A lot of the strategy in this game is a big question mark to me, but here are some tips for absolute beginners. I'll try to update this as I learn more.

• Rule #1 is to keep the speeder held down as much as possible. The more blocks that end up on your screen, the more you can push onto your opponents' screens, and the faster they'll die. On most stages, you should be able to practice to the point where you can keep it down 100% of the time. You should even keep it held down when you have full columns threatening to kill you -- I haven't noticed it decreasing the amount of time you have to clear.

• A technique tip: when I see a cluster of three same-color blocks only one space away from a match, it's often more reliable --especially when trying to combo in midair -- to swipe through the column in the opposite direction (right) rather than select the one block and moving it one space (left).

• As far as I can tell, each column has its own timer that starts counting down when it reaches the top of the screen and isn't part of a live combo, and resets when it either becomes part of a combo or is partially or fully cleared. Having multiple blinking columns is harder to deal with, but you don't have less time before you die. This is important because:

• AIs seem to play actual games of Meteos on their screens, abiding by the same rules as players' games. This means that the fastest (albeit least consistent) way to defeat them is to launch exactly enough meteos to top off a single one of their columns and hope they aren't able to deal with it in time. Overkill -- filling multiple AI columns or their entire screen -- is more consistent but bleeds time. As a corollary:

• Each single-opponent stage has its own distributions of time of screen clear vs. kill probability. The one I'm most familiar with, for example, is Geolyte, the first stage of Branch Star Trip. I know that if I clear the screen at 27 seconds into the split, it gives me about a 30% chance of killing, but I can wait until 30 seconds to improve my chances to ~60%. Watch your opponent's screen to get a sense of how vulnerable they are, and use that to inform the time at which you clear. Keep in mind that their columns currently in the air will take longer to kill them even if you manage to ground them with a screen clear; you will have to wait for the combo to end and then for the kill. If you're up against multiple planets and one has a bunch of meteos in mid-air, maybe launch at the other one.

• This might go without saying, but some planets are better for speedrunning purposes than others. Beginner-friendly planets like Yooj are easy for you to play, sure, but they're also easy for the AI to play. Gimmicky planets (e.g. Gravitas and Forte) are usually the fastest to die, as well as planets with few columns (e.g. Firim, Freaze), planets with low death timers (also Firim) and planets where you can easily screw yourself over if you're not careful (Hevendor).

• In Multi Star Trip, with multiple opponents, you should usually focus your attack on one at a time by tapping their indicators on the left side of the screen. The one that tends to survive the longest will be your bottleneck to advancing, so focus them down. The ones I'm somewhat confident about are Oleana in H2O Planetaries, Gigagush in Dimensional, and Bavoom in Clean Air Club. I'd have to test more to determine others, or even if it's sometimes optimal to spread your attacks.

• DeSmuME is an accurate emulator, and it runs fine, but it's not at all responsive feeling. Input delay on the touchscreen (not to mention using a mouse instead of a stylus) will slow you down quite a bit. Playing on an actual device will be a lot nicer if you can figure out a decent recording setup.

• Ultimately, this game has a lot of RNG. Some stages are more consistent than others, and though some of the RNG can be mitigated with solid play and a close eye on the AI, you're mostly counting on the AI to play poorly. Sometimes it will, spectacularly so! Sometimes it will inexplicably clear a full screen in a matter of seconds. Good luck!