Hey! Sharing my experience with beating Junimo Kart. Video guide is below but I wanted to write everything out if videos aren't your cup of tea. I'm interested to hear if anyone has any other strategies or tips for Junimo Kart! OVERVIEW Junimo Kart is a game playable on the arcade machine in The Stardrop Saloon. The game itself got a complete overhaul with the 1.4 update. It’s initially locked and requires the Skull Key to play. If you beat all six levels of "Progress Mode," you will receive a special gift in the mail the next day. The game itself is pretty simple. It’s a side-scrolling platformer where, as the name suggests, you control a junimo in a kart. You can only control the kart by pressing the jump button and you also have control over how high the kart jumps based on how long you hold the button down which you’ll want to master. I categorize the jumps in order from shortest to longest: the bunny hop, the small jump, the medium jump, and long jump. Obstacles, course layout, and checkpoints are randomly generated. You have 3 lives to start with and completing a level will refill any lost lives up to 3 total. Collecting 100 coins will also give an instant extra life. Each level also has three pieces of fruit: Cherries, Orange, and Grapes in that order. Each is worth 10 coins, and completing a level after having collected all three pieces of fruit grants another extra life. LEVELS Crumble Cavern is straightforward. If you can't completely avoid an obstacle, make sure you land on top of it. This goes for all obstacles except the ghosts on level 4 and the pink mushrooms on the level 5 mushroom level. I like to use a lot of bunny hops on the small gaps and everything else can be cleared using the small and medium jumps. You’ll rarely need to use the long jump for this one. Focus on practicing your timing. The coins are also useful guides for your jumps most of the time. If you jump over a coin, you may be jumping too high or starting your jump from the track too early. I always prioritize collecting all three fruits and then as many coins as i can. If you can make it through the level by collecting all fruits and coins without dying, you’ll go to a bonus level that is easy and filled with coins instead of the Slippery Slopes level. In my experience, not losing any lives and collecting all fruits are more important than getting all the coins. That’s because clearing the first 2 levels with zero deaths gives you a high chance of skipping the level 3 bosses and going directly to level 4. It doesnt always work and i’ve had runs where i died once or twice and still skipped the bosses so it’s not clear how this mechanic works. I end up dying more trying to collect every coin for the bonus level so that’s why i opt for this strategy. Slippery Slopes is the second level. The downward slopes are slippery, and there are a lot of independent upward slopes you'll need to jump between. The extra speed translates into further jumps, which can take some getting used to. Try to avoid landing on multiple slippery slopes one after the other because the speed will build up and the kart will be hard to control. Luckily, landing on regular track after a slippery portion will get your kart back to normal speed quickly. Sometimes i find it easier to just jump over a slippery slope if there is more track to land on before the next jump. There were also times where obstacles would spawn at the very end portion of a track i needed to jump from. In those cases, i try to land directly on the obstacle to break it and then jump immediately afterward. If you land too far ahead on the obstacle, you may not have enough time to jump again. If you land too early, you’ll crash into it so timing is key. Bunny hops can also help knock out obstacles if they’re in your way. I actually find this level to be easier than the first because there are no falling boulders. One unlucky boulder on the first level and you’re either getting crushed or flying off the track. I was lucky on my winning run and got to skip the level 3 bosses but here they are. First is the The Gem Sea Giant. It takes place underwater, causing you to fall slower. In addition, there's a large whale on the right side of the screen that periodically spews bubbles at you, which (like all hazards) are fatal upon impact unless you land on top of them. Collecting coins/fruit can be difficult without jumping off the top of bubbles to reach high-up rails. There’s a lot of lee-way in your jumps because you fall so slowly so i try to focus on navigating between the bubbles and then jumping off of them. When properly timed, this will boost you on to the higher and usually safer platforms. In all honesty, there’s a lot of variability on this boss and i sometimes find myself dying multiple times in a row if i cant find a good pattern. Next is Slomp's Stomp. Each upward slope is sticky, and slows you down. Slowing down is actually a bad thing because Slomp is chasing you—slow down too much, and it will catch up. I complete this level with a lot of long jumps and avoiding the slime as much as i can. When there are upward slopes with slime that you have to land on, i aim for the very end of them and immediately jump off when i hit. This usually retains enough speed so that im not stomped by slomp. I prefer skipping the boss levels altogether when i can but I prefer Slomp’s Stomp over the Gem Sea Giant because it feels more consistent and less volatile. Level 4 is Ghastly Galleon where you move faster so your jumps cover larger gaps and you have less time to react to what's going on. Additionally, there are ghosts, which move in circular patterns and are fatal on contact even when landed on. A lot of the small gaps can be cleared by bunny hops and small jumps. There are also a lot of jumps that require you to full send it. Try to leave the track as late as possible so that you can clear these long gaps. It’s easy to get in a rhythm on this level once you’ve played it enough but you can lose that rhythm very quickly. Try to land before the ghosts when possible so you have an extra move to decide whether you can jump them or go under them. Level 5 has two options and the first option is Glowshroom Grotto. It has pairs of purple giant mushrooms; riding on one causes it to lower and the other to raise upwards. You'll need to be careful about how much time you spend on each in order to successfully reach the next rail. The real pain are the pink mushrooms that shoot gas obstacles upward. You can try to jump over or in between but sometimes RNG is not on your side and they put two of these mushrooms next to each other. Trying to make it out alive is next to impossible. There are also smaller purple mushrooms that you can bounce off of but the bounce feels very unreliable to me and i had a hard time figure out when to just land on it vs when to jump off of it. I must’ve played this level 20 times and i only beat it once. I didn’t even make it to the first checkpoint on most attempts. Red Hot Rollercoaster is the second level 5 option and has lots of adjacent diagonal ramps, leading to potential confusion on where you should jump from. There are also falling boulders, like Crumble Cavern. I may have gotten tilted at these boulders on a few occasions because you can be very unlucky with the timing when they fall. It also has a tendency towards stretches of mostly empty space scattered with short sections of rail, requiring constant jumping to safely make it across. Use the coins as a guide for your jump and when a coin is between jumps, try to position your cart to hit it as square on as possible as you let go of your jump. Pay attention to the spacing between the gaps because that will dictate whether you need a short or medium jump. I found myself trying my hardest to reach each checkpoint because sometimes the jumps are hard to replicate and getting lucky with checkpoints helps a ton here. The 6th and final level is Sunset Speedway. It’s full of short rails at varying heights, making it very easy to slip off and fall to your doom. I would usually enter this level with 3 or 4 total lives remaining and it can be brutal. I would say there are two things to keep in mind. The first is to always be looking ahead and planning your next jump. There are so many options and platforms to choose from so i would try to lock in on where exactly i wanted to land, usually with a small or medium jump. I liked to reserve my long jumps as a last ditch effort to land on a track when i was feeling overwhelmed. The second thing to watch out for are the large gaps. Once you see one approaching plan to land on the closest rail before the jump because it will usually require a full distance long jump. I also like to prioritize landing on rails that are higher up because you have more options for where to land next. I probably made it to this level 20 times before i finally beat it. On some runs, i couldnt find a rhythm and would lose all of my lives on the very first jump. Patience is key here. Thank you for coming to my overly detailed rundown on Junimo Kart =)
