Iron Flog nightmare...

[Ansive]

Took me 82 attempts over a week to finish the mode under 25 minutes. About 4 times more than I would have preferred. I finished twice over 25 minutes...
I hated it.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=300830521

I literally lost track how many times I wiped at 9 and at 10 (which isn't even that hard).

My advice to anyone crazy enough to try it out.
Have patience. Practice. Take breaks.

Also for those with large monitors 24" and above, I would recommend playing in a smaller window, or smaller resolution (with black bars). It will help you see more of the curve. Might be better than standing further back, it might depend on your eyesight.

As for a general strategy

• focus on power-ups (some are worth slowing down and planning)
  
• focus on filling up the zuma bar through long chains, gap shots and fruits
  
• if you have 2 balls of the same color, fire both of them at a single match if you are going for a long chain
  
• balls of the same color attract, you can shoot at the oposite end of a gap to close it, slightly pushing the balls back
  
• if you are building up a chain take it slow, it's not worth missing
  
• once the zuma bar is filled don't bother with chains, just fire fast

Stages

• stage 1 and 3 - easy (focus on combo chains to beat them fast)
  
• stage 2 - easy (can waste much time, might be worth restarting)
  
• stage 4 - average (need to keep the balls in range)
  
• stage 5 - easy
  
• stage 6 and 7 - average (don't be greedy with chains, focus on speed)
  
• stage 8 - easy
  
• stage 9 and 10 - hard; shooting fast and constantly pulling the row back very important (luck will also play a big role, as you are at the mercy of the random ball generator, one good power-up can make a huge difference if these stages)

[wallnera]

Just keep practicing in Challenge mode. Do it for a couple dozens of hours, then try Iron Frog - easy peasy. It's really not even about the levels, just getting pro at Zuma in general. I was good at the original Zuma, but in Zuma's Reveng at first the farthest I could get was Iron Frog 5 - I left it at there, practiced at Challenge, then retried IF and got all the way through at the first attempt, even without having seen any of the later levels before. So it's doable, just keep playing. :)

[Dominic Jacara]

I'm unable to get past IF level 5 and I had thought about altering settings to play it in a smaller window. On a large monitor your eye does have trouble taking in the whole playing area and spotting the best shots to make. But sadly I'm convinced a lot is down to my advancing years and slower reactions as I used to be a lot better at Zuma than I am now. When you consider this game used to play on much less powerful machines back when it was released it has either been re-coded for faster processors or was just brilliantly written at the time to anticipate them. I woudl like to think it is running a bit faster than it used to, but that's be clutching at straws! It would be nice to be able to slow it down just a tad so I could get through IF to be able to unlock the last four challenge modes. I've aced all the ones up to then so those and IF are all that's left to complete.

[wallnera]

It's really nothing but practicing. At this point, I can almost surely beat Iron Frong any 19 times out of 20, and that 1 fail is usually attributable to me experimenting with new stuff. I don't think it got any faster than it used to be. However, again, it's only because I spent a shameless amount of time playing this game.

Also, the size of the monitor barely matters - particularly in challenge mode, I simply keep looking at the frog and shoot the balls using peripheric vision only. It's not suitable for Iron Frog though - it's good for speed, which is useful when trying to chase ever higher Challenge scores.

[erebus53]

I found that playing in a smaller window was useful, only because I wanted to be able to screencap and I'm playing through the Origin launcher which is not happy at screencapping. It needs to be in windowed mode for that.

[ninz]

I did it on my first "Real" attempt! (My first try was a test to see what it was, I suicided on lvl 1.) http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=594705846 I wish I would have recorded, but I only have 2 subscribers, so I'd only get like 10 views if I'm lucky. So I can't hate myself much for that.

[Dominic Jacara]

Don't worry Tehda!, I'll hate you for it myself :-) Still haven't managed to get all the way through - my reactions must be getting slow in my old age.

[ninz]

Originally posted by Dominic Jacara:

Don't worry Tehda!, I'll hate you for it myself :-) Still haven't managed to get all the way through - my reactions must be getting slow in my old age.

Oh, well, you can do it! (I didn't know anyone even played this anymore XD) Well, if you need some in-game advice, go for the chains, but don't overdo them, try to keep shooting. I learned this in heroic frog. I was trying to do some "Strategic stuff" But after I died 3 times on 1 level, I found my mistake. Final advice: Don't give up. Probably the only reason I beat this is I played the original Zuma for about 5 years, then I got these insane scores on this. So basically practice makes perfect. (I'll edit the text, all caps though, I must admit, I was a little too excited for this.)

[Felix Joyful]

people who are good at this game scare me. I had to cheat in infinite lives to even beat heroic frog mode without pulling my hair out... by the end of it i thought I had gotten better but I can't even consistently beat the first level of iron frog x_x

[Schizo Dobri]

The only achievement left. This game is literally ruining my life. Help.