Start the run with 5 lives and with whatever difficulty your category is. Time starts when you press the Start Game option or press Start to start the game from the main menu.

TRASH:

Press A to shoot at objects. Pressing B to raise your shield to block enemy ship shots.

Start the round targeting the lower left or upper right of the screen as that's where the trash spawns.

For every math equation, you want to try to shoot a random piece of trash as soon as you can. This serves two purposes:

1. if you get it right its really fast,
2. if you get it wrong it lowers your bonus at the end of each round. Avoid shooting the ships and Red Orb power ups until the end, Try to aim for pieces that would go out the corner for the first shot as if that piece of trash is the correct answer, you'll lose time waiting for it to come back into play.

When your fuel meter (to the left of the steering wheel) is one shot away from becoming full, you want to try and clear any very slow moving pieces of trash, as the game waits to finish the round until all trash has left the screen. Make sure to clear the Red Orb power up as well, as it's pretty slow. If you get bad rng here, a slow piece of trash will spawn after you finish and lose lots of time, so watch out for that.

For the asteroid bonus, just don't shoot anything. Its a nice time to read chat and wait.

As you're getting close to the end of Trash 3, be careful about the amount of health you have. If you have a very low amount of health, its better to shoot more incorrect answers so that you'll lose a life on trash, as losing a life on Caves or Ship is significantly slower than losing it on Trash. On the flipside if you have lots of health, its better to block the ship shots with your shield, to have more of a buffer going into Caves and Ship.

After the asteroid bonus at the end of trash 3, after the screen has finished fading to black, HOLD start to skip the only skippable cutscene in the game. After the cutscene you'll enter the next section of the run, Caves.

CAVES:

Press B to fly, Press A to shoot a projectile. Hold Up to stay in the same spot vertically (very useful when waiting for water droplets)

In order to go through the holes in the floors, you need to be in between the numbers on either sides. You're really at the mercy of rng here, if you happen to get bad numbers you'll have to wait on a good bubble to spawn. Touch a bubble to add or lower your character's number by that amount.

General caves tips:

1. Try to avoid going into holes directly above you, as if you happen to do the math wrong, you'll fall all the way back down through the hold you just passed. Try to go slightly to the side so that you won't fall all the way down if you mess up and get hit.
2. Try to shoot the aliens in the air, don't worry too much about the ones on the ground as those are easy to avoid. Especially watch out for bees, as they are very hard to hit, and can be devastating
3. Try to avoid turning around as much as possible in midair, as that lowers your vertical speed.
4. Make sure not to get hit too many times, as dying in caves wastes a ton of time.
5. BlessRNG for good luck, you'll need it.

After you exit through the top of caves you will immediately enter the final section of the game, the Ship.

SHIP:

Press B to fly, Press A to shoot a projectile.

In ship, you're supposed to try and go in the correct hole for the math equation. As each round begins, you want to run to the right as you start, as it saves time if your number happens to be one of the 3 on the right side of the ship.

General Ship Tips:

1. When you go upwards to try and go in the correct hole, try and avoid trash. If you get hit you'll fall all the way down and lose health, which is super slow. Also be mindful of where the lava drops can spawn, as getting hit with one of those is the same as getting hit by trash.
2. Try to shoot as much trash as you can without losing time on the way to the correct answer, as it makes it easier to try and get in the hole the next time.
3. When you are already inside the tube, your character cannot be knocked over by trash. The OUCH sound effect will still play, but your character will keep going up the tube. This allows you to play a bit riskier near the ship itself.
4. Just like in Caves, try to avoid turning around in the air if you can avoid it, as it lowers your upwards speed.
5. Even though it doesn't look like it, its possible to get hit while standing if a piece of trash spawns at a very low level, so be mindful of that.

After the first two rounds of ship, you'll go to a bonus stage. In this bonus stage, getting points is slow, so avoid hitting any of the jewels. Just like the asteroids, just wait it out. The trash doesn't damage you in the bonus stage, so you can't do anything with it.

The last round of ship doesn't have a bonus stage, and so the points just count down after counting up. After this a cutscene will play where you rescue spot from the garbage alien. Don't spam start like the other cutscene as that'll pause the game. Time comes on the first full black frame after the fadeout.