Expert tips for PS Plus newcomer Pix the Cat, out today on PS4 & PS Vita

Greetings and salutations! Pix the Cat is out today on PS4 and PS Vita as part of the October PlayStation Plus line-up with Cross-Buy support! We have previously introduced the ARENA and the NOSTALGIA modes and it’s now time to scratch that competitive scoring itch!

The Arcade Mode is a seemingly endless descent through handmade levels at break-neck speed where quick thinking and faster fingers are well rewarded. If you’re into scoring and competing against yourself, your friends and the world, you should feel right at home.

There are many tricks and subtleties that will help you grow your score! Here are 10 tips that both beginners and advance users should find useful:

Stay focused at all times!

It sounds obvious but it’s mandatory to stay ultra-concentrated throughout the Time Attack. The entire Arcade Mode’s purpose is to get you sucked in from head to toe and always keep you on edge! Pix the Cat never stops! Neither should you! Take a deep breath, sit comfortably and dive in.

Speed and Combo are one and the same.

Your speed goes up constantly, and with it your combo multiplier. However, every mistake will slow you down. Missing a perfect, facing a wall for too long, trapping yourself or colliding with an enemy will all cause you to lose speed and with it your combo multiplier level.

Getting a perfect is nice but keeping your Combo is nicer!

It’s far better to fail a perfect than to trap yourself! You’ll soon learn that some mistakes are more costly than others. In the end you’ll have scored a lot more points by playing safe even if you miss a few perfects, than playing greedy and getting trapped. If you do happen to miss a perfect, adapt! Find the new optimal clearance path and move on!

Having trouble getting a wall-boost? Turn earlier!

Getting those sparks on every turn against a wall is a sure fire path to the leaderboards. Practice your timing until you don’t miss any, you’ll be surprised how much speed you gain through this. The deeper you are, the bigger the boost is!

You can boost against your own duck-tail.

When you get into the mindset of getting every boost you can without going too much out of your way, you’ll think of new ways to catch easy boosts! Boosting against your own duck-tail is one of them…

Always plan ahead

Some levels have more than one entrance and picking the right one is a huge time saver! Think in terms of distance and be smart! Some levels have warp entrances right next to each other but that end up on opposite sides of the level below! Going back up and down elsewhere is very useful. Use the dimensions to your advantage to cover distances much faster!

Dropping off eggs is equally important as picking them up!

Think of each level as being built with two paths, one for pick-up and one for drop-off, don’t give up on saving time halfway through!

Strategise your Skull pick-ups

When going for the skulls in Fever Time don’t forget everything else! Try to get them when they’re on the way to your next objective (warp/pick up/drop off etc). Optimal path-finding is the key to topping the leaderboards.

Don’t get stuck in your old ways – keep innovating!

Don’t be afraid to try new paths. They might be better than the ones you’ve been using. Some paths might be a few tiles longer but maybe you’ll pick up more boosts on the way which overall will make you faster!

Use the ghosts to your advantage

Ghosts are the perfect tool to find out if one path is faster than another – use and abuse them! Look at your friends’ or the developer’s ghosts as well, you might learn something! You also can progress a lot by challenging the Scoreboard Sensei, which is basically the ghost of the player just above you on each Grid’s leaderboard. The Sensei will teach you tips and tricks until you reach the top!