Welcome to my second guide on Steam. As stated in the description, this guide focuses on tips for winning the race against your rival in the game. Early on, you'll encounter a point where you have to compete in a race against your rival.

Winning the race isn't necessary to progress, as you'll receive the story-relevant item regardless of the race's outcome. However, achieving victory grants you an additional "cosmetic" item, the achievement "Go Full Bore," and the satisfaction of proving yourself as the more awesome boar.

In the screenshots provided, I played as Hildi (the female boar) while creating this guide. It's worth noting that your choice of character does not affect the racing route, as it remains identical for both characters.

The game does a good job in teaching you most of the gameplay basics. As such, I would consider these obvious and mostly common knowledge. Nonetheless, as they are of importance for winning the race, I want to emphasize on the following four points:

1. Remember that you can rewind your moves. If you feel like you could have played a previous part better, simply rewind and try again. You'll likely find this feature very useful during your first attempt at winning the race.

2. Some block types, such as ash or sand, can be broken simply by stomping on them if you are close enough to them. This effect extends with a radius of two spaces vertically, horizontally, and diagonally from your position, encompassing everything within a 5x5 square centered on you. Utilize this ability strategically to your advantage (see also point 4).

3. While falling, you can press the stomp button/key. This maneuver accelerates your descent and upon landing, it has the same effect as a regular stomp. For the purpose of this guide, I'll refer to this technique as "downdashing."

4. The last point is perhaps the least known gameplay mechanic among these four. If you repeatedly dig the same type of block (approximately 8-10 times or more) without switching to other block types, your digging speed for that type will gradually increase until you enter "Speed Dig Mode" (indicated by a colored "shadow" like Frederick on the left side of the picture).
This "Speed Dig Mode" will end as soon as you mine a different block type again or if there is too much time between two digs (around 1-2 seconds). However, during the intervals between digs, you can use that time to stomp (or loiter around) and thereby break sand and ash blocks (without digging them), which would otherwise interrupt your "Speed Dig Mode".

I won't really explain the way here. Sooner or later, you should stumble upon the Dig Site by chance or aimless wandering. If you're having trouble finding it, use this part of the map as a reference.

The small red arrow on the map indicates the place you need to reach, specifically at the bottom left side of the Dig Site. From there, head to The Digs, where our rival will challenge us.

The greetings are exchanged. Now it's time to win this race. My explanations heavily rely on the pictures. You may need to enlarge them to see everything clearly. The route I've taken (though there aren't many possibilities) is marked by a red line with some additional notes. I'll explain first and then show the pictures. So, the text should always be above the corresponding image.

You start on the right route. Jump down and dig through the sand blocks to the right side, then proceed downward. You should downdash immediately for two reasons: it speeds you up and breaks the sand block on the wood block as soon as you land. Jump onto the wood block and dash to the left. If you've done everything correctly, you should be in "Speed Dig Mode" and reach the middle column before your rival can obstruct your path with a block. From there, continue digging normally along the route.


Your rival will overtake you and push a "penalty" block into your path. Push it to the left twice, then downdash. If your timing is right, you'll hit the bridge block just as it has completely fallen dwon, breaking the sand block. Jump down, push the block to the right, and climb on it, then charge to the right.


Start digging the earth blocks, but be careful NOT to dig the sand block on the right. As you descend, you'll encounter two routes: one to the left and one straight down. Despite being longer, choose the downward path because it consists of the same earth blocks we dug before, allowing us to enter "Speed Dig Mode". To maintain this mode, stomp once (refer to the picture for the correct spot) and break all the sand blocks in our path.


And then, for some reason, Frederick took a break. It's likely a bug because I wasn't moving too quickly, and he just stopped in his tracks. Maybe he wanted to admire my butt ....

Well, back to the actual race without bugs. If you are in time, you should reach this point just as the "penalty" block lands on the sand block and you can follow the route to the right without any issues. And don't be irritated about the arrow in my picture; by the time you get there, the block will have moved one space down. After reaching the right side, jump down onto the ash blocks. You have two options here: either go down and push the block to the right, or use a stomp to drop the bridge block down (as shown in the picture), which is faster. Continue following the route to the sand blocks.


We've reached the final part. Dig through the sand blocks and stamp in the bottom-right corner (check the marked spot in the picture) to break the two sand blocks blocking our way. Stomp here because it has the significant advantage of keeping two sand blocks on your rival's route, halting their "Speed Dig Mode" and giving you crucial seconds to secure victory (thanks to [SeHa] criva for this helpful tip).
After descending and pushing the two stacked blocks to the left, continue following the path of earth blocks. You should enter "Speed Dig Mode". To maintain this momentum, stomp two more times (exact spots visible in the picture) to break the remaining sand blocks.


Now we can easily see if we have been fast enough. If a "penalty" block obstructs the upper route, it indicates we've been too slow and need to rewind.


Otherwise, just charge to the right, maintaining "Speed Dig Mode" as you hunt for earth blocks. It doesn't matter how close the race is, as long as you can take the upper path.


If you feel like it, you can block your rival for all eternity (left picture) but you'll need to rewind because he will start hitting on, you preventing you from moving freely. If not, just head to the end and win the race.

Congratulations! You've done it, and now you'll receive your epic prizes. The first one is the samoflange. Well, you would have gotten it either way.


Additionally, you will gain the training bracelets of your rival.

Wearing them will make you shoot small sparks when running fast enough! Okay, it sounds a little cooler than it actually is, but it's a nice addition. If you're like me, you've done all of this for the achievement anyway, which should have popped up by now. Congratulations again!

And with that, my second guide concludes. I welcome your suggestions on how to phrase certain phrases better; though I worked through them again. Also, if you find any mistakes - be it in spelling, grammar, or content - please leave a comment so I can correct them. Additionally, I'm searching for a better term than "Speed Dig Mode." If anyone would like to share a video showcasing a successful run using the tips mentioned here, please send it my way.

So as final words:
Thank you for reading


PS: If you're bo(a)red enough (No, boars aren't boring - they're awesome. It's just a bad pun.), you can check out my other guides:
http://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=269238601