Hello, and welcome to Inside Pogo, our new feature where we delve into the depths of pogo.com and find out what makes it tick. This week, we're interviewing Spike, our surly-but-huggable^* Poppit! mascot. He's here to share some of his wisdom gained from watching hundreds of Poppit! games.

^*Important Legal Disclaimer: pogo.com does not actually recommend you hug cacti. Trust us on this one.

Q: Spike, tell us about yourself.

A: I joined Pogo back in April 2000, when Poppit! was first released to the public. I was lucky, because the job market for cacti isn't too good. I had just been fired from my earlier job as a massage therapist. So it was either this, or go into child care.

Q: Were you the original Poppit! mascot?

A: No. The first Poppit! mascot was actually Poppit Pete, a cartoon balloon with a black eye. He never made it to the official Pogo site, though.

Q: What happened to him?

A: Well, I guess Pogo decided it would be weird to have a balloon cheering for you while you're popping other balloons. It is kinda sick if you stop to think about it.

An early design of Poppit Pete. He was given a black eye in later designs.

Q: I see. So you've watched a lot of Poppit! games in your lifetime. Do you have any advice for our players?

A: There's some basic advice I like to give beginners.... If you're about to pop some balloons, make sure there's not some other balloon combinations below that you're going to mess up. If there are, be sure to pop those first. Also, try to think ahead to what the board will look like after you pop the balloons. And if you're no good at thinking ahead, don't be afraid to hit the "Undo Move" button if you don't like how things turned out.

Q: What about for more experienced players? Any suggestions?

A: My first recommendation is try to pop balloons from the outside in. Here's the thing -- balloons on the side are tougher to pop, 'cuz you've only got their neighbors on one side to work with. So you want to make sure you make as few "side" edges as possible.

I mean, look at this poor guy in figure A. He went straight for the middle. And while he may have gotten a lot of balloons, he's created two new edges he needs to deal with now.

Figure A: Popping in the middle can create new edges

It's no wonder he ended up with something like figure B.

Figure B: Didn't do so well, did we?

So my advice? Go from the outside in, and not the other way around.

Q: Okay. Anything else?

A: A couple more things. First, if you're gunning for bonus tokens, don't be so quick about popping that last prize. Once that last prize is popped, you can't use the "Undo Move" button, which makes it a lot harder to pop those last few balloons. Instead, try popping as much as you can before you have to pop that last prize.

If you notice there's not much of a particular color, try to get rid of it first. For example, let's say you find out there's only a couple of blues around. Do what you can to get rid of those. These are the ones that will cause you the most trouble later, so you want to try and get rid of them while you've got lots of balloons to work with. Also, the game gets a lot easier once there are only 4 colors left.

And finally, I've noticed that people who win a game of Poopit! usually win in the first 3 minutes. After that, the number of people who win drops pretty quickly. So if you've been playing for more than three minutes and you're not close to winning, just start over. I won't think less of you.

Q: Is it possible to win every game of Poppit!?

A: Nope. The balloons are set up randomly, so there's no guarantee that you can win every single game. You can win most of ‘em, but there are some games that are just impossible to win.

Q: That doesn't seem fair.

A: Who said life was fair? I'm a talking cactus. I should be on talk shows and hobnobbing with movie stars, not here with you.

Q: Speaking of which, why does a cactus wear a vest, anyway?

A: It's a decency standards thing. I'm not allowed to go shirtless -- the last time I did, several concerned parents' groups staged a boycott.

Q: I had no idea.

A: The thing that really bugs me is all those Word Whomp gophers are allowed to go completely naked and nobody cares.

Q: How about winning the jackpot? Any strategies?

A: You just have to be really really lucky.

Q: Do you have a greater chance of winning the jackpot if you play on a harder skill level?

A: Nope. In fact, if you think about it, you've got a slightly better chance of winning if you play at an easy skill level, since it's easier to release the prizes that way.

Q: Do you need to win the entire game to win the jackpot?

A: No. As soon as you release all three letters, you've won. You don't need to pop the rest of the prizes.

Q: So is that all the advice you have for winning the jackpot? Just be lucky?

A: Hey, c'mon. If I really knew a secret way to win the jackpot, I'd be doing it myself.

Q: I hear it's good luck if you click on our sponsors.

A: Really? I've never heard that one.

Q: Yeah, you know. Our sponsors. The ones who pay your salary.

A: Oh, yeah, uh... right. It's really good luck to click on our sponsors. All sorts of luck that way.

Q: Have you ever been tempted to inhale the helium?

A: No. I don't have vocal chords the same way you do, so all helium does is make me kinda nauseous.

Q: If you don't have vocal chords, how are you speaking to me?

A: Creepy, ain't it?

Well, that's about it for this week of Inside Pogo. But we need suggestions from you. Have a question you always wanted to ask Pogo? Got any stories or advice to share? Send us some email -- we'd love to hear from you.

Special thanks to Justin Cooper for introducing us to Spike and putting in a good word or two on our behalf.