Tagin' Dragon Speedrun

Speedrunning Tagin’ Dragon

You are going to have 20 levels of dragon tail biting time!  Let me help you try and get the best bite out of your time!  I am going to tell you my general experience with each level and how to kinda do this optimally.  The sad thing about the optimal route is praying for awesome RNG.  You will not get this, but I will tell you what I’ve seen is general best case scenario.

Random items of knowledge

1. You start out each level with a few seconds of invulnerability.  You need to use this to take out any dragons you can because they can’t hit you during this time.  FAIR WARNING: if you exit a level with this invulnerability still active, you will not get it for the next level (This is mainly for Levels 5 & 18, where it is an issue.)

2. The speed boost you get in Level 3 will stay with you until you pick up another power up.  As this is the most necessary item for the speedrun, avoid grabbing any other item in the game other than the pot. 

3. Learn how to control yourself with speed boost.  It is hard to manuever sometimes and something simple, like exiting the level, is much more difficult with the boost.  However, it saves a considerable amount of time in the end of the speedrun.

4. The hit box of the dragon tail is very… unique.  If you find a good way of explaining it, let me know and I’ll update the instructions.  One basic rule is to never try and bit them at a corner turn as the hitbox seems non-existent at this point.

5. The pot in each level is used to destroy blocks.  You will use this to uncover the powerups and try and chew a quicker exit if a level is taking too long.  After you destroy all the dragons, the pot will not work.  The pot is the only powerup that will not void the speed boost powerup.

6. Always keep moving.  Being stationary on the skull blocks will kill you after a few seconds and you’re just opening up a dragon to take you down.

7. Enemies can’t slide on the ice, so don’t worry about them rushing into you.  

8. If you have more tail than your opponent, rush them.  If you have the same amount of tail, you can take a stab at rushing them.  If you have less tail, DON’T RUSH THEM.

Levels – 

1. Optimally, you want all three dragons to head right so that you can hit them all at once and destroy them.  Anything else is a huge time waster, unless the dragon that goes left, returns and comes right.

2. RNG is your enemy in knowing where your enemies will go, but try and get them as quickly as possible because the dragons will scatter easily.  You HOPE they go through the two right columns, but just kill them quickly.  Any run that beats the first two levels at the :25 mark is a great run to continue.  I generally restart if I go past the :30 mark

3. This is the level where you get the speed boost powerup (which is at the near bottom left of the level, left block under the ice)  Get the pot and grab this powerup first and then wail on all the dragons, as they will be fully scattered at this point.

4. RNG, you want all dragons to go right so you can kill them, but mostly they will go left.  Try to avoid grabbing the pot as I have lost quite a few runs accidentally getting a powerup eating the blocks.  

5. This level is free if you get this down.  This is, also, one of four levels where you do not start by going up right away as you will want to go left.  All the dragons will go down and you will try and greet them in a corner.  Mash away and all three should die instantly.  Make sure your invulnerability is done before you leave the level.

6. You want the dragons to go right and hide in the corner, so focus on any dragons going left and trying to escape the area up top.

7. The dragons will head down, so try and eat their tails in the 2x5 grid because they will escape and make trying to eat them a bit tougher.

8. The first level of true difficulty.  You really want a couple dragons to go down so you can easily much on them with your invulnerability in tact.  The bad thing is that you are usually not that lucky and they will group together in twos after your invulnerability is gone.   At this point, be careful, because you will die if you’re not.

9. Easy level, go up and munch.  You should have enough invulnerability to kill them.

10. Like level one, you want all three dragons to go right.  Usually one strays and goes left, so you will just have to run and kill him after taking out the two dragons with invulnerability.

11. Another level where you start going left instead of up.  You can usually get one dragon with invulnerability, but not two.  Just rush and pray.

12. Another hope they all go right, but they will generally stay in the upper section of the level.  Take down any that tries to go to the bottom.  

13. If they don’t all go right, you will lose time.  Attack any that do go right and then finish off the stragglers ASAP.

14. All the dragons will start going right, so do your best to kill them.   One might go left and it’s ok, just finish him after the invulnerability wears off.

15. Scoot up and hope they stick to the upper right corner.  More often than not, the enemies will stay in the middle ice area.  
This area is super hard to try and hit enemies and they can easily kill you here, so head caution.

16. Second worst level of the game as it’s all corridors.  Any dragons that head your way, kill.  This level has a ton of randomness and hard to hit dragon tail areas that you can die pretty easily here.

17. This is the worst level of the game by far.  First, you have to go up to come back and get the jar and clear the two block passage to the other three dragons.  If you have invulnerability still, take a dragon out.  If you have all three dragons still in play without invulnerability, you will probably die.  Make sure you take them out one at a time or else they will gang up on you and destroy you.  

18. Go and much quickly as they all head the same direction. WAIT FOR YOUR INVULNERABILITY TO WEAR OFF BEFORE GOING TO THE NEXT LEVEL.

19. Same instruction as level 10 as it’s pretty much the same kind of area layout.

20. Finish off the dragons and exit the level.  Same as Level 10.  If you didn’t get a run of your liking, I always just sit on the blocks and die, and it will trigger The End screen.