Rink Runner

In Rink Runner, you compete in the Annual Happy Valley Skating Competition!

"Remember: The last Bruce standing wins! And this year it's going to be me!"

How to Play

Use your mouse to control a skating Bruce. When you left click a point on the rink, the Bruce skates in a straight line over there. You collect any notes you cross paths with on your way there. And that's all the controls!

The objective is to maximize notes while minimizing jumps. 3 judges will rate your "performance."

As the notes glide across the rink they will change colours. The colours represent a timer; a note will disappear when it runs out of colours!

Black→Green→Blue→Orange→Red→POOF!

Starting on the second level, parts of the ice rink will crack open. If you click on one of these spots, it's game over. However, you are able to safely skate over them.

Scoring

The highest score you can get on any level is 30. Your score each level will be cumulatively summed, and that will be your total number of points.

Each level has 30 notes to collect. To get a perfect 30 points, you must collect all 30 notes. However, after the first level getting all 30 notes does not guarantee 30 points: you need to collect them with less than 30 jumps. Each additional jump past 30 reduces the judges' scores.

There are also sharps () and flats (), which deduct 2 off the total number of notes you have caught; they can even make you go negative. Avoid these!

Each level has a minimum score required to advance to the next level.

Level Guide

The first level is the easiest. You have a solid sheet of ice, no minimum score for advancement, and no penalty for taking as many jumps as you need. Sharps and flats don't even affect your score!

This all changes starting with level 2. The ice cracks just a bit, you have to reach a standard for advancement, taking more than 30 jumps hurts your score as do sharps and flats.

The ice cracks open a little more in each of the next two levels, but stays the same after level 4.

Strategy

You get a penalty for taking more than 30 jumps, not a bonus for taking less than 30 jumps. What I mean by this is collecting 30 notes in 30 jumps gets you the same score as collecting 30 notes with any less than 30 jumps. Keep a mental count of how many jumps you have taken so you know at the end if you need to try to pick up 2+ notes each jump, or can get away with jumps that collect just 1 note without penalty.

At the starts of levels, try to make long jumps across the screen; this makes it easier to pick up more than one note at a time. Towards the end, if you have extra jumps left, make short tactical jumps to collect one specific note at a time.

If it seems that you will miss the note after clicking, move your mouse to make the Bruce turn sideways. This sometimes clips the edge of the note and lets you pick it up.

Notes will always enter from the edge of the rink. This means moving along the edge sometimes causes you to pick up notes without meaning to. This can be a nice bonus if it's a regular note, but it could also be a sharp or flat! It is a risky way of playing the game, but it certainly makes it very interesting.

As you get into the higher levels, when the ice cracks are moving, you will need to be careful. If you click on the edge of an ice float that is coming towards you, the float will move before you get there and you will sink.

You can type the code happyvalley once per game to clear all ice cracks for the duration of that level. Thanks to rippy for sharing this with us!

Although the game can get stressful, it is very fun to play. Happy Rink Running!

This game guide was written by: Chris