This is a guide for how to beat a short board in 7.5 turns. It takes 5 turns to get to the staging squares, two to get from cherry to banana, and 0.5 (you just play the mini-game and ignore the NPC's moves) to reach the finish line. While there's room to gain or lose time through RNG (e.g. more or less walking from the NPCs, challenge and token game squares, and mini-game lengths), this is the optimal way to play the short board. If you deviate from this flowchart in any way, you will not be mathematically able to complete a short board in 7.5 turns. There are three main routes, which I'll denote by calling them 'Alpha', 'Beta', and 'Gamma' in order of how viable I consider them to be. There is a way to beat the short board in 6.5 turns, but it requires you to be player 2, it requires a good deal of skill and cooperation between players 1 and 2, and it absolutely requires a ton of luck. I'll therefore mention it in another 'Guide' as the 'Delta Route' just in case someone wants to TAS it out in the future.
This guide is currently incomplete.
Turns 5, 6, 7, and 7.5 are all exactly the same for all three routes, and so will be mentioned at the bottom.
==== Alpha Route ==== === Turn 1 ===
=== Turn 2 ===
=== Turn 3 ===
=== Turn 4 ===
=== Turn 5 ===
==== Beta Route ==== === Turn 1 ===
=== Turn 2 ===
=== Turn 3 ===
=== Turn 4 ===
=== Turn 5 ===
==== Gamma Route ==== === Turn 1 ===
=== Turn 2 ===
=== Turn 3 ===
=== Turn 4 ===
=== Turn 5 ===
==== Convergence ==== All three routes converge at the second-to-last store square on the board, whereupon they've purchased a 3x movement bonus for the next turn. From there, they move 15 spaces onto the staging square (turn 5); come in 3rd, 2nd, or 1st place in the next mini-game (turn 6); come in 2nd or 1st place in the mini-game after that (turn 7); and win the final mini-game (turn 7.5).
