Ding-a-Ring
- Not to be confused with Ring-a-Ding.
Ding-a-Ring[1] is a minigame in Mario & Luigi: Dream Team. It is run by some playful Nommons in two different areas of Somnom Woods. The minigame is mandatory once, but it can be optionally played in an area further north, and can be replayed by talking to the Nommons in the northeast section of Somnom Woods.
In this minigame, Mario and Luigi must use Ball Hop to pass through all of the rings spread across an area divided into a grid of squares. The rings can be positioned parallel to the ground over a square, which means the brothers have to land on that square, or perpendicular to the ground between squares, meaning the brothers have to jump to a square from a specific other square. Mario and Luigi start on a stone platform can be bounced on as many times as desired, and some challenges contain other stone platforms. The vast majority of the terrain consists of dirt patches that only be bounced on once, as the first bounce will cause the patch to crack and landing a second time causes it to break and the bros fall directly through. There are also Nommons that must be avoided. Lastly, there is a finite number of times the Bros. can move across the board while using Ball Hop. Bouncing in place does not decrement this counter, but bouncing in place on a brown square inevitably results in bouncing on a brown square for the second time. Failure to avoid either of the two types of obstacles or running out of moves causes the player to lose a heart and restarts the current challenge. If the player loses five hearts (three in the optional playthrough), the game results in a loss. Mario and Luigi exit Ball Hop the moment they pass through the final ring, meaning that they can land on spaces that would otherwise cause them to lose a heart on the final bounce. The combination of factors involved often restrict the number of solutions, making Ding-a-Ring a puzzle game. After finishing one challenge, the board resets changing the position of rings and squares, and another challenge will start. The player wins the minigame once the Bros. beat three challenges.
