Pointman - is one of 5 playable puzzle characters, provided in all modes: casual, pro and elite. All pointmans have 3x7 board size. Pointman can do it's best only up to about 250 traffic.

Key player skills, requires by the character for good results: fast thinking, accuracy, good memory, fast hands and quite high mouse clicking speed (at least 3 times per second).

And before we start, a few more words about advantages and disadvantages.

• All pointmans have the ability to store any objects on track in his own stack[en.wikipedia.org]. The stack capacity is different for casual (1 cell), pro (3 cells) and elite (4 cells) modes. You can push an object into the storage via holding LMB. To release the last stacked object, click RMB;
  
• Doesn't requires a high skill level, one of the best choices for your first puzzle character;
  
• Easy to make quite big single color clusters;
  
• Gives you absolute control on all objects on track;
  
• Have no equals at most low traffic songs.

• Theoretically, the weakest puzzle character;
  
• All pointmans have the smallest board size among all puzzle characters;
  
• All pointmans doesn't have any cluster bonus (erasers and pushers have Clean Match bonus; double-visions have Crossover Bonus);
  
• Sometimes it's quite difficult to get Macth 21 bonus and you always have to keep in mind did you achieved it or not.

A block can be in one of 4 states: spawned, picked, stored, placed. By default, all blocks are in spawned state (watch the image right).
If player hit block, the game do logic check:

1. if at the hit moment LMB was pressed and there is at least 1 free cell in the stack, the game will set the block state to stored and will push it to the stack. Once the block been released from the stack, the game will set the block state to picked;
   
2. in any other case - the game will assign to the block picked state.

The final block state (for pointman) is placed. Once a block has been switched to picked state the game hide it and starting to play short block falling animation (drop time, which is ~0.4 secs). Once the drop time elapsed, the game put the block at first free cell on board and set placed state for the block. If there is no free cell but player have active cluster, the game force finish the cluster before put the block on board.


Remember the states. It's really important to understand how it works.


There are 4 types of powerups: storm, paint, sort and multiplier. As and blocks, powerups have the same states but with one difference - there are no drop time between picked and placed states.

Pay attention: before to collect a powerup, make sure your stack is empty. Very often you have to store a powerup for a quite long time, so if you'll push it to the last free stack cell, the powerup will block your stack until you don't release it. Always avoid this mistake, otherwise the chance a powerup will be wasted is really high (you can push a powerup into not an empty stack though, but you really must know what you do).

This is the most important game mechanic and the base of all good scores. It allows you to get more points for consecutive clusters.
The chain is accumulative bonus. In summary you can accumulate it up to 100 times. The chain accumulates each time you finish up a cluster (look at the image at the right).












When you start the ride the chain bonus is on step 1. Once you finish up a cluster, you'll notice the small white strip at the bottom (just above the song title):

But as you can see the white strip shrinks and disappears quite fast. Once the strip started to shrink you'll drop the chain (fully for casual and elite modes and about 1/10 of your current step for pro mode) and lose the accumulated bonus.
It happens if you don't pick up an object (block, powerup) fast enough. How fast is depended of difficult mode: casual and pro is 0.4 secs, elite is 0.8 secs:
tip: as you can see, the cluster lifetime is equal to the chain lifetime.

The game also reset the chain and cluster timers every time once an on-road object state has been switched to picked or stored state:

Also, as long as you have an active cluster (a cluster where at least 3 blocks have a match) you'll not drop the chain.

If you dropped the chain you'll be able to accumulate it again.

You should always do your best to hold it. But if you understand that you can't hold it at some part of a track - it's OKAY. In most cases, it's impossible to hold the chain the whole ride. But If you dropped it at the point where you been able to hold it you can forget about best score (and the best decision in this situation is to restart the ride).


When you start the ride or drop the chain, it's very important to accumulate the bonus fast. Probably the first thought in your mind in of collecting 3 matched blocks and wait until clusters finished, but there is the way to accumulate the chain effectivity.

First of all you need to learn a track a little bit: you need to determine the colors of most numerous blocks at the beginning. Once you determine them, you need to collect any 4 unmatched blocks on the any side of your board (but not at the middle!).
Now it's ready, and all you need is to collect blocks on the construction column. It allows you to create the smallest matches maximally fast:
As you can see with this strategy I accumulated chain 10 times (vs. 6) and did it almost on 2 seconds faster.

Also, I recommend you to keep in mind 3 advices:

1. Always try to use as less colors for the contsruction as it possible (ideally 2 colors - yellow and red). Never use more 3 colors;
   
2. Always give preference yellow and red colors as the construction colors: by this way you'll save them for further clusters;
   
3. Always do your best to avoid of using whites in the construction.

Btw, you can modify the construction during accumulating the chain (for example, to replace 2 greens on top with 2 yellows).


There is a bug that can force the game to drop chain even if you've collected an object:
I don't really understand the source of this bug, but I know exactly 2 obligatory conditions when it happens:

1. You need to force finish a cluster while there is at least 1 block in picked state;
   
2. 2 of 3 columns should be almost full (5+ unmatched blocks in each) before and after you finish up a cluster.

The simplest way to avoid it if you have too many unmatched blocks is to force clean matches only and only then, when there are no any block in picked state:
The highest chance to encouter this bug when you accumulate your chain using the strategy above.


Sometimes it's impossible to hold the chain even with pointman abillity to store objects. But you understand: it's would be possible If pointman been able to store 6 objects.

Probably, gravity match - is exactly what do you need.

Gravity Macth - set of particularly placed blocks on your board which creating clusters one after another. Usually it's a 2-3 clusters consisting of 3 blocks:

Gravity matches can be any shape and size, but the most effective gravity matches system where each cluster consisting of 3 blocks.

WARNING: gravity matches works in elite mode only! Pro and casual modes requires to place an object (block, powerup) on board right after a cluster has finished!


The sync bonus allows you to get more points for each cluster composed of 2+ colors.
This bonus is closely related to chain bonus: the more chain bonus the less sync bonus (look at the image below).

It doesn't matter how many cluster color counts (2, 3 or 5), the bonus boost always will be the same on the current chain step.

Basically 3 additional blocks of the same color gives you more points than the same cluster with sync bonus. For example, 18 reds with sync in elite mode gives you 11,120 pts. But 21 reds without sync in elite mode gives you 13,095 pts.
By concluding that you might think sync bonus is not effective. But you'll be wrong.

The first reason in it quite difficult to fill the whole board by 1 color; in most cases there are always free cells that you can use for sync bonus.
The second reason in the sync bonus is "long-term" perspective. By creating cluster with 18 reds + sync you'll save remained 3 reds for the next cluster; by creating the next cluster with 18 reds + sync you'll save 3 more reds and so on:


By concluding from the table data, by creating 18 reds + sync clusters we will get the following bonuses after 7 clusters:

1. 13292,25 more points;
   
2. 3 more reds;
   
3. 1 additional chain step.

There are 2 types of score: raw and final.

Raw is the points scored during the ride.
Final is the score you see in a leaderboard. Once your ride is finished, the game checks your score's stats to determine the afterride bonuses you have achieved. To calculate the final score the game has to apply the afterride bonuses to your raw score.

There are 7 afterride bonuses in game, but as a pointman player you always have to achieve the bonuses in table on the right.

• Clean Finish. The most important afterride bonus.
  To achieve it you have to finish the ride without any unmatched blocks in placed state (that also means you shouldn't have any gravity matches or white blocks on you board when the ride came to an end).
  Good practice in to remember where the last 3 blocks of each color were spawned. If you have this information, the chance you will miss Clean Finish tends to zero (also it prevents you from unnecessary blocks or powerups skips);
  
• Match. There are 3 types of the match bonus: match 7, match 11 and match 21. Accordingly, to achieve match 7 you have to complete at least 1 cluster composed of 7 matched blocks any color(-s), and so on.
  It's easy to achieve the match 7 or the match 11 bonus, but we need the most difficult one: the match 21 bonus.
  To achieve the match 21 bonus you need to create at least 1 cluster where the whole board (because of how we know from the beginning, all pointmans have 3x7 board size) is filled with only matched blocks.
  The best way to achieve the bonus in to use paint when your board is full. On elite you have to learn the track to know the places where you can collect 21 matched blocks.
  
• Seeing Red and Butter Ninja. Similar bonuses. To achieve them you need to collect 95%+ of red and yellow blocks accordingly. You always should do your best to achieve both bonuses.
  I've heard so many times the statements like: "Why do I need those bonuses? It's only 10%".
  The truth in, it's not about 10% only. Since red and yellow - the most valuable colors, the more of them you collect, the more raw points you will have (for example, 40 purle blocks are equivalent to 5 red blocks or to 8 yellow blocks). And, beside, 10% is really much. Trust me (you can read this[jamesclear.com] article about 1% rule. I hope after reading the article you'll realize why not that 10%, but even 1% is really important).

Summary, you will get +56% boost. For example, if you finished up your ride with 100K raw pts, the final score will be 156K.


Although Ironmode is not an afterride bonus (since it have no boost), it may have insane impact on your result.
The reason is, Audiosurf use 2 different algorithmes for traffic generation: one when Ironmode is on, and the other one when Ironmode is off.
Sometimes Audiosurf can spawn a way more red blocks when Ironmode is off:
The only difference between stats in Ironmode. The same track, the same mode. But without Ironmode Audiosurf used another traffic generation algorithm. That's why TrebleBass have 147! 147 more reds! This is just insane difference.

Another example:
The same situation.

But don't hurry to swith Ironmode off. The songs, where Audiosurf can generate more reds if Ironmode is off, are very rare (and in 90% cases it's .flac files). So, if you have some .flac songs, you can try to disable Ironmode, but don't forget to switch it back on: normally Ironmode generate more blocks, what means higher potential score.

First of all, complete the tutorial



Pointman require fast hands. So you need to train your aim (I think everyone know what is it but still - the ability to move mouse fast and accurately).

You can use the aim trainer[drive.google.com], created by me. This is probably the best way to improve your aim.
WARNING: the song is quite mind-drilling, so lower up the sound volume before play it. Seriously.

Once you'll be able to stealth at least a 300 traffic 3-minute song 2 times in a row using mono ninja, you'll be ready to the next stage.


Now the most important part. A people can use a certain % of the brain for the consciously actions. The remains % usings for unconscious actions like processing auditory and visiual information or coordination of movements.
The amount of the consciolusly acitons people can do per second are very limited. If you will try to process more things that your brain can handle, most likely, your brain "hangs" for 1-2 seconds.
That's why it's really important to force brain to do unconsciously as many template actions as it even possible:

• Learn to filter blocks. You don't need to analyze too many colors: 2-3 primary (usually red and yellow + green) colors and an opportunity for the sync bonus, for example, 3 additional not primary color blocks;
  
• You shouldn't consciously think where you need to move your ship. You should see the target (an object you need to collect) and obstacles (objects you need to dodge). All other job should be done unconsciously;
  
• Since pointmans have no match bonus, you need to unconsciously collect as many white blocks as you can;
  
• Unconsciously use the priming starategy.

Priming - overlapping one group of blocks (prime) by another group of blocks (active). Active group should have as many matches as it possible (perfectly - the whole group + sync bonus), prime group should have as less matches as it possible (perfectly - no matches at all):

The more your prime group, the better.

I foresee your potential question: "Does the priming strategy is really more efficient?"
Yes. The video below clearly demonstrates it.
In general, priming strategy have a way higher score potential, but requires more skill. Since my mission is to help you to become really good pointman player, you should use priming strategy.

Default (and the best) priming layout is P2xA1xP2.
You need to put 2 prime blocks on the both sides, overlap it with 1 block of active group and put 2 more blocks of prime group. The middle column is used as a "fuse" to release prime group once it will be big enough:

tip: you can accumulate prime blocks and storms in the stack to maximize your prime group. But always keep the last cell in the stack free.

The rest of board is used to get sync bonus and to add to cluster as many active group blocks as it possible. However, you can also maximize prime group. All you need is to overlap a side again and to put 1 more prime block on the overlapped column:


Before the prime group will be released, you need to decide which color you will use for the next prime group. Once your active cluster has finished, your prime group become active group. Release all active group blocks from the stack, add 3 blocks of different color for sync bonus, and collect as many active group blocks as it possible (don't forget about white blocks!). Don't forget to push to the stack all blocks from the new prime group while you collect active group blocks. If the stack is almost filled, release 1-2 prime blocks at any side (you can watch the video above where I compared standard and prime strategies).
Once the cluster is finished, you need to repeat priming starategy with new (or old) set of colors.

That's the strategy. Using it, I strongly recommend you to keep in mind 5 rules:

1. Do your best to avoid of using white blocks to overlap prime group;
   
2. Always keep middle row clean for white blocks;
   
3. Do your best to avoid of using red and yellow colors to get the sync bonus;
   
4. Prime group should consist of at least 6 blocks;
   
5. Be extremely carefull with storms. It's better to skip it if the stack is full and your active group have no matches.

Previous stages describes some "general" aspects that works in any ride. But there is a something that you need to do for each track you load to reach the highest possible result: develop a strategy. Well-developed strategy let you to get any throne even if your version is worse and with significantly less amount of powerups.

The key here is the traffic distribution. Although pointman is really resistant to bad traffic distribution (unlike eraser or, by the god, DV), your strategy for a track should be based on traffic distribution.

First of all, append "[as-wb0]" text to the track name in tags (not to file name). It forced the game to disable white blocks for this track.
Play it and record your ride (even if it was the worse ride ever).
Once the ride is finished, you'll get the source for strategy developmen (the video you recorded).

When you will develop your starategy, pay attention to the following moments:

1. Color distribution. Split the track on segments based on priority colors. Red and yellow is the top priority;
   
2. Gaps. Pointman elite can hold the chain within 12-14 seconds (with gravity matches and good timings). If a gap is not too long, you need to develop a gravity matches system to hold the chain;
   
3. Optimal ways to place blocks on your board. Also keep in mind, your target is 95%+ of reds and yellows, not 100%. Sometimes it's more profitable to skip 1-2 red or yellow blocks rather than keep it inside the stack for 1-2 minutes.

Those moments are prime and you have to memorize it for each track where you want to make the best possible for pointman. Yes, you have to remember quite much information. This is the price you have to pay for the best possible result ever.

tip: Analyzing your videos is a good practice in general in any game. By analyzing it, you can focus on video to determine mistakes you made (like too small clusters, ignoring sync bonus, too small prime groups, etc.).

Once you memorized strategy for a track, you need to apply it on practice. It will be quite hard for the first time. Here are 3 advices that will helps you to follow the strategy:

1. Clean up your board from useless blocks right before next segment;
   
2. Always keep in mind best of your abilities. Maximize the amount of blocks and powerups you CAN collect per minute without prejudice to your strategy;
   
3. Powerups is the tool, but not the worker. Use them wisely.

In most indie games, when you looking at a leaderboard, usually the only information you can see are player position, game mode (or its alternative) and final score.
One of the distinguishing features of Audiosurf in quite rich afterride stats.
There are 2 ways to check the stats: through the in-game browser and via Audiosurf website.
To view stats through the game you need to log in first. Once you has logged in, click the "Online Stats" button at the top left corner.

The game will load your Audiosurf profile. Now you need to click "Songs"->"Search Songs" tab and enter your query. Once the game will load the leaderboard you select, hover the mouse cursor at any score for a couple seconds.
tip: if you'll click "Online Stats" button right after you finished up the ride, the game will load the leaderboard page of the song you finished.

To view the stats via Audiosurf website you don't need to create account.
Load the website[www.audio-surf.com] (also, you can save it in the favorites to don't lose the link). Finish the same steps as for in-game browses (except the login part).

Okay, we've founds the stats we need, let's learn more about it.

1. General stats;
   
2. Afterride bonuses. Contains all afterride bonuses achieved by player (but not displayed missed);
   
3. Ride stats. One of the most interesting sections. Scooped blocks/powerups - the amount of blocks/powerups that were pushed in the stack. Other stats are self-explanatory (except skill rating, but we will talk about it later);
   
4. Blocks stats.
   
5. Powerups stats. Displays the amount of used (not scooped) powerups.

tip: Although "Report Cheating" function doesn't work for any scores were posted not by you, you still can report any of your scores to reset it to 2 points.


Skill Rating - is an attempt to create a rating system based on the player skill in the game.

Don't let the formula make you think that skill rating system is really complex.

Mode multiplier: Casual - 100, Pro - 200, Elite - 300.
Gold medal - the value you can see on the song curve screen (the screen where you click "Play") and on pause screen. The game calculates the gold medal score for each track you load. How? Simple:
Gold Medal = total blocks count * 85.

Yeah, this is the formula. The formula doesn't take into account block color, block spawn lane, total gap time, character you used, etc. Nothing. Only blocks count.

Just imagine the situation: you compete with your friend. You have similar songs, but yours is 320 kbps and your friends is 256 kbps.
You have the same blocks count and song length, but your friend have 30% less purple, but 30% more reds, and twice less total gap time (so he will be able to hold the chain at the track point where you can't). As the cherry on top, he have a way more comfortable traffic distribution.
How do you think, Is it fair, if the same score gives both of you the same skill rating? I don't think so. But that's the way it will be.

Btw, if you know math good enough, you can calc any value from the formula.
For example, the score required for 3000 skill rating in pro mode with 22100 gold medal pts is:
22100 * 3000 / 200 = 331500.

Although the rating system is broken, it's still the only way to understand how good are your skills. It's really difficult to split the rating into the groups, but after 6+ years of playing the game I can divide it like so:

I think, I've shared with you everything I know about the game and pointmans. Now you know everything you need to improve your pointman skills. But remember: theory and practice are different things, the guide provides theory only, so you have to push enough efforts in practice to become really good pointman player.
Let's remember the most important things:

• Blocks have 4 states: spawned, stored, picked, placed;
  
• There are 2 the most important bonuses: chain and sync;
  
• Pointman requires Clean Finish, Match 21, Seeing Red and Butter Ninja;
  
• Red, yellow and white are the most important colors for pointmans;
  
• Instead of mixing the most valuable colors, you need to separate it, using the priming strategy.

Also, here is the best (so far) of all my Pointman videos ever:
Here you can see the whole theory of this guide on practice.