Get Started Right Away!
In the Cursed Isles, you alternate between massive frays and foraging. As soon as you win a fray, you get a chance to forage for a limited time until the natives regroup and haul you into another fray. This is the only chance you have to make money in the Cursed Isles, so make the most of it.
When a fray ends, everyone stands around looking goofy for a while until the foraging session begins. Don't let this time be wasted. As soon as the fray ends, you can click on the foraging pit to begin foraging immediately - this technique can easily get you 3-5 (or more!) additional seconds to forage. It may not seem like much, but when your foraging session ends and you had a Cursed Chest one row from the bottom of the board, you'll be wishing you had 3-5 more seconds.
Also, stay focused during this part of the CI run. I'll reiterate - this is the only chance you have to make money on your journey - this is what it's all about. You're relying on your crew mates to forage well and they're relying on you, too.
Be Comfortable with Moving Pieces
The more comfortable you are moving pieces about in the foraging puzzle, the more efficient you're going to be. You really don't want to be in the position to have to sit and think about what the pieces will do if you rotate clockwise or counter-clockwise - you really want that to become second-nature. I can provide some tips but, in the end, you may just have to (*gasp*) practice the puzzle a bit.
For one, get used to making clears of size 3, 4, and 5. Know what the patterns look like and how to set them up quickly. This will come into play in just a bit.
When you're looking to make a 3-piece match, there are a number of patterns to look for. Here are a few:
In the green box, you can see a set of three red blocks in a straight line. You can rotate the outlying red box into the others to make a match. In the blue box, you have three green blocks jammed on top of one another. You can rotate two of the green blocks to create a match. Finally, in the red box, you have three tan blocks next to each other, but one is off-center and needs to be brought in.
When looking at 4-piece clears, you have only two options, and with a 5-piece clear, you have only one option. This image displays those possibilities.
In this case, the red and blue blocks represent the two ways to create a 4-piece clear. The green block shows the only way to create a 5-piece clear. Keep in mind that all of these possibilities can be mirrored.
Get very used to making these varying length matches. Make sure it's comfortable for you to do because in the next section, I encourage you to...
See in Groups
When you're looking to clear a chest, you generally want to do it in as many clears as possible. That means you want to focus on vertical clears that can move a chest 3, 4, or 5 spaces down the board at once, as opposed to horizontal clears that will only move a chest 1 space at a time. For example, when a small chest enters the board, there are 9 blocks beneath it (the board is 10 blocks tall). If you look at the board in groups, you'll see three three-piece groups beneath that chest:
To clear that chest as quickly as possible, try to make three three-piece horizontal clears as quickly as possible. That will move the chest down the board very quickly. If, for example, you make a 4-piece vertical clear beneath it, you're now left with 5 blocks left to clear it. You could try to arrange a 5-piece clear, but they tend to be more time-consuming than quick 3-piece clears. If you can do it with 3's, make it so.
With larger chests, though, you only have 8 pieces beneath the chest. Now you need to start considering clears of 4 or 5 pieces. If you do two 3-piece clears, you're left doing two horizontal clears. Going that route increases the number of clears required to remove the a column from under the chest from 2 to 4.
Always try to keep the number of clears to a minimum. In general, when I'm foraging, I'm always looking to see what combination of clears will get a chest to the bottom as quickly as possible. Is it 6 blocks needing a couple threes? Is it 4 pieces needing a single four? Try to learn to "see in groups" and concentrate on those vertical clears. Horizontal clears will always be necessary, but they're not as beneficial as vertical clears.
Keep Moving!
You're under pretty serious time constraints here so you want to be going as quickly as possible. Don't get all tied up trying to count the number of clears it's going to take you to get a chest off the board (this is why I recommend lots of practice, by the way, so that seeing the clears becomes second-nature, much like dribbling for a basketball player) - just keep moving - not every move I make it perfect (by a long shot).
The one caveat to "keep moving" is to try very hard not to get stuck. You want to go as fast as you possibly can, but never lose control of your puzzle. Work from the outside in (see this lesson for more details) and always have a priority in clearing columns. Make sure that each successive column clear will leave you room to clear the next.
Should you get stuck (and it does happen to everyone), you have two options. If possible, work a different part of the board. For example, if you get a chest stuck against the left wall, perhaps you can work on the right side of the board. While doing so, you may get a handy earthquake and be able to "unstick" that chest. To know if you can work elsewhere, you need to be aware of the circumstances of the puzzle.
For one, if you only have one empty banana left and one chest on the board, no more are coming - there's no point in working elsewhere because nothing else is coming. Similarly, if you already have the maximum number of chests on the board (1 large and 2 smalls, for example), you're not going to get any more chests to appear. Only work a different part of the board if it makes sense to do so.
If you're stuck and you can't work a different part of the board, dump the puzzle! It's better to restart the puzzle and lose a little time than to waste an entire foraging session trying to get that chest out when it may never happen. To restart the puzzle, simply dismiss it and click on the foraging pit to start the puzzle again.
When Chest Are Low, Work Smart
When large chests get near the bottom of the board, work smart to make sure you don't get stuck. In theory, you want to clear the outside columns before the chest gets anywhere near the bottom of the board but, sometimes, that just doesn't work out. If you have to slow down a little to make sure you don't get stuck, it's worth it.
One of the most useful techniques to know is what to do when you've got a medium chest two spaces off the bottom and 4 blocks under it. Clearing a row when you don't want to can leave you with a stuck chest. I've created a short video of how to deal with such a situation. The video goes pretty fast, so I'll try to explain (I don't think I could fit the narration in such a small time).
1. I'm just about to finish clearing a 2x2 chest when another 2x2 chest appears above this one.
2. As soon as I clear the lower chest, I'm left with a 2x2 chest sitting 2 rows from the bottom. This will require two horizontal clears to finish off.
3. The key to getting out of this situation without getting stuck is to ensure that, when you're down to one row beneath, both blocks beneath the chest match. That way you can clear them out from the side. To handle that, I actually start my making two 2-piece "columns" under the chest. I make sure that the two piece on the left match and the two pieces on the right match. When you watch the video, you'll notice that I put two reds on the left and two greens on the right (0:14 mark of the video).
4. Once you have the two columns, rotate those four pieces either direction. What you're left with is two rows of identical pieces. In my case, I make a clockwise turn and it immediately clears the bottom row of greens (so you have to watch carefully to see what happens). What's left is a row of red pieces beneath the chest that I'm easily able to clear.
Know this move. Love this move. Live this move.
Other people may well have different techniques but the moral is clear - when the chests get low, work smart to keep from getting stuck.
About Those Special Pieces...
Some of them can occasionally come in handy but, all too often, they get in the way. Let me discuss the various pieces.
Ant
This one is easy to discuss - kill it! The animation is so slow that these quickly become the bane of anyone trying to forage quickly. As soon as an ant enters your board, turn it to the nearest wall so that it vanishes quickly. If you can kill an ant with a shovel, machete, or money, even better.
Monkey
The monkey has a long animation time but you only suffer from it if you activate it. As such, I tend to avoid touching the monkeys unless I have to. If you get a chest above a monkey, activate the monkey right away to get it out of your way. There isn't much that will frustrate you more than clearing out a bunch of space underneath a 2x2 or 2x3 chest and then have to activate a monkey which then refills some of that space.
Monkeys can be useful in that they can help get chests unstuck if they come close enough to the gap. While this does come into play for me occasionally, it's not often that I find a monkey useful so, if I have a chance to kill one with a shovel or machete, I'll take it.
Machete
One of the most useful pieces in foraging when you're looking for a high score, they're not so useful when foraging for speed. I'll try to use them to clear rows beneath chests to move them down, but they only clear one row so, quite often, you can move chests faster by making vertical clears than using machetes.
Still, they're useful if you can get them to the bottom to keep chests from getting stuck, so I don't wipe them out unless they're in my way.
Shovel
The shovel can be very useful, but only if it appears in the correct column. Watch for shovels appears directly above or below chests as it can instantly clear the chest. Just watch out that you don't clear an inside column, thereby leaving the chest stuck.
Earthquake
The animation time on the earthquake isn't too bad and it can be very useful. Nothing can help unstick chests as well as an earthquake can. As such, I keep them around unless they're in my way.
Overall
Aside from the ants, I treat most special pieces the same way. I don't worry about them unless they get in my way. I'll never hold on to a piece thinking it may be useful to me later if it's in my way. As soon as I see a special piece as a "problem", it's gone.
What does frenetic foraging look like?
About like this (I've got two samples):
Larger Version
Larger Version
Summary
Looking back at my videos, I see a lot of moves that could have been improved. That's okay - when you're working as fast as you can, you're going to make some "less than optimal" moves. Just keep moving and don't get stuck.
Good luck!
