Home Before Dark

Home Before Dark is a Webkinz World Arcade game. It was added to Webkinz World on September 27, 2007.

Overview

The object of this game is to create paths to move the Webkinz from the park on the left to the homes on the right before the sun goes down. Go to the party house or walk through toys to get extra points, and drop the obstacles by running paths underneath them until they fall off the board.

Left-click the tiles to rotate them clockwise. Valid paths automatically connect, turn blue, and walk pets through. The sun rotating to the moon at the top acts as a timer, and the game is over when the moon is at the highest point. The timer pauses while the pets are walking and when the obstacle tiles fall off the board.

The player receives 1 KinzCash for every 40 points.

End Game

The game is over when the sun sets before all the pets have returned home. There is no trophy for this game.

This game runs endlessly and has a hard score limit: the maximum score is 30,000 points in the Arcade and 20,000 points in the Tournament Arena. If a game exceeds this score, an error message will display, the score will not register, and KinzCash will not be rewarded.

Scoring

Create paths from the park on the left to the houses on the right to score points.

• A base value per homed pet is given depending on the level, which doubles for the party house.
• Walk through toys to add double the home points to the score.
• Paths through which the pet walks offer an increasing level of points depending on the level, whereas dead-end paths attached to the main path give a flat 1 point per tile.

The game increases in difficulty and the points offered per item increase as the game progresses, according to the following values.

Level	Houses Available	Home Points	Path Points
1	7	10	2
2	7	10	2
3	7	12	2
4	6	12	3
5	6	12	3
6	6	14	3
7	5	14	3
8	5	14	4
9	5	16	4
10	4 (floor)	16	4
11	Floor	16	4
12	Floor	18	5
13	Floor	18	5
14	Floor	18	5
15	Floor	20	5
16	Floor	20	6

Trivia

HOP Before Dark in the Arcade

• When Home before Dark was released, neither the Yellow Lab or the Pinto had been released as pets yet.
• During March 2011, Home Before Dark was reskinned into "HOP Before Dark" for Webkinz' promotion with the movie Hop. The Webkinz in the game were replaced with Hopping Bunnies and chicks, and items along the paths were replaced with Easter eggs. This version of the game has not been seen since this promotion.

gifted9's Overall High Score Board Strategy

your broad strategy in this game is inefficiency. you always want to make paths that bring as few pets home as possible, and to add on dead ends or make a path longer to grab a toy out of the way.

i divide gameplay into three stages, where each one has a different top priority. the stage divisions are fluid and dependent on your skill and how well your particular game is going.

early game, levels 1 to 10ish: max points
make long, convoluted single-pet paths, doubles if inevitable, until you have one pet left. then make the largest, most convoluted path possible, maxing out your dead ends, toys, and multiples. try to cover the entire board!

mid game, level 10ish to 1000 points away from score limit: avoid death
drop the obstacle tiles by any means necessary, otherwise they will pile up and make it geometrically impossible for you to complete any paths. your pet does not need to walk underneath them, you only need to connect all the path tiles underneath it to your active path in order to drop them. you can also take multiple paths to remove them all. the closer to the houses the obstacles are, the more imperative it is that you drop them. if all obstacles are off the screen, play as if you were in the early game.

late game, 1000 to 0 points away from score limit: score limit limbo
the levels will continue endlessly, but the score limit is 30,000 in the arcade and 20,000 in the tournament arena. if you score higher than this, when exiting, the game will reject you and you will not receive your kinzcash. completely reverse strategy in this stage - move slowly and keep a close eye on your score, make short paths, don't collect extra points. i made a spreadsheet to calculate my late game moves, and when i pause and my mouse moves off the screen in the playthrough, i'm using it. feel free to save a copy and use it yourself [1]

miscellaneous tips and tricks
-path tiles the pet walks on will give more points (2 each on lower levels, increases as levels increase) and path tiles attached but not walked over give a flat 1 point each.
-pets will walk the shortest path possible if there is redundancy, so disconnect where necessary to guide the pet through any toys.
-the timer pauses when running pets through, and when obstacle tiles drop from the bottom. use these free few seconds to plan out your next path.
-sometimes after a tile drop, chance will create a valid path, which will result in them all being turned sideways. this can be useful in locating a quick path to get quick points.
-while setting up a multiple path, ensure at least one end is disconnected while you work on it - straight tile turned sideways is easiest to switch once you're ready to go.