Despicable Me Jelly Lab is one of my favorite arcade games to play at Dave and Buster’s. I have always enjoyed collecting cards in games like the Star Trek and SpongeBob coin pushers. Even the Injustice: Gods Among Us game had me addicted to finding every card.
The Despicable Me arcade game is not a true coin pusher but more of a skill shot coin shooter game. It makes it feel more skillful than a normal arcade coin pusher. I like the idea of taking advantage of skill-based games at the arcade.
Let’s go through the skills and strategies that you need to know for Despicable Me Jelly Lab so that you can collect all the cards and earn tons of tickets.
Despicable Me Jelly Lab Cards
There are 8 cards that can be collected. They are ordered by the numbers appearing on the back of the cards:
- Carl
- Phil
- Gru and Dave
- Jerry
- Kevin
- Dr. Nefario
- Evil Minion
- Stuart (Bonus Card)
Collecting Despicable Me Jelly Lab cards will give you 50 tickets each card turned in on its own.
It is worth it to go for the complete set, which is the seven cards listed from Carl to the Evil Minion. The complete set will reward you with a massive 2000 tickets when redeemed.
Stuart is a bonus card that does not go into the set but it can be turned in for 100 tickets.
The hardest card to find is the Evil Minion. I will discuss more in the tips section about how to collect this rare Despicable Me Jelly Lab card.
Despicable Me Jelly Lab Strategy
The strategy for this coin pusher type arcade game starts with seeking out a machine that has the Evil Minion card. This card is by far the rarest card. When you see it at your local Dave and Buster’s you should play to get it.
Because of this the Despicable Me Jelly Lab arcade game is not the type of game where you would want to play it all day long. To take advantage, I will only play it when I see an Evil Minion card.
The best time to play the game is on Half-off Wednesdays at Dave and Buster’s. It is a higher than average chip cost to play. The Despicable Me Jelly Lab normally costs 9.9 chips for 5 plays and 5.5 chips on Wednesday.
There are options to spend more chips to get more plays and therefore more value for your chips.
- 1 swipe = 5 plays
- 2 swipes = 11 plays
- 3 swipes = 18 plays
- 4 swipes = 24 plays
- 5 swipes = 30 plays
So you get 5 free extra plays with 5 swipes.
My strategy is to check the game on Wednesdays and see if there is an Evil Minion card. If I see that card then I will play the machine for a little while.
I will usually swipe five times to get the most out of my chips. This is a lot more plays than I need to get all the visible cards on the belt but it is a good idea to get extra cards or tickets with all the extra plays.
How to Get the Most Tickets Playing the Despicable Me Arcade Game
Turning in the complete set of 7 Jelly Lab cards is your best way to win tickets.
To win the cards you have to time button presses to drop the coin on the conveyor belt. The coin will have to land within the boxes to win that prize that is labeled. The entire coin has to be within the box to win so you cannot just have part of the coin touching the box. It can be finicky to get the whole coin within the lines of the box.
The “Win Card” box is the smallest and hardest to get the coin in. It is just barely big enough to fit the coin from edge to edge.
There are also ticket boxes. 8 tickets, 16 tickets, and 24 tickets, that are decreasing in size the higher the ticket prize. These can be pretty easy to get in if you know the timing.
The timing to win a card is to press the button when the coin shooter is at the top loop of the “8” in the 8 ticket box. Winning cards is not as easy as it looks, though. It may take some practice to get the exact timing. You should be able to win a few cards your first 30 plays or so.
The timing can change depending on the arcade machine. It can also change slightly each time you press the button because the coin may take longer to go up to the shooter.
If I have all the Jelly Lab cards I need or extra cards that are on the conveyor belt than I will go for tickets with my last plays left. The 24 ticket box is decent tickets per chip played but there are better arcade games so I would not waste too many chips just going for tickets.
The 24 ticket prize timing is to press the button when the coin shooter is in-between the win card box and the 16 ticket box. Again, the timing can change each play or depending on the machine but this information should help you get started.
More Despicable Me Jelly Lab Tips
There are some places online where you can trade cards that you get at the arcade. Ebay usually has people selling Despicable Me cards. I do not suggest buying cards but if you are desperate for a certain card than it is an option.
Bring headphones or earplugs. For some reason the Despicable Me Jelly Lab game is the loudest machine in Dave and Buster’s. It can be really annoying especially if you are playing it for a while. Your ears will never want to hear minions screaming ever again.
The Most Fun Coin Pusher at Dave and Buster’s
The Despicable Me game can be exciting when searching for that next card you need in your collection. Knowing the tips to win the cards helps make the hunt for cards a lot easier.
If you want to know how to spend less money when playing Despicable Me Jelly Lab and other arcade games then go to the next post on tips to purchasing cheap game chips at Dave and Buster’s.
Check out the SpongeBob complete coin pusher guide to win more cards.