Tales of Dacardia Mobile App Guide

Crabby Arena

The Crabby Arena is a core building in Tales of Dacardia. Similar to several crafting buildings, it offers a minigame to earn Pearly Neggs, however, it is unique in that it does not require any items as input—the only cost of earning the Pearly Neggs is your time!

Unlocking Crabby Arena

The Crabby Arena blueprint can currently be purchased from the Pearly Parlour for 5,000. You can find it in the Town Customisation category (that's the plant and palette icon); you can further select the "Blueprints" subcategory to find it easily within the category.

Originally, the Crabby Arena blueprint was available for free as part of the Altador Cup event between August 5th, 2024, and August 31st, 2024, specifically from the "Yooyuball Get To Play!" quest in the "For The Home Team" questline. If you unlocked the Crabby Arena blueprint through this method, it will still appear as "Sold Out" in the Pearly Parlour, even though you did not purchase it from there.

Once you have the blueprint, you can build the Crabby Arena on your island for 100 and 15 minutes.

Minigame

The Crabby Arena offers the minigame "Crabby Shootout". The game is an in-app version of the Neopets.com Altador Cup game Shootout Showdown. In this version, you have five chances to score a goal against two Crabby-bot defenders.

To play, simply tap on the Crabby Arena from the overworld view of your island. After an introductory cutscene (which you can skip by tapping anywhere on the screen then tapping the grey "Skip »" button the bottom right corner), you can tap the yellow "Start Game" button to begin.

From there, yet another skippable cutscene will show the Yooyu entering the field, followed by a countdown to the start of gameplay.

How to Play

A game consists of 5 opportunities to make a goal. You have up to 10 seconds to complete each of these 5 attempts.

To make a shot, simply press on the screen, then release to launch the Yooyuball! The duration of your press does not matter; you can simply tap the screen, or hold it down for the full 10 seconds, or anything in between.

You can angle the Yooyuball by sliding side-to-side while pressing. A large red arrow will denote the direction you are aiming.

You can also add verticality to the shot by starting your press towards the middle of the screen and sliding towards the bottom. While this can launch the Yooyuball above the Crabby-bot defenders, too much can shoot it above the goal entirely! (We don't recommend you bother with this technique; see our "Strategy" section for a better approach.)

The Crabby-bot defenders will block your shot if the Yooyuball gets to close to them. At the start of every attempt, the front Crabby-bot will begin by moving to the left, and the back Crabby-bot will begin by moving to the right. They will start this way no matter where they were located or what direction they were heading at the conclusion of the previous attempt.

Strategy

The easiest and fastest way to make your goals is to simply tap just in front of the Yooyuball during the first second of the attempt. During the very first attempt, you may need to wait a split second for the front Crabby-bot defender to move out of the way. Make sure to simply tap; do not hold down your press, and do not angle your shot.

Simply tap approximately in the coloured area above during the first second of play.

You can find a video of this strategy in action below, or keep scrolling for a static explanation.

The idea of this strategy is to leverage two mechanics of the game:

• At the end of each attempt, the Crabby-bot defenders will stop where they are. This will be their starting positions for the next attempt.
• At the start of each attempt, the front Crabby-bot will begin by moving to the left, and the back Crabby-bot will begin by moving to the right. They will start this way no matter where they were located or what direction they were heading at the conclusion of the previous attempt.

What this means is that at the beginning of the first attempt they will create an opening right down the middle. During the time it takes you to make a goal through this opening, they will have nearly returned to their starting positions, allowing you to repeat the process over and over again!

The blue arrows show the starting position and movement of the Crabby-bots at the start of the next attempt.

If you are ever unhappy with your progress on a game, you can quit at any time by pressing the grey button in the upper left corner. There is no cost, though you do forfeit any Pearly Neggs you would have won had you finished the game. You can also use this confirmation menu to pause the game if you need a break without ending your game!

Scoring

Each of your five attempts is given a rating: Perfect, Nice, or Miss. This rating is displayed at the end of each attempt.

Despite these sounding like they reflect the quality of your shot, the rating depends only on how long you take.

At the end of the game you are given a final score based on how each of your five attempts were rated. The maximum possible score is thus 500, earned by getting five Perfect shots.

A "perfect" game is a requirement of Achievements and a certain Buddy Bulletin Board task. In these contexts, a perfect game is defined as a final score of 450 or more; this can be done with five Perfect shots, or four Perfect shots and one Nice shot.

Rewards

At the end of each game, you will be provided 0 to 25 Pearly Neggs, depending on your final score:

Ending Animations

The Crabby-bot defenders will behave differently based on how well you perform. A high score will result in them looking devastated, a low score will result in them cheering, and a medium score will just have them being silly!

This page was last updated on March 6, 2025.