Mobile app stores are loaded with sports games that focus on football (whether soccer or American football), basketball, baseball, and casual golf games, but winter sports appears to be a completely different story. Fortunately, if you’re into winter sports, Powerplay Manager (the maker of Biathlon Mania and Tennis Mania) has something that could be right up your alley — Ski Jump Mania 3.
The game is now available on both the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store, and it allows you to compete against human and AI players in different game modes and on a variety of tracks — normal, large, and flying hills alike, all in real-life ski resorts. Powerplay notes in the game description that this title also comes with RPG elements and a career mode, as well as competitions where you can test your virtual ski jumping ability against “real” players — no, not real-life ski jumpers, but human opponents from all over the world!
Although this title does have a bit of a casual feel to it and is fairly easy to pick up, it is also quite an in-depth game with a plethora of modes and features that you might not be able to get yourself acclimated to from the get-go. That’s why we have come up with this in-depth, detailed Ski Jump Mania 3 guide, which we’ve written for players of most, if not all levels of expertise. Whether you’re playing the game for the first time or if you’ve leveled up quite a bit and have been playing for several days (or weeks), we’re sure there may be something in here that you could find useful. So without further ado, we present you our Ski Jump Mania 3 cheats, tips and tricks below!
1. The Basics Of Ski Jump Mania 3 – How To Jump
To put it simply, Ski Jump Mania 3 is a simulation of professional ski jumping, with various game modes and a variety of tracks, which you can unlock as you keep leveling up in the game. But before you get to all of that, you’ll need to get your feet wet with your first few jumps, and the game will talk you through that during the tutorial stage.
Basically, the first thing you’ll need to pay attention to before jumping is the effect of the wind, as shown on the upper left corner of your screen. If the arrow is green, that means the wind is in your favor, and if it’s red, that means it is not — the number in this area could range from -1 to 1, and what you want to do here is to hit the Start button once the number is at its highest possible point.
Now this could be a bit tricky — winds can be random, and there could be jumps where the wind simply isn’t on your side. The best thing to do here is to play things by ear, and maybe settle for a lower number (while making sure it isn’t at rock bottom) if the wind is just not cooperating.
Once you’ve hit on Start, you will then need to hit the orange Takeoff button — keep your eyes on the bar as it moves from the extreme left to the right, especially when it starts speeding up. You’ll want to tap on Takeoff once the bar is as close as possible to the green point toward the end of the bar, in order to get that perfect takeoff and improve your chances of getting a lot of distance on that jump. But that’s not the end of it — you will then have to maneuver your character’s trajectory with the up and down buttons, making sure that you are, once again, as close as possible to the green area in the gauge that shows up after you take off.
But don’t hit on the Land button right away, or you’ll end up with an unimpressive distance, perfect as your landing may be. This could take some practice, but the best time to tap on Land is once the back end of your skis are at around your character’s midsection’s height from the ground. Tapping way too late would result in a Fall, which usually results in a solid distance, but compromises your Style Points (the second figure that appears once your jump is completed).
The key here is balancing distance and style — sometimes, you could hit on Land a bit too late (but not too late) and get a good or poor landing, but get the extra meters you need to out-jump your opponent and win the duel despite falling a bit short in style points.
2. Other Things To Keep In Mind When Starting Out
When you play Ski Jump Mania 3 for the first time, you may also notice that the game will assign you a random name, and will pre-assign your character’s gender and nationality based on your information on Facebook (or, if you own an iPhone, your GameCenter information). As far as we’ve seen, there isn’t any way to change the latter two pieces of basic information, but there is a way to change your character’s name — you can change it to your own name, a fictional character’s name, or just about anything else that isn’t abusive or offensive. (The game has very strict rules when it comes to abusive or inappropriate behavior!) Simply tap on Settings, choose More Settings, then go to the Jumper Name section to change the name of your character. And in case you’re wondering, tapping on Account Management signs you out of the game for some reason.
In order to earn stars and level up, the mode you’ll usually be playing is Arena mode — you’ll be dueling against AI jumpers, and if you win, you’ll earn Trophies. Losing, on the other hand, will cost you some Trophies, though in most cases, the amount of Trophies you can win is equal to or greater than the Trophies you can lose.
Lastly, at least as far as the basics of the game go, take note that most actions in the game will cost you Energy (the leftmost resource on the top portion of your screen). Each jump in the Arena (or elsewhere) costs you Jumps, which is the figure next to your Energy. Beside those two are your Trophies and your Talent Points, though we’ll be explaining these two a little later on as we move on in this guide.
3. Competing In The Arena
As we mentioned above, you’ll be spending a lot of time in the Arena, so what does this entail?
To recap what we said earlier, your opponents in the Arena will typically be AI jumpers, and Ski Jump Mania 3’s matchmaking system will pair you up with jumpers who have a similar amount of Trophies. That ensures each duel is as competitive as possible, though if you’ve upgraded yourself enough in the Practice Arena (more on this in our next tip), your attributes may be substantially higher than your opponent.
Before each duel, you will be given the choice of whether you want to jump against your chosen opponent or if you want to simulate your jump. You may be tempted to take the auto-play route in this case, but this is only recommended if your attributes happen to be much higher than that of your opponent. Having the game’s AI handle things for you would essentially make your jumper use the most simplistic jumping technique/strategy, and that could lower your distance and style point scores as compared to what you could get if you were doing the jumping yourself. Sure, you’ll still get your Trophies if you simulate the duel and end up winning, but trust us on this one — once you’ve played for quite a bit, you’ll be much better off jumping rather than simulating.
Once you reach a certain number of trophies in a day, the game will allow you to claim your prize for reaching the threshold — typically, this will involve breaking open two out of six helmets, with extra cracks at the helmets costing you some gems. These helmets could contain cash, gems, Talent Points, energy, or jumps at random, so make sure you claim those prizes!
As a bonus tip, you will eventually be able to duel with human players (though you can also do so by choosing Duels in the intro screen), but be warned that if you’re a beginner, you may notice that the human players’ stats are close to the hundreds per stat. That’s why that it’s best to stick to AI opponents as a beginner or intermediate player, tedious as it may be at times to compete against the same bots over and over again.
4. Complete The Career Quests
Just like in other games, Ski Jump Mania 3 has a “quest” system that could help keep you up to speed and progressing like you should. More importantly, these quests could earn you stars (experience points) to help you level up, as well as random resources or currency, depending on the quest you complete. These tasks may run the gamut from picking up helmets to taking part in 50-person competitions and reaching a high enough ranking to buying equipment or upgrading it — either way, completion means rewards, and more means for you to improve your jumper! Just keep in mind that you cannot complete career quests/chapters in advance — for example, cleaning up helmets before choosing the “clean up” chapter will not count toward your quest completion.
5. It’s Easy To Replenish Energy, But There’s A Catch
You’ll need enough Energy to play the Practice minigames, which we shall be discussing later on in this guide, as well as perform a number of other actions in Ski Jump Mania 3. If you’re trying to farm for Talent Points, all that Energy will come in handy as you replay these minigames, but fortunately, it’s easy to refill that Energy, aside from the time-tested method of simply waiting it out.
Leveling up, completing certain quests, or breaking helmets open for collecting enough Trophies in the Arena or Stars in Practice can give you a quick energy refill, and you can tap on the tiny helmets that randomly show up on the map for small refills of one unit per helmet. However, we did mention there is a catch, so what is it?
Unlike in other games, where you can accumulate an overflow of energy units, Ski Jump Mania 3 works differently, in the sense that you cannot go over your energy cap, depending on your level. So if you, for example, tap on a small helmet for one bonus energy unit while you’re fully loaded with all 400 units of energy, that won’t give you 401 units. And if you’ve got 380 out of 400 energy remaining and win a boost of 50 energy, you’ll be refilled to 400, but the extra 30 units will essentially be wasted. It’s not an ideal scenario, we’d say, but as we often note in such cases, it is what it is.
6. Improve Your Jumper’s Attributes
Fortunately for those who prefer to keep things fairly casual and not overload themselves with information, your character has only three attributes, which you can upgrade by going to the Practice building. Each of the stats/attributes is self-explanatory — Take Off improves your ability to takeoff successfully and slows down the takeoff bar, thus making it easier for you to have a Perfect or Excellent takeoff. Flight increases the amount of time you remain in the air, while Landing influences your ability to make a successful landing, and likewise slows down the landing gauge that appears after your jumper takes off.
Now you’ll need to make sure you’re improving these attributes whenever you could, and in order to upgrade them, you’ll need to have enough Talent Points, or TP. Talent Points can be acquired by playing the practice minigames, which we will be explaining next, though you can also get more TP through the rewards you can earn by playing in the Arena or completing Training Jumps. Based on our experience, it’s best to prioritize Flight, then Take Off, then Landing. You may notice that a lot of the bot characters/human jumpers you face off against in the duels are all-rounders, and with that in mind, it’s best to keep your stats as balanced as possible, even if you have your Flight and Take Off numbers higher than Landing as we suggested above.
7. How To Play The Practice Minigames
Though the words “Practice Arena” might suggest a setting where you can practice your jumps without having to worry about the stakes of a duel, this is actually the place where you want to go if you want to upgrade your jumper or earn more Training Points for those upgrades. You can either take the Quiz, play the Pairs minigame, or do a Trial Jump — these will cost you some Energy and earn you some TP, but how do you play these minigames?
The Quiz is just that — a multiple-choice series of questions about the sport of ski jumping, with more correct answers, of course, meaning more TP. Don’t worry if you don’t know much about ski jumping, because the questions are generally quite easy, and they get recycled — if you get a question wrong, the game will show you the correct answer, and you may want to take it down so that you don’t miss out on it in the future. And going back to these easy questions — they really are. For example, you may be asked to name the male or female athlete who is NOT a ski jumper — obviously, Michael Jordan and Serena Williams are famous basketball and tennis players respectively, which means they’re the obvious answers to the above question.
Unlike Quiz, which gives you a lot of time to answer all the questions, Pairs is a true test of speed and memory where you need to eliminate all the cards on the screen by matching identical cards with each other. This is arguably the easiest of the three practice minigames, and like Quiz, you can play it as often as you want.
Unfortunately, that’s not the case for Trial Jump, where you’re only allowed a few jumps per day. The game will reward you with TP based on how well you take off, how long you stay airborne after taking off, and how graceful your landing is — basically, it’s your run-of-the-mill ski jump, but instead of competing against AI or human players, you’re making your jumps as flawless as possible so you can improve your grade and earn more TP.
Regardless of which minigame you play, you can earn up to three stars per play-through, and if you rack up enough stars, you can earn yourself some goodies — energy, cash, gems, jumps, you name it, though the rewards, obviously, may vary. You can also choose to simulate the Quiz and Pairs minigames, though we don’t see the point in doing this because of how easy it is to get three stars in each of these minigames once you’ve gotten the feel for them.
Besides, simulating the minigames won’t affect your progress when it comes to leveling up within them — as you reach higher levels in the minigames, you can earn additional TP, though the tradeoff here is that higher-level minigames cost more energy and do, of course, progressively get more difficult!
8. Buy And Upgrade Equipment To Improve Your Stats Further
Ever notice how your attributes appear higher in the duels than they are when you check them in the Practice Arena? That’s on account of the equipment you have — your skis, ski suit, shoes, goggle, and helmet. Depending on the type of equipment, each item could improve a certain attribute — the generic equipment you start out with gives you a +5 increase across the board for all three attributes/stats. But as you progress further, and level up you can buy new equipment as it gets unlocked, either with your cash (the common currency) or your gems (the premium currency).
9. Redeem Your Free Gems Every 8 Hours
While you can add to your premium currency through the methods we mentioned above — completing certain campaign chapters, cracking helmets open after reaching trophy/star thresholds. But you can also tap on your Gems on the upper right corner of the main menu, then tap on the Free box. That’s going to earn you eight free Gems, and while that doesn’t sound like much, this premium currency can add up over time, especially if you regularly check back every eight hours. That means you can earn up to 16 free Gems per day, or, if you’re somehow up all day, 24 Gems over a 24-hour time span!
10. Earn More Rewards By Completing The Talent Seeker’s Quests
See that woman standing next to the ski jump track on the main menu? That’s the Talent Seeker, and if you tap on her, this will reveal her side quest, which would generally involve a comparatively difficult task you need to accomplish by playing the game like you normally would, but with the element of time pressure — these side quests will only be available for a limited time! For example, the Talent Seeker’s first side quest would be to pull off a jump of 100 meters or more — that’s why accumulating enough Talent Points and upgrading your jumper accordingly could be important even in the early stages of the game!