Goparokko: Beat the Blocks

     Have you ever looked at that shiny, colourful Goparokko avatar and thought, I want that? Or maybe you just want a cool new trophy for your lookup and a coveted spot on the high score table? Then look no further, this guide is for you! I share some tips and tricks for this notorious (but eventually easy) matching game. There are some deep Goparokko details that I won't get into here - this is simply my brute-force avatar method. After a bit of practice, you'll have the avatar (and eventually trophy) in no time! Plus, it's actually quite fun once you get the hang of it, which makes practicing much easier.

     Goparokko is a game run by a mysterious Yurble where you rotate 2x2 chunks of colored blocks. Match four of the same color and the group of blocks disappears, giving you some all-important points. The game will give you several difficulty options - contrary to some recommendations, I got my avatar on Easy difficulty. Not only did I worry less about time, but the learning curve was a little nicer. It is faster to get the avatar on Hard mode, which awards more points, but the time drains much faster than on Easy. Not worrying so much about time was worth the decreased points to me. Plus, it didn't even take all that long. Medium was comparable to Hard difficulty as far as the timer goes, so best not to bother with Medium. When you pick your difficulty, the first thing you'll notice upon starting the game is the timer. The thing standing between you and the 8500+ point score you need, telling you how much precious time is slipping through your fingers. It ticks down slowly in the first few levels and much faster in later levels. My first few tries at the avatar had me staring at the game-over screen with only 1500 or so points. But there are things you can do to help fix this, besides going for as many time-increasing blocks as you can.

     One thing I like to do is zoom in. Why? So I can no longer see the timer bar. But how will I know how much time I have left, you ask? You don't. That's the beauty of it. You will never accidentally glance at the weird water tube timer and start panic-clicking for panic-matches. You can just focus on making as many quick matches as possible. If you're just starting out, this method may take some getting used to, and you may find you prefer to see the time. That's totally fine. This was just the method that worked for me.

     Now that you've tackled time, your job for the foreseeable future is to match blocks. Make matches all the time. Your eyes should always be searching for easy matches to make all over the game board. A great time to search for matches is when a match you've already made is dissolving. If you get a combo, that's even more time to look for potential matches! Time will not be a problem once you get good at matching. When new block colors start appearing in later levels, things will get a bit trickier at first but it's not as bad as it sounds if you're good about always looking for matches, especially once you've been doing this for a while. There are a few easy patterns that you will be able to pick out with some practice. Once you get used to the clockwise rotation, you will be able to figure out the best way to rotate the trickier block formations for maximum speed. Memorizing the common patterns and how to rotate them is a good idea and comes naturally after a while.

     Finally, let's talk about combos. As with most matching games, a move that clears increasing numbers of blocks is valuable. Obviously, stringing together lots of moves will net you more points. As you play the game, you will eventually see tiles that have smaller tiles inside of them, which I call combo tiles. Once a match is made with a combo tile, that tile will be replaced by a new one that's the color of the inner tile. These can be used to set up combos, but I found it was easier to just completely ignore them. Setting up combos on the later levels is near-impossible anyway due to how quickly the timer runs out. While combos are nice, it's best not to fixate on getting them above regular matches.

     The last thing I'll talk about is locked tiles. These appear occasionally and cannot be rotated no matter which group of tiles they're a part of. You'll have to rotate other tiles toward them to remove them. Otherwise, they work the same as regular tiles - match four and they disappear. Get rid of locked tiles as soon as you can before they start costing you time. It's worth it on the easier levels to take more time to include locked tiles in your matches and get rid of them. You can actually chug along for a while with a few locked tiles on the board, so it's not an immediate game-ender if you have some. Just try to clear them when convenient.

     One final note is that to get this avatar, I practiced on and off for about an hour a day for several weeks. Your mileage may vary, but to me, this was the simplest and quickest way to the shiny pixels.

     And those are my steps to success for the Goparokko avatar! It's not quite as hard as people might think, but it is somewhat time-consuming, especially if you want to throw yourself in the deep end by starting on Hard difficulty right away. I hope these tips help you up your avvie count and maybe even get on the elusive high score table. As always, trophies and high score table spots are easiest to obtain in the early days of the month, but it's always possible :)