Nicole Benboom - Angry Birds: Pro Tips for Getting Your Highest Scores

Fling birds at cartoon pigs and watch their houses come crashing down. At its most basic, Angry Birds, by Rovio , is an amusing and quick game. But once you get past the first few levels, it becomes apparent that it is also a challenging, and possibly frustrating, game of strategy.

The story begins when a few conniving pigs steal the Angry Birds' eggs. Your task is to destroy pigs by flinging the birds at them. Fire the birds by pulling back on the slingshot they sit in. Make a pinching gesture to zoom out or scroll out, if using a computer to see more of the field. Keep in mind it is easiest to control your aim if you are zoomed in.

You follow the pigs through worlds with different settings and props, but the basic setup is the same at each level. When all the pigs are eliminated, you move to the next world each one trickier to navigate than the last. Destroying pigs is the best way to gain points, but you can also rack them up by damaging other objects in the playing field. When you collect enough points, you get a star up to three per level.

Some levels have Golden Eggs hidden throughout. If you collect enough, they unlock extra mini games and fun features. Look for them by zooming out and scanning the entire screen. They are often hidden in strange places, or behind other objects.

You can turn off the sound, if you'd like, by tapping the settings button, which looks like a gear in a yellow circle. From this menu, you can also turn off the backgrounds, which will save battery power and make the game easier at times because it creates less visual distraction.

A little strategy and knowledge now can save a lot of frustrated flinging later. Read on for five tips that will help you become a pro at Angry Birds in no time.

The best overall strategy to complete levels and gain the highest scores is to take out the weakest spots in the structures, rather than aim directly for the pigs.

Scan the structure in each level before you play. Look for these structural weaknesses:

• Horizontal beams: As explained by Conner Turnbull in Meet the Birds on App Storm, you should a im shots at the corners (sic) of horizontal beams that will inevitably ripple through the whole structure.

Tip: You can get three stars on Level Seven by using the first bird to hit on or near the wood horizontal beam, as illustrated below.

• TNT: If you hit the TNT boxes, or anything else that might explode, you can clear a lot of the level.
• Wheels, boulders and other circular objects: On some levels, there are wheels at the base of the structure. Cleaning away any debris in front of these wheels can cause them to roll, sometimes unsettling the whole structure. Sometimes circular boulders or rocks are above the structure and, knocking these over, or rolling them down, can get rid of many pigs.
• Sand: When you see sand holding up heavy objects, shoot for itthe structure can easily be destroyed, dropping the objects down on the pigs.
• Bad balance: Youll find beams that are balanced very precariously, and even if you dont destroy a lot of material with your hit, you can knock over the structure and cause a lot of damage. Its also really fun.

Once you have looked for all of these structural weakness, use them to try to flatten the structure. If you dont see any really great opportunities to attack the structure, avoid the most fortified areas, and aim low. You will create imbalance this way and soon see the structure fall.

Keep your physics classes in mind as you play. Triangles are the strongest shapes, and will be hard to break through. In the screenshot below, all of the triangles make one pig much harder to get to than a tower made of beams arranged like tables.

To win this level with three stars, you must shoot a yellow bird along the bottom before the other triangles fall to take their place, and stay just as strong. You always want to avoid debris piling up on the pigs because that will make it harder to hit them.

Look for areas that are buttressed with beams or other pieces , as these are also structural strong points. The square and triangle pieces are even harder to break than the beams, and both of these will not roll or fall very far and stay in the way. Stone is the hardest material, and large blocks of it can be almost impassable.

After you identify the fortified areas, find ways to work around them. Is there an area with a table or box shape, instead of a triangle? If the left side of the structure is very well fortified, fling the bird high above, and let if fall down onto the roof. See if you can identify a pathway of wood through the stone.

On some levels, you will find that a large block of stone, or a triangular buttress, is holding up the whole tower. Even though it will feel like you are wasting birds, you can often win by flinging birds against the same block until it breaks.

There are many articles available that give an overview of the birds you will unlock as you move through the game. AppStorms Connor Turnbull provides a nice explanation of the birds basics .

The kind of bird in your slingshot should affect the material you choose to target.

• The blue bird will effortlessly break up glass, but isnt very effective on anything else.

• The yellow bird will shoot through rip through wood like it's wet paper , according to Mark Brown at Pocket Gamer, but isnt very effective on stone.
• The bomb bird and large red bird are the only birds who can really damage stone, so use them for the toughest areas

Pay attention to which bird you are flinging and avoid hitting materials that your bird will not damage very much. If you face a stone that needs to be cleared, plan to use your bomb bird. If youre up against glass, use the blue bird. Save as many birds as possible, since each bird left at the end of the level is worth an additional 10,000 points. Use your knowledge of each bird in your arsenal and the materials and construction of the structure to plan the most effective attack.

The birds also have their own most effective angles of attack. Take a look at what you have to demolish, and plan out where you will shoot your birds accordingly. Use the flight path left behind by the last bird to help aim your next shot. You can also use focal points in the background image to set up your angles.

The yellow bird is great for making precision shots at a pretty straight angle. The blue birds are most efficient if they come down from a high arc.

While Rovios instructions show that the bomb bird will explode if you tap the screen, according to Angry Birds tips by CNETs Luke Westaway, it is almost always more effective if you instead try and sink it into the structure itself, then wait for it to detonate spontaneously. You will also usually want to roll this bird under the structure from the left, or drop it as far to the middle as possible, so that everything will crash outward. If there is a crevice that can help it go down to the bottom in the middle, this is ideal.