How to top the leaderboards in DuckTales: Scrooge's Loot - hints, tips, and tricks

I'm a big fan of DuckTales: Scrooge's Loot, the new iOS and Android multiplayer shooter from Complex Games and Disney.

This excellent arena combat title has a surprising amount of depth to it.

For one thing, there's plenty to keep in mind as you gradually build up your favourite characters through a combination of bitter defeats and deliciously sweet victories.

Of course, you could just read this guide and avoid all those humiliating losses, ensuring that you're getting the absolute maximum performance from each round.

The option's there, at least.

If you remain stationary, you are, in a manner of speaking, a sitting duck. As with any arena shooter, you need to keep moving at all times here - the reasons for this are two-fold.

Firstly, it makes you harder to hit and less susceptible to a sneaky melee attack from behind. Secondly, you've only got a few minutes in each round, so any time you waste will alter the course of the match.

Keep your movements around the arena streamlined, too. There are little shortcuts and time-savers you can use, so you just have to be smart and realise where they are.

You can shave a few seconds off each run from gold pile to base just by keeping corner turns tight, or by utilising the appropriate launch pads. Obviously, you'll still want to mind your step, though, as falling off of the map will result in an instant death and lots of wasted time.

One of the easiest ways to save time is to let the Gold come to you. You don't need to go all the way up to the pile to get your hands on the merchandise. Instead, you should keep an eye out for opponents with golden duck symbols above their heads, quickly knock them out, and then steal their dropped loot.

It's a real kick in the teeth for your enemy, come to think of it. Not only do you score points this way, you see, but also the opposition team is helping you do so. Brilliant.

Though DuckTales: Scrooge's Loot is a game with a child-friendly aesthetic, you'll need to do a fair amount of thinking here if you're going to be victorious.

Ensure that you're familiar with your own abilities. It's no good purchasing items with Gems if you don't know how and when you should be using them. And if you haven't understood how you can use the world around you to your advantage, then you're always going to be fighting a losing battle.

Get to know each map: spend an entire session ignoring every other player and exploring the layout. Where are the launch pads to get about quickly? In which alleyways can you duck down to avoid enemy fire? Is there any cover nearby? How are other players moving around the stadium? Are there any good vantage points for camping?

Camping is just one way you can dominate your opponent. It also represents the only time you could be forgiven for not running about at top speed.

On the airship, for instance, you can perch up high and rain down fire on the ducks below. When they've been knocked out, jump down, grab their Gold, and carry it the rest of the way to your base. It's a devious tactic, but an effective one.

If you really want to excel at DuckTales: Scrooge's Loot, you're going to need another bit of software to give you the edge. That software is a chat program.

You can give basic commands to your team in the game, but the best way to work together with your friends is through a program like Skype. Once you have access to this, and you've built a core of friends who play, you'll be nigh-on unstoppable.

The reason is that a collection of strangers thrown together will do okay by themselves, but a team that can speak to one another and plan attacks will almost always come out on top. If you can speak to your buddies, then you can pair off and work together to quickly knock out opponents, as well as watch one another's backs.

You can also work out who's going to hang back by the base and slaughter stray ducks that come by, and who's going to ferry Gold back and forth. Plus, you'll be able to communicate with the others about your current loadout, and inform teammates whether you're built for nimbly zipping about the arena or holding your ground and laying waste to everyone.

Got any tips to share? Let us and the rest of the PG community know them by leaving them in the comments section below.