Time Trial
Time Trial is a single-player Score Attack game mode where the player has a limited amount of time to score as many points as possible.
Rank achievement
Time trial ranks require a certain amount of score per minute. This amount also changes depending on whether or not the player chooses to play with a mini board, which will reduce the target by 20%, and whether or not turbo mode is enabled, which will increase the target by 20%. The player can additionally select from several different game lengths: 1, 2, 5, or 8 minutes.
| Turbo off | Turbo on | |
|---|---|---|
| Mini off | 20,000 | 24,000 |
| Mini on | 16,000 | 19,200 |
As constructing a single chain worth 20,000 points is possible, 1-minute Time Trial mode is considered the easiest mode in which to collect the Petal: Terror Instinct achievement.
Strategy
Like in other score attack modes, large chains (up to 11-chains) will score the most points, and should be preferred when possible to build. Unlike Turn Trial, this mode allows the player to play quickly to see more petals and thus faster, less-efficient play is not penalized. This means that there are many different ways to get the Grand Master requirement based on a tradeoff of speed and efficiency.
With the standard rules, the absolute minimum number of clears per minute that will allow a Grand Master rank is about 33.3. This follows from the fact that the maximum number of points per clear is 600, which can be achieved if every petal is cleared as part of an 11-chain or larger. From there, a spectrum of possible paths to a Grand Master rank can be constructed:
| Clears per minute | Points per clear | Average chain length |
|---|---|---|
| 40 | 500 | 9-chain |
| 50 | 400 | 7-chain |
| 60 | 333.3 | 5~6-chain |
| 70 | 285.1 | 4~5-chain |
| 80 | 250 | 4-chain |
Note here that "average chain length" is not just the average of the lengths of all of your chains—it is actually the average of the chain length for each petal that was cleared. This means that larger chains (by number of petals) have more of an effect on average chain size than smaller ones. Naturally, longer chains will be larger as well, so they also affect the average chain length more.
As such, the standard strategy for high Time Trial scores is to construct blueprint chains of length 11 or longer around the outside of the board, while also using branching techniques such as Y-split to incorporate petals in the center of the board as well. If the chain is large enough, it may clear so many petals as to leave a relatively clean board behind, at which point this process can be started again immediately. If not, the goal then becomes to perform freestyle chains to clean up checkerboarding and allow future construction of another large chain.
Further development
For even higher scores, a new strategy was formulated by Roonespism and showcased in a former world record. It involves creating relatively compact, bulky 9-chains in the center of the board repeatedly. 9-chains take less time to build than 11-chains, meaning your board does not become as cluttered with spawners and checkerboarding over time, and you can build more of them quickly. In addition, it is simpler to construct chains by bringing materials from the outside of the board in, rather than inside-out as in the standard strategy. 9-chains occasionally link to the outside board on their own and become longer, giving another potential efficiency boost. The result is a relatively high efficiency paired with a much higher clear rate, which has considerably improved the record for this mode.
