Tips for playing in IWON part 4

When you open the game you may notice that sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t. While typing this I have just managed to freeze up one of the free slot games. I have had more trouble of late because of the changes they have made to the flash players and I think that most of this is tied to Internet Explorer not being as capable or compatible with IWONs programming. I have written IWON to let them know of the troubles but with little notice or improvement. I have found that if you are having these problems you might be better off trying a particular game using Firefox as your browser. I know I have.

By the way, I had two games open in the background for reference in Explorer and I think they conflicted with each other and that caused the lockup. Reboot to explorer via the Task Manager and we will try again.

When playing any of these games you may like to try a little trick that I use all the time and that is to resize the window so that it only displays the game you are playing. This helps you focus on the game and not all the noise that is going on in the background. IWON again is ad driven but it is driving me mad with all the ads they throw at you. There is always one just below the game that not only flashes and winks at you but is changing every few seconds and it is very distracting so by putting it just out of view you are better able to focus on what you are doing. When you resize just remember to leave enough room on the right to remind you that there is a $3,000.00 jackpot to play for.

They have also added an IM chat feature to the games, again it can be a distraction but it can be fun. Throw out a line and visit with some of your fellow gamers. Just don’t get too distracted with the chat that you miss Word Pop dropping 3 letters in the far left column.

Most of the games come with the ability to shut off the sound (noise, music etc.) when you first start the game. This is a handy feature for some games as the accompanying sound can be quite annoying. On the other hand some of the background noises are clues in some of the games and you will want them there, just adjust the sound coming from the speakers to a reasonable level before you start to play.

IWON also comes with a search engine and you can earn points with each search. Unfortunately that is about all it is good for. They have teamed up with ASK.com previously Ask Jeeves, but it is a pretty lightweight search engine. Just try searching for this site and see what you get. Nothing, even when I put the exact address in. It is just plain weak. If I put in my name it will reference erectile dysfunction but it will not mention me. Too bad.

They have made a change recently so that their sponsored responses post front and first and they have made it hard to tell where the sponsored stuff ends and the real stuff begins. They have also rearrange the display page so it is much more difficult to navigate the page and look for real returns so I have pretty much given up on using it for real searches and strictly use the power engines of Google or Yahoo and such. Sorry IWON, but your latest edition of search like your latest edition of e-mail lost productivity for me so I can not recommend.

If you are looking for coins though, IWON gives 30 coins per search. This is not enough for a single entry in the sweepstakes and since you need at least 100 I will give you a hint. Enter something to search on that won’t return too much like “Farrwestview” and see what you get. Since it won’t find me it will be a short list and there won’t be any sponsored responses to clog up the page either. This means that the response will be fast. It will also have the box filled with the same search just waiting for you to hit the search button and do it again. This will quickly net you another 30 coins for the search. You can go on doing this several times until you get bored and are ready to move on to the next search or game. I know that there is a part of me that thinks that if I do this enough time that might actually think they should really do a search and look for me, but the odds are probably about as good as winning one of the sweepstakes.

There is a limit on the total amount of coins you can earn in one day or on one game or one daily searching. I do not recall what the totals are and I think they have changed over the course of the years to suit their fancy. You can probably find it out in their rules if you can search that far. I do know that if you are after the coins, learn when to say when because after you reach the total, there is very little use in playing anymore. I found this out the hard way on more than one occasion.

And the last thing to add is that most games have a ranking for the players. As near as I can tell, the game rank you receive is based on your personal high score for that game as compared to other players of the game. As you record a new high score your game rank will drop to a new lower level though it might not show until after you go out and come back in to that game. The game rank number you have today may not be the one you have tomorrow as other players will score will and move up in the ranks. Don’t be discouraged by your numbers, or how they compare to others, they will improve I promise. The important thing is to have fun.

There are lots of games and I know I didn’t begin to touch on many of them but this is a start. If you have any favorite tips you would like to add, please do through the comments section. If you are one of the few to actually win big money from IWON let us know that also. It might make us jealous but it would be good to think that some things are what they say they are.

I wish you all the best of gaming and may you always look for the win in everything you do.

This is Ed Nef with a view from the Farr West.

Click here to go to IWON Tips Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3, and now Part 5, and Part 6 (SquareBob Spongepants Collapse)..

Tips for playing in IWON part 3

Once the game is played, don’t forget to spin the jackpot game that goes with it. You will be given up to 10 spins depending on your score. With Word Pop I have been able to get my 10 spins after the first round so if that is what you are after, why play for more than the first round. The jackpot games are attached to the right side of most games offered. You hit the play now button and wait for it to come back and say try again or sorry and then hit the play button again until all your spins are gone. The jackpot amount starts low and builds to a maximum of $3,000.00 where it seems to stay for quite some time. If you are going to play for the jackpot, I would suggest only playing those games that have already reached their maximum total of $3,000.00. Anything less than that will mostly likely not pay off until reaching that total and probably won’t pay off until many weeks after reaching that total.

If you are playing the jackpot game you can start a fresh round of the game you are in and continue to play the jackpot spins, just be sure to finish your jackpot spins before you reach the end of the game you are playing or it will overwrite your spins with the new allocation and you will lose whatever spins you had remaining. You will also lose remaining spins on the jackpot if you happen to go out of the game to another page, even if by accident. No way to reclaim them if you do, as far as I know. If you have to go elsewhere, open another window, it’s safer that way.

Now is a good time to mention that with IWON there are free games and there are not so free games. Be careful to know this and know the difference. I only play the free games. I am a tightwad, spendthrift, cheapskate, whatever but part of the fun for me is to get something for nothing (and most times getting nothing for nothing but that is o.k.). As with anything on IWON don’t expect too much and you won’t be disappointed. There are plenty of games to enjoy and try out. Find some you like and enjoy. Try some new ones and expand your mind. As long as you’re having fun then that is what counts. Whatever you do, whether it’s free or cost some money, look for a return on your investment, and compare that return to other activities and see which has the greater return and invest in those things. Then you will really notice a payback. If I quit having fun with the games and am never seeming to win anything then the time to move on has arrived. Even free things cost time.

Having games that cost real money on IWON is relatively new and I am skeptic enough that I just stay clear. If it is asking me to open an account and load real dollars against it, I am totally against it. There are enough free casino games on IWON that I don’t need to pay to play. Besides, if the odds of winning anything are horrible on a free game, I can just imagine what they would be like on a game you had to pay to play.

Speaking of the casino games such as slots, poker and blackjack, I have played them some and you can pick up a few coins with them but don’t expect much. It is a quick way to get bored with them and maybe cure yourself of any urges to go to Vegas anytime soon so for that I guess it is worth a little time spent. Watch out for how the game loads coin totals. Some of the games will use your existing coin balance as the coins in play and that means that you can quickly lose many of those coins that you built up to enter the sweepstakes with. The better casino games start you out with a pre-stake amount of about 1000 coins. You can burn through that pretty quickly and then try the $3,000.00 jackpot that goes with it and start all over. Just be sure to notice if you are using your money or theirs.

Also, take note that IWON has been putting up lots of ads in places that are normally just IWON items and look like links to other IWON games but are in fact taking you off site to other areas that are collecting e-mail address and are pay for play sites or at least spam magnets. As with anything on the web, be aware of what you computer is doing at all times. If you are not afraid of these things, venture forth but use your new IWON e-mail account, it will be perfect for just this sort of thing.

This is Ed Nef with a view from the Farr West.

Click here to go to IWON Tips Part 1, Part 2, Part 4, Part 5, and Part 6 (SquareBob Spongepants Collapse).

Tips for playing in IWON part 2

If your goal is to obtain as many coins as possible in order to make as many entries into the sweepstakes as possible then your best bet is to get good at the word games. The one I have had the most luck with is Word Pop. It pays off well. It can eat up a lot of time though and the biggest drawback is that there is no pause button; once you start, you play to the end, which may come soon if you need to take a bathroom break in the middle.

The key to this game as to many of the other word games is to get familiar with it then read the rules to see how the scoring is done. Word Pop does not list scoring in its rules but it acts like many of the other word games in that it gives more points the bigger the word. And it gives significantly more points for significantly bigger words. The smallest words are three letters long and there is a cap of the longest words accepted but I can’t remember what that is set at for this game, 8 or 9 letters I think. It doesn’t matter much as it almost takes too long to click on that many letters and then find out that you are missing the second ‘n’ to complete the spelling.

Speaking of spelling, they have a pretty inclusive dictionary so you might think you are making up a word and it will work anyway. Use this as a vocabulary building exercise and then you can justify your game play as educational. I have noticed that all games do not use the same dictionary because some words will work in one game that will not work in another. This is a matter of trial and error. As you play the word games you will notice that you can get very good at certain strategies. Build on them and then build from them. Hang in there and your hi scores will grow.

For example, in Word Pop start simple by going after as many three letter words as possible, building on speed in recognizing the three letter words and using hand eye coordination as quickly as possible to select each letter, completing the word and moving on to the next word. Some three letter words are easy to spot because the letters are close together while some are spread across the page. Get in the habit of looking across the whole board often. It is too easy to get stuck in one section of the puzzle and then miss all the letters that dropped down on the other side ending your round.

By the way, Word Pop likes to drop letters on the ends so be sure to work at keeping the end columns lowered first then work with the middle. You may notice that the letters drop from the top in a back and forth motion working from one end to the other, and you can also work back and forth following the letter drops and generally keep up the new letters as they drop.

Once you have three letter words down pat start looking for four letter words. Many three letter words can be made into four letter words by making them plural, as simple as adding an “s” at the end. In fact, adding any common suffix to many words is an easy way to get the bigger letter count. Look to adding “s”, “es”, “ed”, “ing”, “ful”, etc. to any of your basic words and you have instantly increased your point tally.

The other thing you can do after playing the game for awhile is notice what words you see and use a lot of, then think of what bigger words you could create if you just added a letter or two. Then the next time you played look for those extra letters when you come across your commons words. That way if you are always seeing “and” then look for “band” or “sand” and after that look for “brand” or “strand” and always remember to add a suffix and make “brands” or “stranded”.

One last thing to know about the word games is that some letters are more common than others and you will get too know which ones are which as you play. There are many times I have wanted to spell what I thought would be a common word but would be missing one of the letters to complete it and I would have to stop, clear the word, and start on another. There are also many tricky letters thrown in with the hopes that it will stump you. “Q” and “X” are two that come to mind but if you have some quick words at the ready you will not be stumped. There is usually always something you can do to play them.

This is Ed Nef with a view from the Farr West.

Click here to go to IWON Tips Part 1, Part 3, and Part 4, Part 5, and Part 6 (SquareBob Spongepants Collapse).