• Puzzle modes are cool, especially Pointman. Go play Pointman! I want more competition on the leaderboards. ^^
  
• For most chapters there will be a short breakdown (like this), giving you the basic ideas. The detailed section will cover background information, explanations and a lot more details.
  
• The guide starts out with beginner stuff and progresses to the more advanced stuff.
  
• If I missed a topic which you think should be part of the guide, tell me!
  
• You can find full song gameplay videos at the end of the guide.

Among all Audiosurf players, the Mono modes are the most popular modes. From what I hear from friends, this is mostly because Mono is one of the most accessible modes and new players can have a lot of fun without feeling overwhelmed. The puzzle modes (especially Pointman and Pusher) are regularly recognized as harder, more complex and not as easy to grasp. While this certainly holds true, they can be a lot of fun and give you an immense amount of satisfaction once you are over the hurdle of getting a grip of the basics.

All puzzle modes have enormous scoring potential. In the beginning, you won't see the big scores. But with time and practice, you will improve step by step. You will never feel that you "finally mastered Pointman". There's always something more to learn, always room to improve. And this is the beauty of it (at least for me), since as long as you generate motivation from being not perfect, you will not get bored. Ever. ^^

The guide contains a lot of information for various skill levels. Not everything will be applicable or helpful for everyone. I'll start out with the gameplay basics and what you absolutely need to know to get started. Further into the guide you will find advanced strategies and techniques, all revolving around the question which blocks to pick and how to arrange them for good scores.

I have put a lot of thought into the guide structure and its contents. But since I play Pointman for more than 6 years now, it is possible and likely I missed some things that could be important especially for beginners. If you'd like to know more about a topic I did not cover yet or are stuck with a specific problem while learning, feel free to post a comment!

You will find various example videos throughout the guide to demonstrate the stuff I'm talking about. They're hosted on Youtube, so I can embed them in the guide. However, they're without sound, since Youtube has a habit of blocking my videos with music because of copyright stuff. Most of the videos are only short clips and not full tracks, so I hope it's ok. The full song gameplay videos at the end of the guide are all with music. They're either hosted elsewhere (Dailymotion) or contain music which is free to share (Creative Commons License).


I did not discover all of the knowledge in this guide myself, nor did I develop all the strategies myself. When I learned Pointman back in Audiosurf 1, the Deep Strategy Guide[www.audio-surf.com] by Avarice was a great help and an awesome ressource (and it still is). However, not everything in his guide still applies to Audiosurf 2, so I decided to write a guide with updated information. I myself did a lot of research and theory on scoring and powerup mechanics, so this is what you will not find in Avarices guide.

• Pick up blocks, drop them wherever and whenever you want.
  
• Hold up to three blocks at the same time, queue is LIFO (last in, first out).
  
• Best chain holder among all puzzle characters, feels best in low/mid traffic conditions.

Pointmans main mechanic is the ability to pick up blocks and drop them in any of the three lanes of your grid. Pick up a block by holding the left mousebutton (or '1' on your keyboard), and drop it with the right mousebutton (or '2' on your keyboard). I like to use the keys instead of the mouse buttons because it increases my mouse precision. But that is a completely personal decision.

You can hold up to three blocks or powerups at the same time. The last one you picked up is the first you will drop. You can see the blocks in your holding queue if you look at your character. The front most block will be the one you will drop next. If your queue is full and you attempt to pickup another block, you will simply tap it (drop it immediately, like hitting it without holding the pickup button).

Strengths:

• Full control over your grid. Pick up any block/powerup and drop it wherever you like, or keep it for later. This opens up a lot of strategic possibilities you do not have with other puzzle modes.
  
• Keep your chain bonus longer than other characters (sometimes a lot longer). If you don't know what that chain thingy is, I'll explain it later.
  
• Plays well on low- to mid-traffic songs, since that's where the first two strengths really shine compared to other modes.

Weaknesses:

• You won't score big in the first few hours. The learning curve is rather steep and it will take a fair amount of practice.
  
• Harder on high traffic songs.

This guide has become rather big and contains a lot of very detailed information about all aspects of Pointman gameplay and strategy. All the information is there, but maybe it's hard for the beginner to get an overview. This section is here to fill that gap and provide a breakdown of all the basic ideas of the guide to get you started.

• It is totally valid to hold down the pickup button all the time and only release it when you actually want to use a block (or a series of blocks) where and when it appears. For the very beginning, don't lift it off at all. One less thing for you to think about.
  
• Look ahead! Concentrate on the approaching blocks and try to memorize what is on your grid. If you need a reminder, take a quick glance at the grid, but don't stare at it for seconds. Even when you screw up and drop blocks you didn't intend to drop, stay calm and mainly focus on the traffic. Most grid screwups can easily be solved, so don't panic!
  
• You don't need every block! Focus on one or two colors at the same time. In case of doubt, dodge a block instead of hitting it in an uncontrolled manner.
  
• Be especially careful with where you put white blocks. They are usually the most prominent reason for unsolvable grids (e.g. if you build a row of whites with non-matching blocks below). Preferrably drop them into empty lanes.
  
• Pick one or two songs you like and play them regularly. Pick songs with low traffic for the beginning. While you will probably be overwhelmed by all the blocks coming at you, playing familiar songs helps with learning to handle it.
  
• Actively make your brain "reset" its color focus every now and then. If you try hard to focus on a single color, after a while your brain automatically masks out everything else. This makes you basically blind for other colors and powerups. It's hard to explain, but you will know what I mean when you play for a while. Just try to regularly re-decide which color to pick.

With those tips, you should be able to go out and have some fun. You will notice there's a lot to multitask and a lot to learn. The good thing about this is that most of it will become second nature after some practice, so you'll not be actively thinking about it whenever you're playing.

When you're ready for more, check out the other parts of the guide. The order of all following chapters is basically a recommendation in which order to learn the more advanced stuff. Pick one, read it, try to include it in your own gameplay. Don't try to learn everything at once.

1. The most important and therefore first advanced mechanic I would recommend you to familiarize yourself with would be the chain bonus. You should be able to hold it for the whole song reliably. If you don't already know how the chain bonus works, read the chapter The Chain Bonus.
   
2. At the beginning of each song, try to quickly build your chain to a multiplier of 2.5x (or higher). This only takes 5 small matches. For further details and strategies, read the chapter Quick Chain Building, Gravity Matches and Force Clear.
   
3. Focus on building big single/dual color matches. More blocks of the same color are generally better. Read about all the fancy details in the chapter Basic Matching Strategies.
   
4. White blocks are always worth to be picked up, as long as you can throw them into empty lanes immediately. Try to avoid cluttering your grid with them. Read more in the chapter White Blocks.
   
5. Hit multiplier powerups with a full matching grid, preferably of a single color. Use Paint / Storm powerups to help with that. More detailed strategies and examples can be found in the chapter Powerup Usage.
   
6. Aiming for the Seeing Red / Butter Ninja bonuses may help your overall score, but you have to make good use of all the red/yellow blocks. Always go for the Clean Finish bonus, it's easy and yields 15% extra points! See chapter Seeing Red / Butter Ninja / Clean Finish.
   
7. If you want to learn more about gathering scattered blocks of one color to form a single big match, read the chapter about Priming.

• The chain is a bonus multiplier which increases over time as long as you do "something" in a specific timeframe after the previous action (1.5 seconds).
  
• That "something" could be tapping/scooping/dropping blocks or powerups, clearing matches or white blocks and riding extension lines.
  
• You want to never lose the chain bonus over a song. Practice that and practice it until it becomes second nature!
  
• Avoid overfills, they reset your chain multiplier.

The chain bonus is a multiplier to your match score. It starts at 1 and becomes bigger after scoring successive matches. It goes up to 4 and is displayed below your score. That means that with a chain multiplier of 4.0, you get 4 times the base score for every match! This multiplier is Pointmans best friend, it is his most important bonus. The main reason is that with the ability to queue and drop blocks on demand, Pointman has a very powerful tool to extend the time before the chain will drop.

As long as you keep doing "stuff" (more on this later) in a short amount of time after your last action, you keep the chain alive. That "short amount of time" is the match extension timeframe or matching window. It is 1.5 seconds long. You can actually see the matching window when you look at the blocks on your grid. There is a little square in the middle of each color block, getting bigger as time goes by. The matching window is over when the square reaches the full size of the block. However, the square is only visible for matching blocks, so if you don't have a match on your grid, you have to guess how much time is left. You'll get a very good feeling for that after some time.

If the matching window passes by without any player action, the following things can happen:

• If you have at least one match on the grid (3 or more touching blocks of the same color): All matches will be cleared (removed from the grid and converted into points). The higher your chain multiplier, the more points you get. This counts as a "successive match" and therefore exends your chain multiplier. It also extends your matching window.
  
• If there are no matches on your grid: Your chain will drop and you'll start out again at a multiplier of 1.

Where all other puzzle modes have only one active way to extend the matching window (that is hitting blocks), Pointman has more possibilities. Here are all the things that extend it (including passive ones):

• Tapping blocks or powerups.
  
• Picking up blocks or powerups.
  
• Dropping blocks or powerups.
  
• White blocks leaving the bottom of the grid.
  
• Clearing matches (convert them into points).
  
• Riding extension lines. I mean the lines below some blocks in the direction of the lane. They have the same color as the block and as long as you're over one of those lines, the chain won't drop and matches won't be cleared. Longer incarnations of those lines can usually be found around powerups (especially right before/after multiplier powerups), where they can be really helpful.

As a Pointman player, you want to never drop the chain bonus. Usually you can keep it over the whole song. There are rare situations where you can't possibly keep it though, e.g. when there are no blocks for like 6+ seconds. That's not a hard number, with good preparation it is possible to keep the chain even longer, depending on the blocks available right before the gap.

Practice to hold the chain for a whole song. Just pick a low traffic song and focus on doing one of the above actions every 1.5 seconds (or a little less). Do as few actions as possible without losing the chain (just for practice! Later you'll regularly do as many actions as your hands/brain allow you to). This will familiarize you with the matching window so you don't need to think about it when you're doing all the advanced stuff later.

Try to find a song with traffic like in the following video. It's awesome for chain training. (The "chain bonus ended" message after the first match was a bug in Audiosurf 2 at the time the video was recorded. You can tell the chain is not really lost because it goes to 1.5x after the second match, as it should.)


Also, you should avoid overfills. Overfills happen if you have a full lane on your grid with 7 non-matching blocks and try to put another block on top of that. The game makes a nasty sound if it happens. You don't want that. Oh, and it also resets your chain multiplier to 1. You don't want that either.

• Gravity Matching: After clearing a match, the grid gravity eventually "pulls" previous non-matching blocks together so that they now form a match.
  
• Gravity Matching is great for holding the chain over bigger gaps between blocks (6 seconds -> no problem).
  
• Dropping a block in a full lane containing matching blocks force clears all matches on the grid.
  
• At the beginning of a song, build up your chain by forming at least 4-5 matches as quickly as possible by combining Gravity Matching and Force Clear techniques.

If you can reliably hold the chain throughout a whole song, the chain multiplier will get to pretty high numbers. 4.0 is the maximum, 2.8 - 3.1 is pretty common for a song of normal length (3-5 minutes). That means, each match yields 2.8 - 3.1 times the points you would get without a chain going!

Many songs start out rather slow, with less traffic and speed compared to the main parts of the song. If you build big matches from the beginning, you must hold them for a longer time (because of lower track speed). Also they do not yield a lot of points because there's no huge chain multiplier boosting your score.

So why not use the beginning of the song to build the chain as quickly as possible? Then the big scores start to come in earlier.

First lets take a quick look at the following table, which shows how many successive matches it takes to get a specific chain multiplier:


As you can see, with 5 five matches you can get to 2.5x. After that, it takes 5 additional matches for each increment. So we're going to make at least 4 or 5 small matches in fast succession to build up our chain. Then we can start scoring big.

The most basic way to do that is to throw 3 matching blocks together, wait till they're cleared, throw in another three blocks, wait, repeat. However, if there is enough traffic, there are quicker ways to reach 5 matches using the combination of two simple techniques.


The first of these techniques is called Gravity Matching. This means you build a (small) match and put blocks of another color on top of them. These blocks on top must not match yet, but have to be placed in a way that they match after the first match is cleared. The grids "gravity" makes them match. One way to do this is to put 2 blocks of one color in one lane and one in the adjacent lane to form a match. If you put 3 blocks of another color in the same constellation on top of that match, they do not match but will after the first one is cleared. I made a video to demonstrate this:


Notice for how long I am not required to pick up a block when forming the first Gravity Match (3 colors). But I still get my chain going. It's around 6 seconds! So besides chain building, Gravity Matching can also be used to cross big gaps of blockless void!

Another way to make gravity complete your matches is to build a big single/dual color match encapsulating little clusters of 1 or 2 blocks of another color in various places, so that they do not match yet (this leads to a more advanced technique, read about it in the chapter "Priming"). I also made a short video of it:



This one is very simple: If a lane on your grid is full, but contains at least one block that is part of a match, dropping another block into that lane will not result in an overfill but instead will force clear all matches on your grid, yielding full points and with absolutely no negative consequences.


Combining Gravity Matching and Force Clearing, we can advance our basic technique to rapidly build up a chain multiplier of 2.5x in 5 matches. If there is enough traffic, the idea is to use only one single lane. Build small matches in that one lane (3-4 blocks), encapsulating them in blocks of a second color. Force clear the lane, immediately matching the second color together. Go on until you reach the desired chain multiplier. I have made some videos of this:


The first video is a basic example. The second video shows the beginning of a very slow song, so I cannot build as quickly as I want. In the third video I further use the two red blocks at the bottom to limit the space above them for matching. This way I can force clear quicker.

• Fill your grid with blocks of a single color as often as possible!
  
• If the first priority is not practicable, build grid-filling dual color matches. Evenly distributed is fine, but try to focus on one color.
  
• Adapt to the traffic! Pick dominating colors, prefer expensive colors! Don't ignore too much (valuable) traffic in favor of single color matches.
  
• Don't ignore whites, they're usually worth it. Drop them into empty lanes or between matches.

Now it is time to actually make all those colored blocks into points. Preferrably a lot of those. ^^

The first thing to know is that different colors give different amounts of points. Blue is the "cheapest" color, followed by green and then yellow. Red will yield the most points per block. White blocks do not match but rather give 1500 points each, not increased by the chain bonus.

Keep in mind that skins can change the block colors. I'm talking about the colors as they are in the "Classic" default skin or my favorite workshop skin "Substratum".

Also, from bigger matches of the same color you will gain more points per block than from smaller matches. For example, going from 3 to 4 red blocks in a match increases the match score by 308 points (396 -> 704, excluding all bonuses and multipliers), going from 20 to 21 red increases the match score by 1804 points (17600 -> 19404). The match 3 is worth 132 pts per block, the match 21 is 924 pts per block!

To count as one big match, all matching blocks of the same color must be connected. If you put 7 blue blocks in the left lane and 7 blue blocks in the right lane while keeping the middle lane empty, this does not count as a single match of 14 blues (5880 pts) but as two matches of 7 blues each (2 x 1470 pts = 2940 pts). If you put a single blue block in the middle lane to connect them, it counts as a single big match of 15.

So our first strategy rule: Build single color matches as big as possible! Whether this is actually better than everything else highly depends on the specific situation. If there's a lot of red or yellow traffic and you're able to fill your entire grid with it, it most certainly is. On the other hand, the value of blue blocks is so low compared to the others, that you should only do it as a filler or if the other colors are sparse.

Now there is something called the multicolor bonus. This little thing gives you a percentage bonus on all the matches on your grid at the same time, based on the amount of differently colored matches. For two colors this bonus is 20%, for three colors it's 25% and for four colors it's 30%. Whites do not count since they don't match. This is a nice bonus, but it doesn't generally make multicolored matches worth more points than equally sized single color matches. Usually, dual color matches of two evenly distributed colors are worth around half the points of a single color match of the same size (this highly depends on color selection, see the table in the chapter "White Blocks" for reference).

If you are trying to make a match 21 of a single color but you can't finish it because there are not enough blocks, add a small match 3 of another color to get the 20% bonus. That's not better than 21 blocks of the same color, but it is obviously better than clearing the unfinished match without the multicolor bonus.

Assuming a situation where two colors are available with about the same amount of blocks, one would theoretically be able to build two full grid dual color matches in the same time it would take to build a full grid single color match in the same situation. Practically there are limitations to how quickly you're able to pick up and drop blocks. But still: Whenever full grid single matches are not an option (because it either takes too long or there are not enough blocks of that color), this is the way to go.

So the second strategy rule would be: Pick the two most expensive colors currently available to you in high quantities and use them to form two-colored matches. Going for similar amounts of blocks per color is fine, but focusing more on one color is preferable. This highly depends on what the traffic currently has to offer. If there are evenly distributed red and yellow blocks available, build evenly distributed matches (there is a better advanced strategy for that, see chapter "Priming"). If it's red and blue, focus on red and only use blue to not clear the match early. If there's one color heavily dominating the current traffic, try to build single color matches of 18+ blocks. Adapt to the traffic, but try to avoid ignoring too much (valuable) traffic in favor of big single color matches!

I combine all of that in the following example video:


The part of the song I picked for the video gets gradually more intense over several minutes. It starts out with a lot of blue and green traffic. Both colors are always mixed and there's no part where one of them is truly dominating. So I always combine them in dual color matches, but often I try to focus on the color with more blocks on the track ahead (especially when it's not blue). As soon as yellow blocks start to mix in, I switch to yellow + green combinations. Check the scores for each single match to see that it's worth it!

One last thing to notice about the video is that I try to leave white blocks out of my matches. They're still a priority to pick up, but I try to drop them between matches or into empty lanes whenever possible, so they're gone immediately and don't clutter the grid.

• Drop whites into empty lanes or inbetween matches whenever possible, don't let them clutter your grid.
  
• You can also put them on top of mixed matches of blue/green (and yellow up to ten blocks). In full grid single color matches and red/yellow matches in general each colored block yields more points than a white block.

White blocks should nearly always be picked up. But you should avoid keeping them on your grid whenever possible. So throw them into empty lanes or drop them between matches. They're awesome to force clear a match 21.

Only throw whites on top of your current grid if you're:

• mixing blue/green,
  
• mxing blue or green with less than 10 yellow blocks,
  
• trying to build a match of 21 blue blocks.

When building red/yellow/green matches, the extra points per color block in a match quickly start to overtake the 1500 flat points of a white block, especially when you have a proper chain bonus going (remember, white blocks don't benefit from the chain bonus). To support this, check out the following table:


The table shows how many points you get from any number of matched blocks of each color (not including the chain or any other bonuses). The highlighted cells show the minimum block number it takes in a single match to overtake whites in terms of points per additional block. The green highlights are for the case that there is no chain going. So only the 18th red block would yield more extra points than a single white block.

The orange highlights show the same for a chain multiplier of 2.5x (the basic chain multiplier you reach after 5 matches). In this case, the 8th red, 10th yellow or 15th green block in a match is already worth more than a single white. That does not mean that you should stop at e.g. 10 yellow blocks and throw in whites to fill the rest of the grid (I know there are situations where the game throws like 10 whites at you over a few seconds). On the contrary: If there are more than 10 yellow blocks available to form a match, ignore whites in favor of more yellow blocks. Only drop whites on your grid if there are no more yellow blocks availabe to extend the match. In that case, favor whites over a small second color match.

• Your most strategic effort should go into optimizing the 4x powerup.
  
• Before a Multiplier Powerup, fill your grid with a big single color match or use a Paint/Storm powerup to achieve the same.

The powerups throughout each track have the potential to give you the most significant amount of points. There are three types of powerups at your disposal:

• Paint: This one looks like a color blob and paints everything on your grid in the color of the powerup.
  
• Storm: It looks like a flash and throws 9 blocks of the powerup color on top of your current grid. If there is not enough space, less blocks are thrown in.
  
• Match Multiplier: Those come as 2x, 3x and 4x. They clear your whole grid, converting all matches and white blocks into points with an additional score multiplier. They cannot be picked up. Also, after the grid has been cleared, some rows of "Celebration Whites" are thrown in and the crowd goes wild.

Paint and Storm always come together. You cannot use both, you have to pick one. They are marked on the track map as colored vertical lines below the track. Match multipliers are marked as white vertical lines above the track, the 4x is represented by the longest line. There will be exactly one 4x in each song, all the others are 2x and 3x.

Cleverly combining these powerups is crucial to get the biggest scores. But first lets take a look at some specifics about the Match Multiplier powerup:

• While the powerup clears your whole grid, you will only get points for matches and white blocks. Non-matching color blocks will be cleared without reward!
  
• Chain bonus and powerup multiplier are additive. That means if you have a 3.1x chain when hitting the 4x powerup, the total multiplier will be 3.1 + 4 = 7.1 (the exact formula is a bit more complex and counts the chain bonus twice, see appendix).
  
• Whites don't get the chain bonus (as always), but they get the powerup bonus. So for a 4x powerup, each white block will give you 6000 points.
  
• The powerup respects Gravity Matches! So if there are blocks that would form a match after the first one has been cleared, you will still get points for them. This check will be made in more than one iteration, so you will still get points even if you build Gravity Matches in three or more stages.
  
• The number of Celebration Whites depends on how many blocks were in your grid when hitting the powerup. If you had a full grid of blocks, you get a full grid of Celebration Whites. If there were less blocks, you get equally less whites.

So how do we use the powerups in a way that rewards the most points? By now you should know that full grid single color matches yield the most points. So that's what we should strive for. Memorize which colors are available right before the powerup and pick the dominating and/or most valuable color. Adapt your grid filling pace to the remaining distance to the powerup, so that your grid is as full as possible when you reach it. You can see a demonstration of this in the following video:

(But try to not pick blue! When I recorded the video, blue was worth a lot more.)


Another way to make it work is to fill the grid with random blocks and use a Paint powerup right before hitting the Multiplier powerup. This theoretically allows for a higher grid filling pace before the powerup. Theoretically because it is harder to execute and very easy to screw up. It takes a lot more practice and track knowledge. So I recommend to take your time even if you plan to use a Paint powerup for the Multiplier. In the first of the following two videos I take it slow, in the second one I chose a faster paced approach:



You can go even more advanced and keep a red Paint for the 4x powerup, even if the time inbetween covers half the track. The tricky part about that is still being able to efficiently build high value matches without accidently dropping the Paint prematurely. If you plan to do that, it is crucial to put the Paint powerup in the first slot of your holding queue, so that you can still hold two more blocks. When I do that, it usually helps me to think of my holding queue in pairs of two: Pick up two blocks, drop two blocks. Never press the drop button more than twice in a row and make sure you actually picked up two blocks to drop.

As a third option you could also fill your grid with white blocks. Make a single color match at the bottom so that they stay on the grid and throw all whites you can get on top of it while continuing to build up the single color match. This should be your last desperate attempt to make points out of a Multiplier powerup. Only do this if there is no Paint available and only cheap color traffic right before the Powerup (mixed blue/green).

The Storm powerup has the huge benefit of generating additional blocks instead of transforming existing ones. Personally, I only prefer it if there is no real use for the Paint, e.g. when there are two Paint/Storm powerups in short succession without a Multiplier powerup inbetween. Then I use the Storm to build a big single color match before picking up the next powerup. But of course, the Storm can also be used to make a big single color match in preparation of a Multiplier powerup.

A Paint close to the end of the song can be used to form a last big single color match while securing the clean finish bonus.

• Going for Seeing Red / Butter Ninja is worth it as long as you can make good use of all the red/yellow blocks.
  
• You definitely want to get the Clean Finish bonus on every song you play. Near the end, only drop colors you see at least three of or use a Paint powerup after the last block.

Seeing Red and Butter Ninja bonuses are awarded at the end of a song. They require you to pick up or tap at least 90% of all red / yellow blocks. Seeing Red rewards you with 5% of your raw score as a bonus, Butter Ninja with 7.5%.

Now you might think: 12.5% extra points at the end of the song is huge! It is indeed. But consider that you might not get the bonus after all, even if you try. Catching 90% of all red / yellow blocks is rather hard and takes a lot of practice to reliably achieve without screwing up your overall score. And eventually you gain nothing.

Of course, it is obviously a good strategy to focus on red and yellow, because they are the most valuable colors. But especially red blocks are often rare and scattered. If you only mix 3 to 5 of them into your "regular" matches, they're not giving a benefit. They just make your regular matches smaller and thus less valuable.

The key here is track knowledge. Play the song a few times and try to remember where all the reds are and especially where only few reds are (same for yellow if you go for both). Think of ways to integrate those scattered blocks into bigger matches: Prime them for big red/yellow matches or use them to get a multicolor bonus. If you can manage to make good use of all of them, then going for Seeing Red and/or Butter Ninja is absolutely worth it! It's just a very late-game optimisation.

The Clean Finish bonus is also awarded at the end of a song. It requires you to finish the song with a clean grid and rewards you with an additional 15% of your raw score. The bonus does not include your holding queue, so if you're still holding blocks at the end of the song, you would still get the Clean Finish bonus as long as you don't drop them.

You definitely want those 15%! And fortunately as a Pointman player, it is pretty easy too. When you're approaching the end of a song, just look at the traffic and start to only pick up / tap colors which you can see at least three of or which would add to an existing match on the grid. When counting to three, include your holding queue.

There's also the chicken way of using a Paint powerup after hitting the last block. This makes sense if one is available right before the end of the song. In this case, you can go berserk and hit every block you can (up to a full grid) before using the Paint.

• Priming is keeping unmatched blocks of the same color on your grid as long as possible to prepare a bigger match of that color.
  
• It requires track knowledge and is not always beneficial to use.
  
• Use priming to form big red or yellow matches.
  
• It is also useful is if there's a Multiplier powerup very early in the track without a Paint/Storm before it.

Priming is a technique to gather rare, scattered blocks of the same color and keep them unmatched as long as possible to form a big match of that color later. Keeping them unmatched is achieved by encapsulating them into a match of another color. It has a lot in common with the Gravity Matching technique (see chapter "Quick Chain Building, Gravity Matches and Force Clear"). It's useful when there are not enough blocks of that (preferably expensive) color in a single spot of the track.

Priming is useful to form big red or yellow matches. Especially red blocks are often scattered and relatively sparse. Priming them together means you get more points than by forming smaller matches. Another situation where Priming is generally useful is low to very low traffic over a longer part of a song. The idea is the same: Gather more blocks together to form a single big match and get more points overall.

There also is a situation for Priming which can even occur on high traffic songs, namely the presence of a Multiplier powerup very early in a song without a Paint/Storm before it. This situation is usually tricky to handle, since besides filling the grid for the Multiplier powerup, you also have to build up the chain at least a little bit. What you can do is to prime blocks of the color with the highest availability (preferably not blue) while building up the chain. This makes it easier to quickly form a single big match for the powerup. Throw whites into all remaining spaces to fill the grid. I show this in the following video:


Notice how I save up the first 4 red blocks from the very beginning of the track, also using them to confine the space in the left lane for quick chain building. Later I also throw some other color match into the middle lane to finally prime 5 red blocks. After the last non-red match, I instantly have 9 matching red blocks and 4 whites in preparation for the Multiplier powerup. I further extend the reds and whites until I have a full grid right before the powerup. I actually missed two red blocks when starting the red match. However, since the two yellows were neccessary as gap closers anyway, I don't think it matters too much.

You can prime up to ten blocks at the same time by arranging blocks on your grid like this:


Finding situations where Priming is useful requires track knowledge. You have to know how many blocks of the target color are available at which points of the track. Don't do it just because you can. Be careful how much grid space you actually sacrifice for primed blocks. In most situations, you could be building full grid single/dual color matches instead.

These videos represent my own personal playstyle where I try to use all the complex stuff from this guide. They're mostly not perfect runs, but still pretty nice. ^^

Silbermond - B96 (Butter Ninja)
IGNEA - Alga (Seeing Red + Butter Ninja)
The Freak Fandango Orchestra - Santa Alegría
Caveone - Fire To The Stars
Wooden Ambulance - Sandside Town
The Underscore Orkestra - Devil on my Shoulder

This is just a list of graphs and tables, so if you're not so much into the "why", ignore this chapter.


Scores of single color matches depending on number of blocks

Scores of dual color matches compared to single color match 21s

Horizontal lines represent single color match 21 scores. The curves show scores for dual color full grid matches, depending on number of blocks for each color. The number of blocks for the primary color is the value on the x-axis and the number of blocks for the secondary color is 21 minus that value.

The diamond value highlights show the composition with the lowest value for a given color combination. So e.g. the lowest possible value you get from a dual red/yellow match is 9 red + 12 yellow. This is about the same as a green match 21.

The circle value highlights show the first composition which yields more points than a match 21 of the secondary color. So e.g. dual red/yellow gets better than single yellow only if you can reach 17+ red blocks.