Five Excellent Tips with Which to Master Adult Swim's Robot Unicorn Attack

Robot Unicorn Attack is an online flash game dreamt up, evidently, by the folks at Cartoon Network's primetime tag-team, Adult Swim. So what happens when the cultural revolutionaries behind such fare as Aqua Teen Huger Force and Squidbillies apply their unique talent to video games?

Pure magic, my friends. Here are five simple suggestions to keep your robot unicorn trotting for hours.

1. Keep your eye on the pony.

When you first play Robot Unicorn Attack, your primary instinct may be to scan ahead for danger such as insurmountable gaps or looming titanium stars. But keep your eye squarely on your pony. Any obstacle your unicorn meets will be detected easily by your periphery. By staring at your horse, your focus remains sharp eliminating any sudden distractions.

When starting out at a relatively slow trot, you may ask yourself how much focus do you really need. Trust me, the pace gets going. By the time you're whipping across narrow surfaces with star after consecutive star looming ahead, the slightest eye shift could prove deadly.

So stare at your pony. You can marvel at his opulent rainbow main.

2. Have faith in a soft landing.

Sometimes your pony leaps so high that you can't see what's below. The logical player tendency is to keep jumping and dashing until ground appears. But this exacerbates the problem and usually results in crashing into something headlong.

When the ground disappears don't worry because, once airborne, no gap is too large to cross with two jumps and a dash. Most of the time this three-stroke maneuver will land you well on the left end of a surface which will give you plenty of time to spot an impending star which are always in the middle or to the far right. The only time two jumps and a dash won't cross a gap is when you are moving to a higher elevation. In this case you simply need to add one more jump to the jump-jump-dash combo.

One other thing about landings is that you can't dash through a star when falling at an angle. This results in your unicorn's demise. The best thing to do when falling toward a star is to fly over it.

3. You can blast through star stumps.

One thing that will throw a player off as the pony picks up speed are the little plateaus in the pathway. If empty, it's easy enough to trot right over them. But if one has a star sitting upon it, players tend to want to jump and then dash. This will work well enough, but sometimes your pony is moving at such a high velocity that you dash a split second too late, resulting in an explosion followed by the image of your unicorn's decapitated, tear-streaked head.

However, when you're galloping along at breakneck speeds, merely dash directly into the plateau and you'll still burst through the star. For some reason this works, even though death occurs when you inadvertently dash into an empty stump.

4. Resist the urge to dance.

What is that hauntingly beautiful song which accompanies your gallivanting pony? Why it's "Always" by Erasure. The 1994 sythpop hit provides the perfect emotional fuel with which to endlessly blast your way through obstacle after obstacle. Who doesn't get a chill when the chorus kicks in right at the moment of maximum velocity all the while chirping dolphins nip at your hooves?

But don't get up and dance when this happens, because your pony will suffer a horrible fate within the next three seconds. His tears and sparking severed circuitry will be on your conscience and I'll guarantee you won't be able to live with yourself.

5. Tap into your inner "mo".

There's no getting around it. Robot Unicorn Attack is plain flaming. So naturally, any video game that explodes with sparkles and rainbows demands embracing one's most fey inner qualities. To do that, you must get into a "mo" zone. Watch the Wizard of Oz. Put on some show tunes. If it helps, maybe throw on a midriff or a boa. Then witness your scores triple.

Use these simple tips and your Robot Unicorn Attack scores should improve dramatically. But remember, a fiery death awaits you. Always.

If you found Mark Albracht's Robot Unicorn "How To" tips useful, be sure to check out his well-worn wisdom on other topics:

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