This is one in a series of level-by-level guides for speedrunning each of the worlds in the mobile version of PUSS!. In this guide, I will go over speedrunning strats for all the levels appearing in Counterworld.
Since the levels don't really have any official names, I try to provide short names and a short description of the aesthetics of each level in an effort to identify them.
I also give each level a 1-5 star rating for difficulty and speed. For difficulty, 1 star is easiest and 5 stars is hardest. For speed, 5 stars is fastest. For each level, I also specify whether Ghost Cat appears. An ✰ next to Ghost Cat indicates that you should always use him if you have enough lives to pay his fee.
Alien Bridge
Difficulty: ✰✰ Speed: ✰✰✰✰✰ Ghost Cat: no
A gray, static hall on a blue background. A parade of aliens marches to the left on the bottom. Parts of the hall open and close. At the end, there appear to be 3 exits. The bottom is fake and the rightmost one is inaccessible due to a very rapidly opening and closing section of the hall (there is also an invisible wall, so you can't even brute force your way through to the fake exit). The top exit is the only real one.
The sections of the hall open and close on a predictable interval, so it isn't too difficult to very quickly move through them to the exit once their cycles align.
Amen
Difficulty: ✰✰✰✰ Speed: ✰✰✰ or ✰✰✰✰ Ghost Cat: yes
Narrow passages with bullets raining down the diagonal part. In the background and background, a cat is receiving an exorcism on the right while an orange cat next to it says "amen".
No special strats here, just quick, precise movement. If you're feeling very brave you can try to superslide through the level. Even if you don't make it in one shot, you can probably get to the checkpoint and then slide through the rest of the level. It's very tricky though.
Binary Clock
Difficulty: ✰✰✰ Speed: ✰ Ghost Cat: yes... but actually no.
A blue and black level with tiles of the pathways appearing and disappearing in various patterns, sort of like a binary clock, but not really.
This level is just pure memorization to get through, and Ghost Cat is absolutely useless here. When he shows up, he's on a completely inaccessible part of the level.
Blues Club
Difficulty: ✰✰✰ Speed: ✰✰✰✰ Ghost Cat: no
A blue, diagonally-oriented maze with jazzy music. Several red squares come in from offscreen to cross over the maze.
This level just requires fast movement to get through the maze as quickly as possible while avoiding the squares. At the start, there will be several incoming squares from all sides, including a few that will completely block some of the halls. It may be worth taking a death abuse to clear the squares and try to navigate the level while it is relatively empty.
Crazy Hands
Difficulty: ✰✰✰ Speed: ✰✰✰✰ or ✰✰✰✰✰ Ghost Cat: yes
Giant hands with eyes loom over the stage shooting lasers diagonally downward. The BGM sounds like the dramatic score of a Godzilla film with some guy saying "Are you CRAZY?" a bunch.
The mobile version of this level is a lot easier than the PC version since the hands shoot lasers a lot less frequently. Once you get to the upper path, just slide to the exit (and hope a laser doesn't spawn right on top of you). Alternatively, if you're feeling brave, you can also superslide this level.
Crying Tiger
Difficulty: ✰✰✰ Speed: ✰✰✰✰ Ghost Cat: no
A blue and purple gaunlet of spinning and moving blocks. A crying tiger is laying on a carpet on the upper-right corner of the level. The background has scrolling mountains.
When the blocks' cycles line up just right, you can superslide through this level. Watch for when the final block is close to the exit, then go!
Deadly Danger Dungeon
Difficulty: ✰✰ Speed: ✰✰✰✰ Ghost Cat: no
A D&D-style micro-dungeon with several pressure plates that either open doors or activate laser traps. This is one of the mobile-exclusive levels.
Close to the exit, go right to the second pressure plate to open the first door. Then swing down to the lower part of the entrance area to the bottom-most pressure plate to open the door to the upper exit. Move past both doors and straight into the exit. Be careful not to get trapped on the corners of the doors!
Dolphin War
Difficulty: ✰✰✰✰ Speed: ✰✰ Ghost Cat: no
Dolphins in the ocean on the lower part of the level shoot long lasers upwards on set intervals while short lasers rain down randomly from the heavens. This is one of the mobile-exclusive levels.
There are no special strats for this level. It's kind of slow, so just try not to die.
Funhouse Backroom
Difficulty: ✰✰ Speed: ✰✰✰✰✰ Ghost Cat: yes
A level with rainbow-colored walls and multiple vertically-moving pistons. On either side of the level are oval portraits of cats.
After the first 3 pistons, while the 4th piston is down, you can barely squeeze through the gap between the 3rd and 4th piston to immediately reach the exit.
I Don't Want It!
Difficulty: ✰✰ Speed: ✰✰✰✰✰ Ghost Cat: yes
A zig-zagging magenta path with stationary blinking bullets. The horizontal sections of the paths shift up and down periodically.
You can just superslide through this level. You'll squeeze right past the bullets.
Kill Him!
Difficulty: ✰✰ Speed: ✰✰✰ Ghost Cat: yes
The two large of this level contain crossed laser hazards that move back and forth. The BGM for this level is constantly shouting "Kill him!".
In the first crossed lasers area, when you get to the top-center gap, you can skip the incoming walls to get to the upper part early. If you're feeling risky, skip the checkpoint.
In the second crossed lasers area, there is another very risky trick you can attempt. When you get into the top gap, as the horizontal laser is coming back up, you can move quickly to try to squeeze into the left gap. As soon as you can get into the lower-left quadrant of the crossed lasers, slide to the exit when the vertical laser is on the right side. There is just enough of a gap that you can slip into the exit.
Kill the Vampire
Difficulty: ✰✰ Speed: ✰✰✰ Ghost Cat: yes✰
Blue slow-moving platforms on a black backdrop. On the right side, there are several teleporting holes and the exit, which is also teleporting in a 3x3 area. The BGM for this level has the dialog "No musical instruments were harmed during the recording of this piece... Give me some candy NOW! Kill the vam-pi-re... kill the vam-pi-re...".
Get on board the north moving platforms as soon as you can, and ride it to the center until it connects with the east moving platforms. Cross to the bottom-right area, then across the next east platform to the upper-right quadrant. If you moved quickly, the holes and exit in this area should be in the configuration:
▢▢▢ ■▢■ ▢◲▢
where ▢ is empty, ■ is a hole, and ◲ is the exit. The teleports happen in a predictable pattern, so just slide into the exit as soon as it is in this configuration.
Laser Scanner
Difficulty: ✰✰✰✰ Speed: ✰✰✰ Ghost Cat: yes
This level consists of a pink pathway raised above a lake of cyan static with cat heads bobbing up and down out of it. A laser beam with two gaps cross from the left to right side of the level.
First, just try to get to the right side of the level quickly while avoiding the walls and laser as much as possible. It is difficult, but possible to stay ahead of the laser the whole time. Position yourself in the upper gap of the laser. As the laser goes by you, do a zig-zagging slide to the exit before the next laser approaches.
Mayan Basketball
Difficulty: ✰✰✰✰✰ Speed: ✰✰✰✰ or ✰✰✰✰✰ Ghost Cat: no
This level features bullets bouncing up from the bottom of the screen across the level in a wave-like pattern. The background has a big, shaking orange cat. The BGM contains a bunch of excited hooping and hollering like some kind of sacrificial ritual is going on.
It is possible, but very risky to superslide this level. If you're not feeling brave enough for that, watch for gaps far ahead in the bouncing bullets and try to move quickly to get to those gaps as you approach the exit. Once you get past the bottom-right corner, you can fairly reliably slide to the end.
Noah
Difficulty: ✰✰✰ Speed: ✰✰✰ Ghost Cat: yes✰
This level features a derpy orange cat with a spinning pyramid shooting squares of light that rain down the left and right sides of the level. The BGM of this level contains the dialog "Noah... Show me your faith... build me a ship! Son of a bitch! Caaandyyyy...".
This level mostly just requires swift movement while avoiding the square light bullets. On the right side of the level, it is possible to skip past some squares in the zig-zagging corridor. At the final stretch, just slide to the exit once the squares are out of the way.
Pearly Whites
Difficulty: ✰✰✰ Speed: ✰✰✰ Ghost Cat: yes
Pearl-white platforms above a pit of massive, rapidly chomping teeth. A giant laser bisects the level horizontally in the center.
If you start with a bad cycle with the first two moving platforms, use death abuse to advance the cycles so that they are approaching more closely to the starting platform. Board them, and cross over to the platforms going over the laser until you reach the bottom area of the level. If you death-abused earlier and Ghost Cat is there, just use him to exit the level. Otherwise, slide to brute-force your way past the teleporting blocks and get to the exit. This slide is tricky and may take a few tries. If you fail and Ghost Cat appears, just take his offer to exit the level. Only use Ghost Cat if you have too much trouble doing the slide.
Pinwheels
Difficulty: ✰✰ Speed: ✰✰✰ Ghost Cat: yes
A gauntlet of overlapping spinning blocks resembling pinwheels. A humanoid figure on the right side spins around while in a crouched position, as though in deep thought.
On the last big pinwheel, it is possible to save some time by going clockwise around it. This can be done when the corners of the overlapping blocks are all in the same position, giving you a very brief chance to slip through.
Purple Rave
Difficulty: ✰✰✰ Speed: ✰✰✰✰ Ghost Cat: yes
A purple level with constricting vertical halls and techno music. Two faceless cats are on the left and right sides of the level.
In the middle section, you can skip two walls at a time to go a bit faster. Otherwise, just move quickly through the halls, but not so quickly that you go too far ahead and get squished.
Red Death
Difficulty: ✰✰✰✰ Speed: ✰✰✰ Ghost Cat: yes
A dark hallway of red static with dark blue brick walls. There are multiple gaunlets of cannons shooting red bullets. The way to the upper part of the level is blocked by a gate that is opened with a timer switch.
This is casually one of the hardest non-Hell levels in the PC version of the game. On the mobile version here, there are fewer, but larger bullets to deal with, and the bullets in the hall just past the gate are slower.
It is feasible to get past the gate without opening it all the way since there are so fewer bullets in the lower hall. Once you get past the cannon in the hall just past the gate, slide to the exit when the upper hall is clear of bullets.
Searchlight
Difficulty: ✰✰ Speed: ✰✰✰ Ghost Cat: no
A searchlight tries to look for PUSS while you must hit switches to extend bridges. If PUSS enters the searchlight's area, it'll lock onto him and start shooting bullets. After crossing the final bridge, the level glitches out and the searchlight starts spewing bullets in all directions.
If you get caught in the spotlight, you escape by moving really fast. Don't worry about getting caught in it though. Just go for the switches as fast as possible, even if the searchlight is in the way. It takes some time for the bridges to extend, so it may actually be helpful to use death abuse (possibly using the searchlight for that since bullets kill you immediately) to advance the frames for the bridges. Once the final bridge is extended, slide into the exit.
Stretched Lake
Difficulty: ✰✰ Speed: ✰✰✰✰ Ghost Cat: no
An aquamarine path over a blue lake. The center part of this level stretches in a low-resolution kind of way.
On a good starting cycle, the middle will almost be fully stretched. Cross along the bottom to the other side. Wait for it to start recompressing. Slide to the exit when the exit and the path to its right are very stretched out.
Swim Practice
Difficulty: ✰✰✰ Speed: ✰✰✰✰ Ghost Cat: yes
A blue level shaped like a backwards C with mint-green tiled walls. In the middle-left, there is a solid-colored humanoid figure that looks like it's swimming.
No special strats. Just go fast.
Tiger Freebie
Difficulty: ✰ Speed: ✰✰✰✰✰ Ghost Cat: no
A horizontal hallway with squishing walls. A tiger rests on a lounge chair ontop of the hallway. To either side of the level there are headless female mannequins in the background, censored by the level itself. The left side of the hall has the word "cmd". The right side of the hall has the word "ctrl".
95% of the time, the way to the exit will be clear as soon as the level starts. Just superslide right in! This level is practically free!
Werewolf Maze
Difficulty: ✰✰ Speed: ✰✰✰✰ Ghost Cat: no
A spinning maze with a spooky BGM featuring howling wolves.
If you get trapped in the left or top corners, death abuse to try to either advance frames or get to a better spawn point.
Super Red Hot Jackpot Lucky 777
The pre-boss corridor is fairly straightforward. With some careful movement, you can get to the switch at the end quickly.
This boss is very RNG heavy, but in the mobile version of this game, you can typically take each cherub out in the first and second phases with just one round of POWs. You can chew through them even faster if you death abuse to skip frames. As soon as you collect enough POWs to activate Wild Mode, hit the switch to start rerolling the slots, since POWs will stop falling once a cherub is defeated. Defeat one of the Cherubs and repeat. On the final phase, once you've collected enough POWs for Wild Mode, death abuse while in Wild Mode to advance frames while you're damaging the boss and you'll chew through its health in no time!
