinn’s Aquarium, take a look at these Quinn’s Aquarium Tips which might help you get through some of the more difficult levels.

Can you add anything?

Do you have anything else to add to this post? Share your Quinn’s Aquarium badge tips for other players in a comment below.

Other Guides in this Series:
How to Unlock Bonus Puzzles in Quinn’s Aquarium
Quinn’s Aquarium Tips and Tricks