Arcade video games in pre-game hub are quite a big deal, and I wish someday they'll become a part of the main game. As a some sort of mini-games for the hole repairing process, for example. Something we could thoughtfully do instead of just watch fillin' circle. I mean, this game have already managed to implement engineman's and driver's gameplay way better than Barotrauma have done it, so why shouldn't it keep doing the great work in enhancing our experience?

The Arcade I'm talking about can be found right here (shown on screenshot). It is actually quite a wild game since it took about 2 hours for me just to realize the rules and profitable tactics in it. Tutorial in main menu is pretty terse. It only briefly shows us the basics: the general pattern everytime rolls randomly, but there is only logic behind the solving.

And dexterity. Because of REALLY TIGHT time limit of 30 seconds to get 1000 points. Why 1000? Well, it's because of this!



Here is the tutorial screen. The point of this game is to match the amount of yellow and purple octogones. And the thing is once you're clicking on a cell, it becomes purple, but along with it a bunch of nearby cells turns yellow (both neutral and purple ones). You always KNOW which ones in advance, so the quest is to do a little bit of math and a HUGE BIT of agility, cuz you have to analyze situation very-very fast and move your cursor accuratly, cuz every miscounted cell = -10 points, and every wasted second is an even worse disaster since you have only 30 of them.

It's true, the game is extremely hard, and as you go on, patterns becomes so bulky you have to waste about 100 points just to get those 100 points back - nearly incompletable, the way I see! At least incredibly random-dependant. However, I have a solid clue for you to overcome this monstrosity, but we'll get to that later. Now let's take a closer look on the arcade gameplay in-depth.

I split all the patterns in this game into 3 categories, because the difficulty grows linearly throughout your uprising score count.


It starts relatively easy, like this:



As you can see, there is only 2 yellow octogones on these examples, which means you have to click only once, in a particular place, where your action won't summon any yellow ones because of facing the borders or facing another yellow cells. Yellow on Yellow won't make Yellow more Yellowier, so feel free to paint them for the glory of the Emperor. I've marked these spots with red crosses for visual clarity.

The amount of yellow cells in basic pattern dictates how many time you are going to waste and how many points going to get, because every extra click grants you -10 points, don't forget about that.

As you may expect, after a soft and gentle start we will have to deal with...
Also pretty easy puzzles, like this one below: there is 3 yellow octogones, but on only 2 different sides, so you have to flush only two spots (marked ones on screenshoot below) in any order (which is worth noticing, because later on order is going to be above all).




On the next screenshots there is so-called '4/5-spot patterns', in which order of our moves begins to matter, and with correct sequence we can beat it in just 4 or 5 turns. I've marked the positions and serial number of every turn on the pictures down below. Take a closer look and discover the logic behind my moves. Once you'll extract it - you will be able to solve even flipped versions of these patterns.

It's actually not as hard as it may look at the first glance. We are simply striving to maximize the amount bumped borders and already colored octogones. And at this time, on "Medium Diff", we are actually able to severely optimize our score income with a bit of logic and accurate math calculations. Probably, even though it is called "Medium", it's actually the hardest part of all the arcade and requires the most efforts from you.












Next up are '3-sided patterns'. In which we have to waste a lot of time and get a critical minimum of points since orthogonally 3 sides are occupied by yellow fellas. Above them (diagonally) nothing interests us, so even if there is 4 dots (as on example down below - there is one extra dot on south-west) it does not worries us at all.

What worries us - is the empty orthogonal side. As you can see, if it is on the left side, then we are going from left to the right, both on top and bottom sides of the map. And obviously, if empty part are going to be on top, for example, then we are going to put 5 dots both on left and right sides from top to the bottom! In general we are have to put 10 clicks on this nasty pattern either way.



About the same difficulty has the '4-sided pattern'. It requires a bit more time, but also a bit less mind work from you since there is no need to notice empty sides and rapidly decide in which direction you are going to move.
Generally we just have to cover 11 spots diagonally. Medium was the hardest part, told ya 😉

Just take a note in advance if you have any diagonal extra dots in your pattern, cuz if there is (like it is on example down below), then you actually have to choose some smart move order so you don't overcolor purple octogons with yellow ones.

In case when we have an extra pal north-east we obviously have to start filling board from south-west.



Sooo that way we have covered the entire game, guys! Now it's time to cut the crap and honestly confess: it's impossible to get 1000 points. Sick endgame patterns requires us to waste 110 points just to get a 100. There is clearly something's not right with it.

The brute and merciless randomness decides if we are going to succeed or not, cuz for some reason once in a while a very easy patterns rolls out even in the second part of the game, on 500+ score. So you better pray not to be prey.

Well, yeah, it's impossible to get 1000 points. Without a bug, developer kindly left for us.

Honestly, as I polished my skill, the score kept linearly growing, up to 900. And the keystone to my success was the bug I've accidently find out, when tried to skip the early levels very-very fast. And the point of the story is that you can get extra reward for every level, if you will click fast enough on the last cell of a level. The window of opportunity is wide enough, so you can get 200 hundred points out of every pattern.

Good luck on trek, folks, click faster!
As soon as there will be any reason to play another arcade, the one about tubes (like leaderboard or an achievement), I'll probably manage to guide something about it too. But as for now - bye bye!