#Snatch: Getting grabby

My previous post gave you an idea about how to look after your stash. This one will focus on a recipe for more aggressive growth.

Now, before you even think about who to snatch from, it is essential to think about WHEN to snatch.

First of all, there’s no point snatching what you can’t defend, so don’t snatch before bed or before driving to work. The current radius for snatching is 1,500 metres, so if you’re stuck in traffic, you’re a sitting duck (I’m assuming here that you’re a law-abiding citizen who doesn’t play with their phone while driving).

Second, most collectors, even the early-birds, aren’t going to start collecting before 6AM. Sure, there are shift-workers and insomniacs out there, but we’re talking the Joe Normals here. In other words, if you start snatching on your way to the office, you’ll probably have to sit on the bulk of those parcels for a few hours. Personally, I’d wait till late morning before logging in.

As for whether there's a better time to play in order to find the prizes - no. They're distributed according to a random algorithm. That said, if a major prize is about to be dropped - such as a £1000 parcel - then this will be announced on Twitter.

Next, you have to decide WHO to snatch from. There’s an icon in the bottom left-hand corner that turns green when there are potential targets in the environs. Tap that, and the app will bring up a list of all the snatchers in the area.

Bring up a list of local players and choose whose parcel to snatch 

This is when the game starts getting really devious, because it provides intel on everyone in that list - just click on each player’s avatar to learn about them. Crucially, this isn’t personal information; rather, it just tells you about how they play - how many parcels they’ve found, how many they’ve snatched, and how many they’ve lost.

Sample profile info

What follows is my theory rather than game science, but I’ll share it anyway:

• Providers are players who have lost almost as many parcels as they have obtained and are the least likely to put up a fight. In the first instance, therefore, I aim to snatch from these guys.
• Collectors are players who have collected significantly more parcels than they have snatched. I suspect these guys are more frugal with their coins, so I target them if no providers are available.
• Snatchers are players who have snatched significantly more parcels than they have collected. These are the most aggressive players. You can, of course, snatch from a snatcher, but for my money, it’s more of a gamble whether they’ll defend and the coins you spent to snatch will be lost for nothing.

It is currently possible to shakedown a single target for everything they’ve got - a process I call mugging, because it’s more aggressive than plain old snatching. It isn’t a particularly friendly behaviour, but if your mark turns out to be holding parcels with only an hour to mature, well, there’s an obvious incentive to keep snatching.

There are also tools for collecting - a radar to extend your collecting radius (200 coins), and black holes and tornadoes to automatically snatch parcels from anyone in range. I've not yet used any of these, however, so I can’t really comment on their effectiveness, other than to say the snatching tools need to be deployed in areas dense with players or you're wasting your money.

If you’re unable to snatch because you’re running out of coins, there are two options: get your friends to play so you can claim referral bonuses, or just collect boxes and be patient!

So, that’s defending and snatching covered. That just leaves revealing what’s in the parcels and redeeming your prizes, and I’m not going to say anything about that because it’s so easy!

Good hunting!

If you haven't yet installed the app, get yourself over to the App Store or Google Play. If you follow my referral link and add “95J73U” as a referral code (on the 500 Free Coins tab) then I get an in-game reward (thanks!).

If you have any more tips, please share them in the comments below.

#Snatch: The art of defence

As I mentioned previously, I’ve recently dropped Pokémon Go like a cold lead dumpling in order to play Snatch, the new augmented reality game where you can win actual prizes rather than virtual monsters. This post is for all the newbies out there who are about to jump in and join me.

The absolute first thing to do is to set up your profile. There’s not much to say here, but I recommend picking a gender-neutral name and a non-female avatar, if only to avoid gender-based mugging due either to trolls or the (flawed) argument that female players are more likely to have their phone in a bag where they can’t hear its notifications.

After watching the tutorial (I’m not going into the basics here), the next thing to do is check out your environment. Don’t start snatching. Don’t start defending. This will only eat up your very limited wallet of coins.

Your environment will largely dictate the way you play this game. If you’re out in the sticks on your own, then you’re going to be a collector - picking up parcels in the street, taking them home, and waiting for them to mature (or, to use the lingo, waiting till you can lock them down). Your game will be a relatively sedate affair, but rewarding nonetheless.

If you’re in the city, however, it’s a dog-eat-dog world. Before snatching anything, just spend a day collecting parcels. Parcels take six hours to lock down. That’s a long time to defend, so unless you’ve got multiple parcels due to mature within a couple of hours, don’t bother defending. Your goal at this point is to see how aggressive the locals are, and if it is possible to hide from them.

About that defence. It comes in two forms: reactive and proactive. Reactive is more expensive, but when you need it, you need it. Proactive is more of a gamble. It’s insurance. It might not actually be necessary, but what price peace of mind, right?

There are two forms of reactive defence:

• Snatch-proof vest (40 coins) - unless you’ve less than 50 coins, don’t bother. It offers protection from a single attack, and frankly makes you look vulnerable to a second.
• Smokescreen (55 coins) - gives you 15 minutes of protection.

Proactive defence, meanwhile, comes down to the following:

• Tent (75 coins) - 60 minutes of protection. Great if you’re not going anywhere and much better value than four smokescreens. [note: this has been a little glitchy this week, but the developers are aware of the problem]
• Invisibility cloak (125 coins) - 60 minutes of protection. Great for snatching in crowded areas. 
• Emergency battery (60 coins) - 30 minutes of protection. Can be deployed only if your battery is down to its last 19%. Yes, I have deliberately run down my battery to use this.

There are also safe houses. Safe houses are the little green buildings on your map where you can check in for an hour of free protection. In real life, these are commercial premises such as Pizza Hut, Top Man, the Apple Store or All Bar One. So, if you’re out and about in town, plan your route carefully and you could well lock down a whole bunch of boxes without spending a penny. Bear in mind, however, that you can only check into each safe house once in a 24-hour period, and your safe house time is limited to three hours per 24-hour cycle.

There is of course another form of defence: truces with your neighbours. That of course is easier said than done: players can snatch your parcel from 1.5km away and there's no way to communicate with them. You'll just have to find out who is playing, and what their usernames are - good luck with that!

What you can't do is switch off your phone or your mobile signal, or hide in an otherwise "dark" spot, as the game will just park you at your last known coordinates leaving you totally open to attack.

For best results, always carry as many parcels as possible. In this way, the unit cost of defending each parcel is lower. It makes little sense to deploy a cloak for a single parcel, but if you have ten, well, that's another matter. (EDIT: If you find a parcel while you're snatching your tenth parcel, it's technically possible to hold 11 parcels - see below.)

Extreme snatching: Proof that it's possible to hold 11 parcels (pic provided by Tara Barrett)

Note also that you've 90-100 seconds to defend against a snatch [EDIT: 3 minutes according to the T&C], so don't panic if someone starts grabbing at your stash. In fact, if you're about to deploy a smokescreen anyway, let the clock wind down a little in order to nab yourself an extra minute of defence (it all counts!).

Finally, it's also important to know when to fold, as it were. If you've got, say, nine parcels ready to lock down within the hour, but one that's going to take three hours or more, then unless you plan to stock up on another armful of parcels to go with it, it's collateral damage. Just because you paid to snatch it, doesn't mean you have to keep throwing coins at it.

So, that’s the defence, what about the snatching? Tell me about the snatching!

I'd love to - but haven't you read enough for one day? Tell you what, how about you practise locking down a box or two and I'll wrap this up in my next post.

If you haven't yet installed the app, get yourself over to the App Store or Google Play. If you follow my referral link and add “95J73U” as a referral code on the 500 Free Coins tab then I get an in-game reward (thanks!).

If you have any more tips, please share them in the comments below.

Let's #Snatch

This week, I've been mostly playing Snatch.

For the uninitiated, the simplest way to describe the game is Pokémon Go but with real prizes. However, that doesn’t do it the slightest bit of justice. Imagine a game where "rational" individuals might not cooperate, even when it might be in their best interests to do so, and you’re getting closer.

The aim is simply to collect parcels. Once those parcels are six hours old, they are locked down, and you can claim the contents. So, more precisely, the aim is to hold parcels until they mature.

There are two ways to collect a parcel: find it on the street or snatch it from another player.

In a perfectly cooperative world, players would go for a walk, collect a bunch of parcels, and sit on their stash for the next six hours. Life, however, isn’t like that. Unless you drag your stash off to a giant field or sit in a dinghy a couple of kilometres out to sea, the odds of you getting through the next six hours without someone trying to pinch your parcels are low to nil - especially if you’re in an urban area.

There are ways to protect your stash, of course, and these can be grouped into reactive defences, proactive defences and safehouses. I’ll talk about gameplay in my next post. Before that, however, I must mention the prizes: cash and vouchers are the bread and butter (with some golden parcels containing up to £1000), but you can also win other prizes, including (at the time of writing), t-shirts, flights, tickets to see Justin Bieber, and a PS4. So far, I’ve won a two-month NowTV voucher and £1, but I’m sure there’s a cheeky Nando’s round the corner.

If that’s enough to whet your appetite, go get the app from the App Store or Google Play. If you follow my referral link or add “95J73U” as a referral code when prompted then I may even get an in-game reward (thanks!).

My next post will discuss the gameplay in more detail, so if you’re worried about splurging your coins too quickly, you might want to wait until after the weekend.

Chat soon!