Tube Dude after level 60: beating wind, the rival tube and rush hour
How Tube Dude's later hazards actually behave, from gusts and wind swings to the knock-off tube guy, moving rings and pigeons, and how to handle them when they stack up.
Published
The first sixty levels of Tube Dude teach you the fan. After that, the street starts fighting back. Wind arrives at level 62, the rival tube at 81, moving rings at 101 and three customers at once at 122. Each debuts alone, with the boss explaining it, but from then on they mix with everything else. Here's how each one really works and what to do about it.
Read the queue before you start
In the top left of the screen, under the level name, score and Commission, there's a small row of chips, one per customer in the shift. A wide chip is a VIP, worth two, and an extra-wide chip is a tour bus, worth three. Chips turn yellow when that customer arrives, green when you sell and red when you miss.
On a busy shift this is your best planning tool. If a bus is two customers away, it can be worth letting a one-point customer go rather than being caught out of position. If the last few chips are all small, the streak matters more than value.
Wind and gusts
The steady wind is a constant sideways push that grows with the level number: a gentle breeze at level 62, about twice as strong by level 140, and stronger still after that. Lean a little into it, toward the side the leaves come from, and keep that lean as your new center.
Gusts are the real danger. Every six to eight seconds or so, a burst of leaves, paper and dust (and now and then a plastic bag) blows in from the upwind edge of the screen. That's your warning, and it lasts less than a second. Then the gust hits for a second or two. Gusts come a little more often as the wind gets stronger.
The useful detail is when a gust folds him. It can only buckle Tube Dude over when he's standing tall on plenty of air. If you see the leaves and ease off, he's often sagging by the time the gust lands, and it pushes him over instead of folding him in half. If a gust does fold him, don't panic-pump. Wait for the next surge of air to straighten him, the same as any other flop.
When the wind swings around
Past level 150, some windy shifts add a wind change. A whoosh sounds, the wind dies away for a moment, and then it blows from the other side. It can happen again every 12 to 17 seconds. When you hear it, move your lean back toward the middle so you aren't caught leaning into a wind that has just reversed.
The rival tube
From level 81, a smaller knock-off tube guy, his fan labelled KNOCK-OFF, can set up across the street. About four in ten customers on his shifts are ones he can steal, and he takes them once they've waited a bit more than two-thirds of their patience. You can't tell in advance which ones they are. A stolen customer pops up STOLEN!, counts as a miss and resets your streak.
The practical answer is to treat the first two-thirds of each countdown arc as your real window on rival shifts. A few tools help:
- Traffic Cone halves the speed of the street for 10 seconds, which slows the steal timer too.
- Disco Tube makes customers wait 50% longer, which also pushes back the moment the rival can grab them.
- Hire an Intern closes the sale on whichever customer has the least time left, so it's a good emergency save when a valuable ring is about to be stolen.
Anchor Base doesn't help against the rival; it's for weather.
Moving rings
From level 101, some customers can't make up their minds and their rings sway side to side around their spot in a smooth, steady rhythm. On harder shifts they swing further.
Chasing a moving ring rarely works, because the fan swings at its own pace. Instead, lean toward the middle of the ring's path and hold steady. The ring will pass through his head on each swing, and since sale progress only drains slowly when he slips out, a few passes add up. Ring Magnet is the strongest answer, since it drags each ring toward his head.
Pigeons and rain
A pigeon usually turns up a few seconds into the shift and lands on his head. It weighs him down more than rain does. Swing him quickly from side to side and a short burst of fast movement scares it off. Otherwise it leaves by itself after about six seconds. Either way it comes back a little later, so expect more than one visit on a long shift. Anchor Base won't stop a pigeon, but it does cancel rain.
When troubles stack
Before level 100 a normal shift adds at most one of rain, pigeon, wind, the rival or moving rings. From level 100 it can be two, and from level 190 up to three. Rush hour, with up to three customers waiting, comes on top of those.
Two things soften this. Stacked shifts ask for a slightly smaller share of the crowd, and three-at-once shifts a little less again. And every fifth level is a slow day with none of these hazards, never three at once, and fewer customers, which makes it the place to collect stars.
For a stacked shift, a simple order of priorities works well:
- Beat the rival's clock first, since a steal costs the sale and the streak.
- Serve whoever's leaving first, unless the queue shows a bus or VIP you can reach.
- Use your boost to cancel the worst hazard. Anchor Base for wind and rain, Ring Magnet for moving rings, Disco Tube for the rival.
The store guide covers prices and when to buy each boost, and controls and the art of the flop has the basics of timing his folds.
The knock-off guy is waiting across the street. Go show him how it's done.