Crane Game, or 3-1 in Mini-Game Coaster runs, is a pretty easy mini-game. Grab the 3 CPUs and you win. But you may or may not have to grab a clock, to make sure you have enough time to win. This guide aims to teach you when you would need to grab a clock and when you don't.

To begin with, let's try to imagine the Crane Game area. We have the pipe, in the bottom-left corner and 6 spots with either a CPU or a clock. Looks something like this.

| | | | || || | | | | ||_ |_|

Don't need to show the starting pipe, it's not necessary for our calculations. So a CPU/clock can fall down on any of these spaces. We'll give them a number based on their distance from the starting point, the bottom-left corner.

| 2 | 3 | 4 | || || | 1 | 2 | 3 | ||_ |_|

So now, we can calculate the total distance of the CPUs from the starting point. After a couple attempts, I found out that 7 is the highest number you can have while not grabbing a clock. This means that all of these patterns are clockless:

| X | | | || || | X | X | | ||_ |_|

| X | X | | || || | X | | | ||_ |_|

| X | | | || || | X | | X | ||_ |_|

| X | | X | || || | X | | | ||_ |_|

| | X | | || || | X | X | | ||_ |_|

| | | | || || | X | X | X | ||_ |_|

| | | X | || || | X | X | | ||_ |_|

| X | X | | || || | | X | | ||_ |_|

| | X | | || || | X | | X | ||_ |_|

All other patterns require you to get a clock, in which case I would usually recommend grabbing the closest. If you think you won't have enough with a +15 (if it's the closest), you can get a +20 or a +30.

Now, on top of all this, the objects don't fall directly in the middle of the squares. They can fall anywhere within it. This is a minor detail, but I've seen how much they can get closer/farther from you just by landing near one of the edges and as such I think it MIGHT be possible to get a clockless 8 with good CPU position RNG. I haven't been able to confirm it yet, but I'll edit this if I ever get it to work. This may also mean that with bad CPU position RNG, it's possible to have a non-clockless 7. But that's all unconfirmed for now.