Hey everyone. I've noticed several people getting into 1P4C runs lately, and I just wanted to make one large guide on how each board gets played and how to go about playing minigames. This run is more than just spamming A on your dice and praying. I will be going over the basics among all boards and the strategies on each individual boards that I go through myself.

The Basics

There are several things to note that are good to know across every board. (I will add to this list as more thoughts come to mind) 1: VS minigames, duel minigames are all wastes of time. Using items to avoid these will not kill your runs.

2: Separating characters to avoid duels is a good thing, but it's tough to do so

3: Tying 4 player minigames (where everyone gets 4th, not 1st) prevents giving coins to anyone and doesn't make you watch a placement cutscene at the end of the turn (Aka: big time save to tie with 0 points)

4: At shops, I would personally recommend either buying a mushroom, cursed dice, custom dice, or nothing at all if you need to take a risky time save. I almost always buy a custom dice dedicated to avoiding VS or duel minigames.

5: On the last turn, if you have a custom dice and rolling a 1 gives you a non-problematic space, just do it. There's no point in not using a custom dice on your last turn...

6: Always say no to stars

7: If you can force a 1v3 minigame, do so. The slowest 1v3s are the coin minigames which are all 30 seconds. If someone can land on red while the others land on blue, do it. (Another good custom dice use)

8: Know your maps. It really helps knowing that a VS minigame is X spaces away from this spot whenever you use a custom dice, or knowing a bowser space is 7 away from the eyeball on Horror Land, so you'll want to say Yes to avoid landing on it.

Space Land You'll typically want to start on this board as it has the most amount of VS spaces, a lot of item minigames, and tons of problematic happening spaces that'll cause you to reset the board. With this being the first board, you'll want to keep trying until you can manage a 19-24 min board.

At the first junction, you'll want to try and separate the characters from each other to avoid duels later on. However, do not go to the middle too often as you don't want to trigger Bowser's laser. If you have 4 at this junction, BE CAREFUL NOT TO SPAM. Your choices are Bowser and VS Minigame, and you always take the Bowser in this situation and just hope for no Bowser Minigame.

The shop will offer you custom dice for the first 5 turns, then will stop selling it afterwards. During last 5 turns, spam no to the shop as none of the items will help you, but if you get there beforehand, try to stock up on customs.

Avoid the route with Boo if you can. There's a Bowser Space, multiple item minigames, a VS space, and you can't say no to the Boo so you have to watch the cutscene.

Peach's Birthday Cake This board is just a straight line where the first 5 turns, you just spam your dice and hope for low rolls, but the last 5 turns is where it gets scary...

Any time you land on an event, be ready to say "no" to avoid wasting time.

At the shop, BUY A CUSTOM DICE. It is crucial to use custom dice on this board to avoid the VS spaces and duel minigames at all cost. Sure, you could just disagree me and just spam your dice and get lucky, but trust me, you'll feel better off controlling your rolls here as duel minigames are VERY likely here.

Yoshi's Tropical Island So I play between 2 strategies here: 1: Separate Characters 2: Keep them all on the left side

Sending characters to the right side of the map is a bit of a scare. There's the boo, the VS space, item minigame space, Bowser space all crunched up next to each other. All of these with the fact that there's no shop, so you're just relying on your dice rolls here. The only reason you should send someone to the right side of the map is to avoid Duel Minigames or landing on Bowser.

Buy custom dice here. The board is small, you don't want to deal with duels or VS minigames as usual, and you can farm 1v3s here pretty well with customs.

Woody Woods Here's where the run becomes more about knowing how to play the board than relying on your dice rolls (same goes for Horror Land).

At the beginning of the game, you WANT to stay in that loop at the very beginning UNLESS taking it causes you to land on an item minigame. When you are forced to go left, buy a custom from the shop. Customs here are more used for forcing 1v3s than avoiding duels and VS minigames, as you only have 1 VS space (if played right) to deal with, and if all goes right, the characters should be separated anyways.

If you're forced to the left side of the map, always go down at the junction. It prevents you from landing on any VS or Bowser spaces as well as passing Boo. Do not buy anything at the bottom map shop as it's not worth it.

If you're forced to the right side of the map, there's really not much strategy here other than to pray. If you have a custom and you're forced to the top from there, then save it to avoid the VS space. Buy another one at the shop at the top of the map as well.

Horror Land This board should be the most calming one as you can completely avoid playing any VS minigames.

Use the loop at the beginning to separate characters. Keep 2 at the beginning, send 2 off on their own path. Also use this loop to force a red space if possible.

However, besides in the loop at the beginning, whenever you have a choice path, NEVER go right. If you keep going left, you are GUARANTEED to avoid every VS minigame space.

NEVER use skeleton keys or pay the Whomps either as you don't want to go on the path with the boos.

At the shops for the first 5 turns, just don't buy anything. Customs become available in the shop during the last 5 turns, and you want to buy them to avoid duel minigames and, more importantly, force 1v3 minigames.

The Minigames Now comes the part that'll make or break most of your runs: the minigames you get. You almost ALWAYS want 1v3s, as mentioned above, but NEVER want 2v2s. 2v2 minigames typically require you to do 2 things are once, which is never good for a 1 player run. Your goal in 4 player and 2v2 minigames is to tie WITH 0 POINTS. As mentioned above, tying with 0 points in 4 player minigames saves you roughly 5-10 seconds per turn as you don't have to watch a position labeling cutscene once the minigame ends. Tying in a 2v2 is not as important since everyone get 5 coins still, but it guarantees that no one will change positions.

4 Player Minigames Mushroom Mix-Up: There are 2 plans here 1: Everyone run off 2: Everyone stand on a bad mushroom and wait. I stick with option 2 here as it guarantees a 4th place tie and makes the results screen not long at all.

Bombs Away: Everyone run off

Shy Guy Says: Everyone do nothing

Crazy Cutters: This one is weird. What you want to do is end the minigame as soon as possible, and the best way to do so is to input up and then immediately try to go back down to your starting point so the character stops cutting.

Tipsy Tourney: Stand still and accept that you have to wait 30 seconds for a tie. Even if you could beat all of these prior to 30 seconds, you'd much rather just take the tie so you don't have to watch the player results cutscene.

Hammer Drop: Everyone run off the map

Cast Aways: Do nothing. This minigame sucks.

Dizzy Dancing: Do nothing.

Bumper Balls: Everyone run off

Hot Jump Rope: Put the controller down

Tread Carefully: This is a do-it-yourself type of minigame. You could try aligning 2 characters to knock out 2 others and knock out one of the two remaining characters. I'm not very good at this one personally, but it should take you roughly 15-20 seconds to finish this minigame.

Bumper Balloon Cars: Pick a random character to destroy the other characters.

Sneak 'n' Snore: Hold down on all 4 controllers.

Mecha Marathon: Put the controller down

Slot-Car Derby: Whichever character is closest to the center, play on that character. By passing the other characters, you knock them off the track, so you only have to play this once.

Bowser's Big Blast: Your run is dead... but just pray that it might not be.

Roll Call: Everyone needs to be at 0, otherwise it won't be a tie.

Honeycomb Havoc: Bad minigame... if there are an odd number of fruits, spam 2. But if you have an even number, spam A until it is an odd amount.

Mario's Puzzle Party: Pick a character to mash up on.

Snowball Summit: Everyone run off.

Ice-Rink Risk: Run into the spiny shell

Bounce 'n' Trounce: Everyone run off.

Storm Chasers: This one is really hard to tie, but just go to the edge of the screen with your plant facing the fence and hope the cloud doesn't hit you.

Mush Pit: Put everyone in the center, pick a character to win.

Cheep Cheep Chase: Put the controller down

Chip Shot Challenge: On all characters, hit the ball off the course to force the 4th place tie.

Rockin' Raceway: The absolute worst minigame. I would just quit out of the run and reset if you get this. If you decide to keep going, then take 2 controllers and try to play on both of them, then finish on a 3rd.

Messy Memory: So this is NOT a put the controller down type of minigame. You want to get 0 points on each character, and the game gives you 3 items by default. So simply move those 3 items on each character to get the 0 point tie.

Parasol Plummet: Take a nice stretch break.

Trace Race: Hold down and right on all 4 controllers. This is hard to do, but if done right, you finish the minigame quicker and everyone gets 0%.

Booksquirm: Make sure everyone gets squished instantly.

Paths of Peril: Accept this is a 60 second minigame and just sit still, unless you firmly believe you can beat this 3 times, but press X to doubt.

Dinger Derby: Put the controller down.

Leaf Leap: Put the controller down.

Pushy Penguins: Hold up on all 4 controllers

Coney Island: put all 4 characters in the corners so you don't scoop any ice cream

Bill Blasters: ............................I don't even know how to do this one myself. Just get lucky, I guess.

Night Light Fright: Spam A on all 4 controllers. Waiting for the 4th place tie is not worth the save.

Later Skater: You need to finish this minigame on 3 characters. Best bet is to do 2 at a time, but if you can do 3, then go for it.

Catch You Letter: Try to put every character in a corner to avoid accidentally giving Shy Guy a letter. If you stand still, Shy Guy runs into one character and collects their letter.

Trap Ease Artist: Spam A on all controllers.

What Goes Up: Put the controller down.

Snow Whirled: Put the controller down.

X-Ray Pay Day: Put the controller down.

Monty's Revenge: Put the controller down.

The Final Countdown: You could either have everyone run off, or have everyone stand on a panel that's about to fall for the 4th place tie.

Pokey Pummel: 3 characters have to finish, so mash A as fast as you can with your dominant hand while working on it as best as you can on another controller, then do the 3rd one on your dominant hand.

Manor of Escape: 3 characters have to finish, so try to use 2 at a time to find the correct path, then finish on a 3rd character. This one is a little tricky and annoying to do, so practice it if you need to.

Goomba Spotting: Take a nice stretch break

Flash Forward: Put the controller down.

Rapid River Race: This is probably the 2nd worst minigame you could get behind Rockin' Raceway... Your best bet is to just try on 3 different characters at a time since 3 of you have to finish.

1v3 Minigames Piranha's Pursuit: The 1 puts down the controller. 1 of the 3 mashes A.

Tug o' War: Pick a controller and rotate.

Archer-ival: The 1 owns the 3.

Look Away: Put the controller down.

Quicksand Cache: Take a nice stretch break.

Tidal Toss: Do 1 big wave.

Boulder Ball: Hold up on any of the 3.

Coconut Conk: Whoever is in the middle, mash A.

Spotlight Swim: Have the 1 move down to the red light while moving the blue and green towards the center.

Hide and Sneak: Put the controller down.

River Raiders: Take a nice stretch break.

GOOOOOOOAL!!: Move the 1 to the far left/right, mash A on the 3.

Money Belts: Put the controller down and pray nobody picks up any coins.

Squared Away: Hold down on the 1 and whoever is in the bottom left corner, time pushing up correctly so this minigame ends when the timer is at 29 seconds.

Tube it or Lose it: Hold A on the 1, scrunch the 3 together.

Pogo-A-Go-Go: Hold L or R on the 1 until everyone falls off. I find this more productive than having the 3 run off.

Tackle Takedown: Center player tackles the 1

Skewer Scurry: Have the 1 hold either left or right. It works every time.

2v2 Minigames Bobsled Run: Mash A on ALL controllers. Then focus on one team. You do NOT want to hug the wall as that slows you down, but you want to try to force both teams to fall off for the tie. Once one team falls off, focus on the other to fall off.

Handcar Havoc: Mash A and hold left on both controllers for one team. Repeat for the other team.

Dungeon Dash: Tough, but can be done fast if you time left/right fast for one team.

Speed Hockey: Push everyone up and then just pray it ends.

Balloon Burst: Pick a team to win.

Cake Factory: Take a nice stretch break.

Sky Pilots: This requires the job of a skilled multitasker. You want to be spamming up and down for whoever is controlling speed while steering with the other controller. Doable, but definitely should practice.

Etch 'n' Catch: You can try to get 5, but I doubt you will, so just stand still for the tie.

Picking Panic: Take a nice stretch break.

Eatsa Pizza: Take a nice stretch break.

Puddle Paddle: Take a nice stretch break.

Dungeon Duos: I typically quit out of the run whenever this comes up, but if you don't, just do your best to coordinate with yourself on each of the challenges. I can't really give much advice other than that... this one is a run killer.

Revers-a-Bomb: Pick one team to win. Done correctly, this minigame ends with 18 seconds left on the timer.

Burnstile: Run off the map.

Rocky Road: Try to make it so you can punch rocks on both players. Don't try to kick as it does not save time in this game like it does in Mario Party 6. With practice, this minigame is doable, but it'll always be slow.

Cashapult: Take a nice stretch break.

Paint Misbehavin': Take a nice stretch break.

Winner or Dinner: Take a nice stretch break.

Etc. Minigames These are all the minigames you should avoid (Duel, Item, Bowser), but try to end them all as quick as possible. With item minigames, if a custom dice is an option, try your best to get them.

Anything that I left out of the guide, feel free to ask me.