A Runner Up's Guide To Running The Rink

TERROR MOUNTAIN - I was running out of article ideas when this one hit me like a block of ice. And ta-dah, here it is: to make a guide to everyone's favorite ice skating game, Rink Runner! But half way through making the outline of this article, I realized I sort of wasn't an expert at the game, under any circumstances, and, in fact should not be the one to make a guide for the game. Oh, but I liked the idea so much I just had to write this guide, which is by no means an expert's guide to the game, it's just a beginner's. Then I decided to call it a "Runner Up's" guide... It just seemed more appropriate since you are running the rink after all.

Introduction

Rink Runner is a game played in Happy Valley. To get there, you can go to the Happy Valley map and click on the rink where the Bruce skating, you can go to the Games Room in the Action section, or you can simply click here. It's a flash game, meaning you'll need a flash player, but it's really quite simple and easy once you play it a few times. There are just a few minor rules to follow, and this article has them all, and not much more. So, if you feel that you need to work on your moves before this year's Annual Happy Valley Skating Competition, which I'm not totally sure exists, use this guide to help you learn how to skate almost as good as an amateur!

The Basics

All the action of the game takes place on the wondrous not too solid rink! You play a cute little Bruce on ice skates, and you skate about the ice rink trying to catch musical notes. How do you do it? You simply click to where you want the Bruce to skate to, and he will automatically go there! Every note you come across on your way is acquired instantly! Depending on how many notes you catch, the all-mighty Judges decide whether you will move on to the next level or not. Oh, and it's a really good idea to not catch the sharps (#) and the flats! (b) Now here's some almost useless knowledge on the Information Bar.

The Information Bar

The Information Bar is located at the bottom of the screen. To the left of it, you have the three Judges and their scores. Look there at the end of the level to find out what they gave you. Then, on the right, you have three white boxes all with numbers in them. The first box has the number of notes you've caught during your current level. The second has the number of notes caught throughout the entire game. (It's tallied up at the end of each level.) The final box tells you your best game score. However, this is only your best game score since you've had the game window open. (I guess they had to put something in that box.) But it's still a pretty handy thing to have right there comfortably sitting at the bottom of your screen, eh?

The Notes

The notes are the key part to winning, them being the object of what you need to catch, and all. Thirty of them show up on each level. They appear from the sides of the rink, and bounce all over. All you need to do is click your mouse to a place where you'll come in contact with one. For example, if a ring is here all you need to do is skate a little bit further down from there, because notes tend to get away if you click right on them. Making sense so far? Probably not. Don't worry, it gets more confusing. The notes change color. At first they are black, then green, then blue, then orange, then red. When they feel like they've been red long enough, they disappear. And guess what? When they disappear, you can't catch them anymore. Tough luck. And here's some even worse luck, there are evil and bad notes that tend to lurk around the rink. These are known as sharps, which look like this: #, and flats, which look like this: b. I mentioned them earlier, but what I did not mention was their supreme peril. If you catch one, you lose two notes! That's right, two notes will not appear, and you will never be able to catch and regain them ever. Luckily, they change colors and disappear, too. So just try your best to avoid them! The Judges apparently don't like it too much when you catch them.

The Judges

Ha! You're probably thinking: "Whoa, he knows a lot about this game, he's really an expert." Well, up there, that was just information about the notes that everyone knows already. Don't be afraid that I really know exactly what I'm talking about. Rest assure that that at least is not true. With that said, it's time to learn about the Judges role in all this. The Judges decide whether you move on to the next level or not. To please the Judges, you need to catch as many notes as you can. But there is more to it! You also need to not make too many jumps to get the notes. If you're zigzagging all over the rink and not catching any notes, chances are the Judges will bring you down a few points. Points, I say? Indeed. Each Judge can score you from a zero to a ten, and there are three Judges in all. To advance to the next level, you need to get at least the required sum of the Judges points... That wasn't very understandable, was it? What you need to do to advance to the next level is to get the added scores of the Judges to be at least (insert number here, for example, 21). So, if you needed a score of 21 by the end of the level, and each Judge gave you seven points out of ten, then you'd pass! Gee, I'm a mathematician.

The Levels

Finally, I'm giving you info on this "Level" business. I'll start this paragraph off with a big surprise: you start the game on level one! Level one is very easy. In fact, it is impossible to not get through level one. Even if you don't catch a single note, you will be passed on to level two. But it's easy to catch all of the notes on level one, because the rink is made of solid ice, and they are the color black when they appear, giving you loads of time to run into them. Well, it gets a little more complicated in level two. To beat level two, you need at least a judges score of 21, not zero like in the first level. And that's not the big complication. The notes don't start out being black anymore, no. They're already green when they show up! That leaves you less time to catch them. And that's not the big complication either. The big complication is that the ice opens up and cracks a little, leaving you a few dainty little water holes! Fall into one of those, and you're disqualified. That's an automatic game over.

"Well then, how much worse can it get?" You ask. Plenty worse. In level three ice melts away leaving two thin intersecting ice pathways across the rink, and four ice islands cut off from the pathway by water. You can skate across the water, somehow, but if you click to a place where there is no ice, you will go there. And guess what? You'll fall in. So, only go for a note if it is definitely on ice, not water. Be patient, and as I said, don't zigzag all over the place. Level Four... Yes, I told you, this is only a Runner UP's guide. I've only gotten to level four twice, and here's what happens. The intersecting ice path ways disappear, leaving you only the four ice islands bobbing around in the water. Also, the notes are already blue when they appear. That means that they're blue, then they're orange, and then they turn red already! That leaves you a limited time to catch them, and they bounce around faster and appear more frequently. I've beaten this level only once, but I'll give you some advice anyway. Here it is: Only go for the notes when they're on one of the islands. Sounds easy, huh? Well, not exactly. It's easy for your mouse to slip or for you to mess up and skate into the water. Also, the islands, as I said, bob around in the water a bit. This means that they move. So beware!

So I guess now you are really thinking that the levels can not get much harder... Well, it's true, they can't! I noticed no difference between level four and five when I moved up, except that the bobbing ice islands bobbed some more. To beat this level, just follow my tips from level four, and you probably won't beat it, since I followed those tips and fell in the ice. Can't seem to beat level four? Practice makes perfect, or average, in my case.

That was the guide, everyone. Don't you just feel like going out and tearing up the ice now? I know I do. This article even taught me a few things about Rink Running, and I wrote it! So as you glide across the rink in search of your next musical notation symbol, remember the rules, tips, and hints I gave you and you'll be a mediocre Rink Runner like me in no time!