The following is a list of useful tidbits and stats that I have gathered up whilst playing the game. Some have come from personal testing whilst others were explained by the wonderful team behind the game!
1: The in-game timer begins just after the 'Clean em up!' text disappears but right before the first enemy swims onto the screen.
2: Each Insect Enemy has a chance to drop a heart when beaten. Flies are 10% chance, with Ladybugs being between 15-20% chance. A heart drop is guaranteed after 15 insects are beaten!
3: When fighting the Duck Boss, you have more room to keep landing hits if you duck UNDER the large item shot, as the hitbox of the duck is slightly larger than the damage radius of the trash he fires, allowing you to slide underneath it and still connect with attacks.
4: The Otter Boss always fires his 3 split projectiles with the middle shot aimed directly at where you are. Avoid trapping yourself in a back corner for more room to dodge. I have taken to calling the upper corner of the screen the 'Danger Corner'
5: Speaking of the Otter Boss, You have a slightly larger space to move around with at the bottom section of the screen during his Bobber Bomb placements than in the top corner. Aim to spend as little time in the 'Danger Corner' as possible.
6: In River Section 3, the Laser Catfish give off a clear and distinct noise before firing the laser itself. Keep an ear out for it whilst focusing on dodging projectiles for an easier time accounting for them as the noise starts around half a second or so before they fire.
7: The Golden Dragonfly (Who I have nicknamed Sparky) has a 1-300 chance of spawning. This seemingly is decided with each spawned batch of enemies. You will hear the fluttering sounds well in advance of his arrival!
8: The Frog Boss will not activate until you pop the bubble he is blowing in his sleep. When speedrunning, as you reach the end of the thorns, it is best to fire constantly to pop it as fast as possible!
9: Bosses will NOT spawn until the last WATER-based enemy is defeated. Insects do not stop them from showing up.
10: In the Frog Bosses second stage, his attacks are all 20% faster but keep the same patterns and timings.
11: When the Frog-spawn riding on the Boss Frog fire, if you are in either the first or second form, you can dodge the shots by lightly tapping the up or down movements., they will graze right past you without you needing to weave between the shots if you start in the middle of the screen.
12: Sitting in the center of the Frog Boss screen with a stage 3 tadpole/frog allows ALL 3 of your shots to land, massively upping the amount of damage done and saving huge chunks of time.
13: The Frog Bosses Spawn that he fires out of his mouth seems to count as Insects, as they also drop hearts on the same '15 guarantee' system.
14: If you take fatal damage but manage to grab a floating heart before the tadpole pops, it will save you and allow you to keep going! (Caution: If the tadpole starts the full popping animation when you grab the heart, it can lock up your controls and cause them to stop responding!)
15: When taking damage, you have a brief window of invincibility! You can use this to clear some bullets off the screen OR collide with enemies to instantly clean them up or hit bosses for HUGE damage. Be careful, the window is VERY short, but if used right can make a huge impact on time in an 'Any Hit' run!
16: The hitboxes on frogs, enemies, projectiles, and hazards are ROUND. This means thinner at the front but wider at the sides. The game's art lines up pixel-perfect with the hitboxes, but your Tadpoles EYES count as part of the box as well! So be careful of drifting upwards eye first into a shot you thought had passed!
17: Picking up a heart stops your ability to fire for a brief second BUT holding down the fire button will still lower your movement speed! Make sure to stop firing as you grab a heart to give you that second at full speed to dodge shot.
18: Added in the first update, you can hold down R whilst playing to force a restart from the beginning. You must hold the button down for around 5ish seconds to trigger it, so don't worry about accidental restarts.
19: The in-game timer seems to stop the MOMENT you land the final blow on the Frog Boss. This is why you may see the game being more 'generous' with its timer than a split would make it seems.
20: Expert mode does NOT increase the amount of damage needed to clean enemies! It seems to only increase the rate of fire of enemies and changing the river to a night theme!
21: In the Extras section, the 'Normal' and 'Expert' scorecards are just that, Score Cards. They will show the highest SCORING run and not the fastest time. So be sure to record all of your runs via streaming or save your Gameover screens for your records!
Off the top of my head, that is all the extra bits I can think to share. Anymore that come to mind or that I learn via play/dev chat will be added in edits!
