Door 4 · Tapper
Blowie Swat: Day 4 of Sunburnt Santa
Tap the blowies (blowflies) before they land on the Christmas pav, in a 60-second swatting frenzy. Keep a combo going, grab the golden flies, and whatever you do, leave the bees alone.
How to play Blowie Swat
- Tap a fly to swat it. 60 seconds.
- Flies that land on the pav for too long spoil it and cost you points.
- Swats in a row build a combo. Mozzies and golden flies are worth more.
- Don't swat the bees!
Scoring
| What | Points |
|---|---|
| Blowie (blowfly) | 100 |
| March fly | 150 |
| Mozzie (mosquito) | 200 |
| Golden fly | 500 |
| A fly gets a feed on the pav | -100 |
| Tapping a bee | -300 |
Swats in a row build a combo: x2 from 4, up to x5 from 16. A tap that hits nothing, a bee, or a fly that gets a feed all reset it. It starts gently, with at most two slow flies for the first 10 seconds, then the flies get faster and come in bigger numbers.
Stars: the three targets
Stars don't lock anything; they show how you're going, and doors with at least one star count towards the bonus games.
Tips for three stars
- Never tap empty air. A miss resets your combo, and the combo is worth up to x5, so a golden fly at full combo is 2,500 points. Tap where a fly is, not where it was.
- A fly that lands doesn't spoil the pav straight away: it sits for a moment, then feeds. Early on a feed takes over two seconds; by the end it's under one. Swat the ones on the pav before the ones still buzzing about.
- Bees drift through from 10 seconds in, and two at once in the last 15. Each one you tap costs 300 points and your combo, so when a fly is right next to a bee, let it go.
The real story: blowies, bush flies and an Aussie Christmas
"Blowie" is Australian for a blowfly: a small to medium fly, often a shiny metallic blue or green [1]. Blowflies matter in nature because their larvae (maggots) mostly grow in dead animals or dung and help break them down, but some species are serious farm pests [1]. Summer is their time of year, and an Australian Christmas lunch is eaten in summer, outdoors more often than not.
Australia's other famous summer fly is the bush fly. CSIRO says a single large cow pat can produce up to 3,000 bush flies in about two weeks [2]. To get those pats buried faster, CSIRO ran a dung beetle programme from 1969 to the mid-1990s, bringing in 53 species, mainly from southern Africa and southern Europe; 23 of them took hold [2]. It was still at it in 2014, releasing two European species at six sites across Western Australia, South Australia and New South Wales [2]. Buried dung means fewer places for flies to breed.
In the game it's down to you and your tapping finger. Cover the pav.
Read more: Aussie Christmas slang: a dictionary for visitors.
When it opens
Door 4 opens on day 4 of your own calendar (your Day 1 is the day you first play), and for everyone by 4 December. Play the door before it to open it. Once it's open you can replay it as often as you like, and after Christmas Eve all 24 doors stay open. How the calendar works.
Play now
Same kind of game: Bon Bon Snap, Mozzie Mayhem, Unwrap Rush.