Hellooooo Kovaze! As someone with nearly 1000 games on here, most of them being gamemodes that are solely competition based, I decided to make a little guide to each competition and what I did to get better at them! (Notice how I didn't say good honey... even I have my weaknesses.)
FLAGS
Preferred Device: Touchscreen
Average Scores: 2000-2500
Good: 3000
Shoutout my geography nerds! If that's not you, just practice the flags over and over again it's one that gets easier with time. It cycles around the same 42 flags! I knew very few when starting the site and now I know practically all of them. Start slow and rely on your memory! Once you know the flags, it's about increasing your speed while retaining accuracy. Best with a touchscreen.
Lucky-drop
Preferred Device: Any
Good: 2000
A comp beast's nightmare. This one is very straightforward, as a luck competition should be! Just try to save anywhere 1700 , but 2000 is a good base.
Chain-pop
Preferred Device: Large Touchscreen
Average: 5000-7000
Good: 9000
This one is straightforward in concept; drag your cursor/finger across balls of the same color and let go to pop them! Here's the trick to scoring high: if you see you have a lot of one color on your board, get rid of all the other colors by making chains out of them (for example, if I have a lot of blue, I will pop red, green, grey chains so I will get more blue chains to fill in after those other ones pop) Then when it's almost filling the entire board, do one BIG chain with that color and it will get a lot of points. Try to do this at least twice if you can within the 90 seconds. If you have an ipad or a touchscreen computer, do it on there! It's awful on phone. It's so small... If you have a device that can zoom in on the browser, I recommend that.
Words
Preferred Device: Phone
Average: 30000-40000
Good: 50000
WHEEL! OF! FORTUNE! You'll be given blanks like in hangman, and you use the keyboard provided to figure out the word! The easiest tip is to use two thumbs and use your PHONE like you are texting. Get rid of R S T L N and the vowels, and solve the word like it's wheel of fortune. Another one that gets easier with time, as the words recycle. Sorry if you are not a native English speaker :(
Deal
Preferred Device: Any
Average: 100k
Good: 130k
The compbeast's other nightmare. Just like deal or no deal! If your first deal is at least 110k take it 9 times out of 10. If not, try to go until you get more than 130k. If you are playing something like arena and you're farther into the game, don't be afraid to risk a bit to get a deal of $150k . Also, sometimes it's fun to YOLO and go all the way!
Shapes
Preferred Device: Any (best on Touchscreen)
Average: 250-270
Good: 320
This one is just about how quickly you can eyeball and count. For me I eyeball and try to cycle through a round every 2 seconds, but I often score like 350 . I can't really give advice because it's not something that can be improved on per se? Sometimes you have good days and sometimes you have bad days. Use your phone though, or a device with a low refresh speed; the shapes will move slower.
Starfall
Preferred Device: Any (potentially better on PC?)
Average: 700-800
Good: 850
This one is tricky but basically you want to shove the stars in the center and the easiest way to do that is to make a v-like motion with your finger (DO ON PHONE) to make a funnel of sorts so that the stars at the top are spread out but the stars closer to the bottom are funneled in the center (like a v shape)! Look at the image below (inside v, then outside v):
Another option is to tap on the sides instead of swipe, but I've never been much of a tapper. I got told this competition is charge to win, so keep your battery health high!
Codebreaker
Preferred Device: Phone
Average: 65-70
Good: 75
This one is just about how good your code is. You will be guessing a 5 digit code 0-9, none of them repeat. Use your phone so you can do it fast. Type 01234 then 56789 so you can figure out which 5 numbers you're using, then guess from there! Try to pay attention to your yellow spots so you don't accidentally put the same number there when guessing new codes!
Holey
Preferred Device: PC PC PC PC PC
Average: 5k
Good: 7k
This one is honestly so hard to get better at, you're essentially maneuvering a ball through holes. It is the most difficult competition to adjust to, as it takes the most amount of practice and hard work. I want you to check out this blog by queen matcha (who is retired a bit) here: https://kovaze.com/blog/28856
She basically holds the top two buttons down the entire time (using PC) and then uses the bottom two buttons to move the bar left or right. Honestly, the easier (and still effective) way to basically do the same thing is to hold w and o, and then when you reach a hole, have good enough reflexes to either let go of w (to lean the ball left) or o (to lean the ball right) to move past, then hold it again QUICKLY to keep the ball steady and keep the motion upwards; if you're too slow, it'll lean too far left/right and your ball will get dropped. It's all about reflexes. If you moved it too far in one direction, redirect by doing the same thing with the opposite direction. Please do this one on computer lol it is so hard on mobile and glitches if you have an iOS device.
MatchThree
Preferred Device: Any (best on PC/Mouse)
Average: 5.5-6.5k
Good: 7k
My least favorite competition honey. But the easiest to understand! It's basically candy crush. Tap on 2 squares to swap them so you can match 3 (or more)! DOWNLOAD CANDY CRUSH LOWKEY??? It helped me! Some people say to start from the bottom looking for matches to allow for more autofills but I just do whatever. Use a touchscreen! The key is to always be looking for your next match so you don't get stuck as often. See a match? Great! While you're tapping at that match, scan your board for your next match to tap. You'll get quicker with time. Check out my good sis katheryn 's blog on MatchThree here - https://kovaze.com/blog/52507 that's the queen!
THIS JUST IN: I just got told by the match3 gods that it's actually preferrable on PC/Mouse if you want to score consistently high. YOU HEARD IT FROM THEM FOLKS!
Guitar
Preferred Device: Phone
Average: 7-8k
Good: 9.5k
If you've ever played guitar hero, it's guitar hero. This competition is honestly hit or miss and needs a major revamp, but decide if the music helps or doesn't help first before starting. DO ON A TOUCHSCREEN UNLESS YOU'RE EXPERIENCED WITH USING 1 2 3 4 5 ON PC WITH RHYTHM GAMES! Do it landscape! I use my two index fingers for this one, but thumbs work! Honestly, you're either good at this one or not. Rhythm games aren't for everyone, and this isn't like your typical rhythm game because the music isn't synced with the notes.
Two important things to note: KEEP YOUR STREAK! Every 5 notes in a row (until 25 notes in a row), you'll gain a multiplier that will add to your score. Miss a note, or misclick, and your multiplier resets. The multiplier is HUGE and if you constantly miss notes and reset your streak, it will be costly. Secondly, there are notes that are stacked on top of each other. I know, they're stupid. Time your click with those so that you can get them both at the same time, as sometimes you will try to get a stacked double note and you'll miss one because of the GUI.
Stacker
Preferred Device: PC
Average: 1k
Good: 2k
This one is my favorite competition! You can do it on a large touchscreen, but I strongly recommend doing on a PC and using spacebar; clicking is okay too. Zoom in to 125% on PC so you can see where you're stacking (without zooming in too close and causing delay), and zoom in as much as you can on mobile. You want to try and stack it perfectly as early on as possible so that you can have a wider base for if you mess up later down the line. You can let the stack bounce back and forth if you'd like, but honestly you're more likely to mess up that way; just go for the stack on the first go. ALWAYS better to be too early than too late, if it moves wildly fast then it's about reaction time. And most of all... concentrate!
I hope this guide helps those who are looking to play the competition based gamemodes like Arena or Race, but don't know how each competition works or what a good score is for each one! And for those who've been on the site for a while, I hope this gives more insight!