Hey there hackers!

Today I'd like to share with you three different tips and tricks in STARHACK, from basic to advanced!

Alignment

First, let me talk about "alignment".  Have you ever found yourself in this situation:

You just need to get those last two pieces to go into place, but no matter what you do they stay stuck diagonally!  This is because the pieces are not aligned properly.  When you're building a line you almost never want two pieces to be diagonally connected- instead, you want them connected orthogonally.  If you run into a situation like this one, offset one of the pieces by rotating it alone, then rotate the whole group together, like so:

Scoring Tiers

When you make a line, you may notice the screens on the sides change briefly.  What you might not know is that what they say is a useful indicator on how much the line you made scores!

There are four things the screens might say:

"Cool Hack": A line of length 10 or less.

"Sick Hack": A line of length 11-20.

"Gnarly Hack": A line of length 21-30.

"Epic Hack": A line of length 31+.

These tiers also contribute to your score.  The first 10 boxes in your line are worth 100 points each, but the value of additional boxes increases once you reach 11- the same is true for 21 and 31.  If you want to break some highscores, then the best way to do that is to focus on the gnarliest and most epic hacks you can.

Kicks

Especially once the board gets less even, you'll often find yourself with annoying boxes touching your lines.  Depending on the position, they can be quite difficult to get rid of- at least without a kick!

A "kick" is when you rotate a box into a position where it will immediately fall back down (up?).  It doesn't sound very useful, but the brief moment it's in the air is enough time to let a hack go through, if you plan it right!

Kicks are quite important, as later in the game you'll often find yourself in this kind of situation.  While it's not impossible to get out of it without the use of a kick, it will save you both time and move count to learn when it's best to kick!