Bears vs. Art Tips, Cheats and Strategies

Bears vs. Art is a postmodern puzzler from Halfbrick. In this game, you’ll control Rory the bear as he hurls himself at paintings, around hazards, and through patrons in an attempt to destroy art everywhere. Gamezebo’s Bears vs. Art Tips, Cheats and Strategies will help you maximize your canvas-clawing abilities.

• You can check your energy timer by entering a level. Bears vs. Art uses an energy timer, requiring one jolt of energy—measured in “paws”—per level. When you run of out jolts, you’ll have to buy more or wait for them to recharge to play. Unlike other games with an energy meter, the refill rate isn’t immediately obvious.
  • Paws recharge at a rate of 1 every 10 minutes.
  • In order to see your current recharge status, enter any level and look at the “Entry Fee” box. This tells you the paw price to play the level, and the bar below this shows how many paws you currently have: each filled silver box is one, while each empty gray box is one you’ve spent. The leftmost empty gray box will show the current charge as it slowly fills up with light gray.
  • If you have zero paws left, there will be a countdown timer indicating how long until you receive your next paw refill.
  • In the image above, we have three paws and a fourth is almost finished refilling.
• Pay attention to the level’s goals and restrictions before hitting “Play” again. When you hit “Play” to enter a level from the map, you’ll be shown its number, name, completion goals, and restrictions (like move or time limits). Be sure to check these before hitting Play again and actually starting a level: if a level is move-based, you don’t want to start flying around the map and wasting moves, or if you’re supposed to avoid patrons, you don’t want to run after them instinctively.

• Pay attention to marks on the walls. Rory leaves a collision mark on walls he’s run into, which is a helpful reminder of what direction you came from or have already been to. Rory’s damage marker is a small crack that turns into a large, bear head-sized crater after you hit the same spot a few times, with some debris on the floor.
  • Laser beams also leave a mark: theirs is a large, black scorch mark that remains the same the entire level. Since lasers switch between on and off every move, it’s helpful to use these marks to note where the laser will hit the next time it’s on.
  • In the image above, you can see four laser scorch marks and a number of Rory collision marks. In the upper-left corner, Rory has hit the wall numerous times, leaving a larger crater.
• You can zoom in on levels, but it can be dangerous. To zoom in or out, use two fingers to pinch the screen. While this can be useful on busy maps, it’s also easy to accidentally move Rory. He will move in any available direction you tap, even if it’s far away from him and his movement arrows, so be sure to place both fingers on the screen simultaneously.
  • If you’re having trouble seeing where paintings are on the walls, look for the wall sconce light that illuminates the floor in front of them instead of looking for the paintings themselves. The light is more noticeable and unique; other wall objects don’t put off light.

• Collect coins on the map. The stage select / world map screen contains a lot of stationary scenery. But there are also coins that appear every so often and can be tapped for five coins a piece. Earlier maps spawn two coins at a time while later maps sometimes spawn three.
  • If you just hang out on the map screen after collecting all the coins, new ones will spawn about ten seconds later. However, if you switch screens by entering and exiting a level or entering the world select screen and backing out, the coins will respawn immediately. (Using the map select screen is faster than entering and exiting a level.)
  • Although five coins doesn’t sound like a lot, if you collect coins between every stage on a map, you can easily gain an extra 250+ coins without much effort.

• The Halfbrick characters on the map are just for fun. It’s not made immediately obvious, but the character faces pointing at certain levels on the map are just stand-ins for Facebook friends. Tapping them or playing the level they are on do nothing. They merely add personality to the game.

• Think diagonally. Although early stages make use of a lot of straight lines and corners, you’ll quickly have to work with hard-to-reach diagonals as stages become more complex. A painting in the middle of a wall, for instance, can often only be reached by following a set of diagonals.
  • Use the square floor tiles to help track where a diagonal move (or any move, really) will take you.
• Take a breather while you claw. Time does not pass when you’re in Fruit Ninja painting-swipe mode, so don’t feel rushed to swipe a painting super quickly. You can take a minute to look at or share it without any repercussions. This is also a good chance to take a breather and think about your next move, even if you can’t see it behind the painting.

• Skill upgrades only apply once you reach a star. In the skill tree, you may have “+1” listed on a specific skill, but you won’t actually receive any helpful boost until you reach that skill’s star level.
  • This boost requirement is different for different skills: Savvy only requires +2 to reach a star and the first boost (+20% to coins earned) while Intelligence requires +6 before you get the first boost (+1 extra move during a level).
  • In the image above, we have earned an actual boost for Savvy, Cunning, and Speed, but not Intelligence.
• Use your Skill Points. Rory gains Skill Points automatically over time (one point every three hours), but can only store five total. Once you hit five unused points, he’ll stop accumulating them. Use your points before reaching five so that there is always room to earn more.
• The Cunning Skill changes if you’re a V.I.P. The V.I.P. in-app purchase removes the need for energy/paws from the game, allowing you to play any time, as much as you want. Since Cunning rewards additional paws, and paws are unnecessary to V.I.P.s, if you buy this in-app item the Cunning Skill will instead increase coins earned, the way Savvy does, potentially doubling your coin boosts.

• Don’t rush into the post-level deals. After finishing a level, you’ll sometimes get a pop-up message suggesting certain upgrades, such as “add a skill to your fez for X coins, 100% success guaranteed!” Most of these are not offering a sale or discount of any kind and are labeled as “suggestions.” If you were to go into your costume list and choose the 100% upgrade option for your fez, it would cost the exact same amount.
  • The only time it’s an actual “deal” is when it offers to wave the wait time on a color change. E.g., like the image above, “instantly change the color of your fez!” with the time limit crossed off, or if it actually says “X% off.” If it doesn’t specifically indicate a savings, it’s a suggestion, not a sale.
• Pick your two pieces of booster clothing and maximize these. Collecting and just personal preference aside, if you want to make the most of the costumes as a beneficial tool, you should pick one hat and one suit to upgrade and only upgrade those two. Spreading bonuses out across costumes is not helpful since you can only wear two items at a time.
  • The only reason to upgrade multiple items is if you want to impart multiple, different Special abilities for use. You can only have one Special on an item at a time and upgrading it with a different one will replace the current Special. You can start adding Specials to an item after you upgrade it two times.

• Hints start at the beginning of a level. The hint system works this way: when you use a hint, it will show you the first two moves of the level. If you use a second hint, it will show you the next two moves. A third hint will show the next two, and so on. Even if you’ve already collected most of the paintings on a level, the hint system will still go in this order, showing you steps you’ve already taken. Before using a hint, think about if it will really help you where you are at.
  • The good news is if you use a hint and fail a level, the hint arrows you’ve unlocked will still appear any time you replay the level.
  • Note: if you have multiple hints active on a single stage, the next arrows you should follow are highlighted in yellow. Hints are dark green as they are drawn, then fade to light green until they are the active hint and turn yellow.
• Level hazards can kill patrons and thieves, too. On levels where Rory has to catch thieves, remove patrons, or deal with other people, you can utilize hazards like laser beams and pop-up blocks to help dispatch them. Turning a laser on while a patron is walking through it will remove them as if Rory had hit them. This is a useful way to save moves and time, and thus earn bonus coins.

• Use all your Rage Mode when skipping a level. When you opt to skip a level, Rory enters “Rage Mode.” This allows you to tap any square and Rory will jump to it directly. During this mode, coins appear all over the level, allowing you to rack up some nice change. Rage Mode has a time limit and will run out when the thermometer empties. When this happens, the level is completed, just as if you’d beaten it regularly.
  • However, if you collect all the paintings (or complete whatever the goal of the level is, e.g. removing patrons) while in Rage Mode, then you will complete the level immediately and lose any Rage Mode you had left. You don’t have to collect paintings or meet the goal while skipping, so use this time to collect coins instead.

Jillian Werner

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Jillian will play any game with cute characters or an isometric perspective, but her favorites are Fallout 3, Secret of Mana, and Harvest Moon. Her PC suffers from permanent cat-on-keyboard syndrome, which she blames for most deaths in Don’t Starve. She occasionally stops gaming long enough to eat waffles and rewatch Battlestar Galactica.