Bonecrusher: Tips, tricks and hints for higher scores

There's nothing too subtle about Bonecrusher, the latest game to make an impression on the App Store charts with Crossy Road-esque visuals and simple gameplay. It's crush or be crushed, requiring quick reflexes so you can be somewhere else when the spikes start dropping.

Maybe it's a thoughtful, implied disquisition on the inevitability of death. More likely, it's just fun, fast-paced arcade style action that anyone can pick up and play without needing to know all that much.

Yet it also has a little more going on than it may first appear, and you might not appreciate it because you're too busy trying to avoid getting your skull flattened. Are you deft enough to keep racking up dem bones? With our Bonecrusher tips, tricks and hints, we like your chances, at least for a little while longer than before you read them.

One goal, two strategies

As you'll quickly discover, there's only one real goal in Bonecrusher, though it has two parts. The first and most obvious part is not to be impaled by spikes. The second part is to collect enough bones to advance to the next level.

Since there's no time limit on advancing, you can simply play it safe (relatively speaking) and play just by moving to where the spikes won't be, regardless of where the bones appear. It'll take longer to advance, but your chances of dying are smaller. If this sounds appealing, you're also likely the sort who follows the speed limit exactly at all times.

Alternatively, you can dart over to collect the bones when you see they are in a spike-filled lane and then rush back before the ceiling comes down. This high risk, high reward strategy advances you faster, and while it's your choice which approach to pursue, only one truly makes you feel like you're alive.

What those coins are for

Heck yeah you can earn some coins in Bonecrusher. You can use them for three things, one of which is to buy different skull skins for purely aesthetic reasons.

The other, more useful way to spend some coins is to buy powers. You've got five choices, each of which will help you avoid death and/or get bones or coins faster. Powers only last until the next time you get crushed, but they're much cheaper than spending on skins and might be the difference in earning a new high score.

Finally, coins can be used to continue after dying, but that's only really advisable when there's no other choice (see below) and if you're close to a new personal high.

Watching videos is good for your game

Bonecrusher is like many other mobile games in that it allows you to watch video ads, and it's always your choice to do so. For starters, when you unlike new skulls as gifts, you have to watch a video to unlock it for use.

Watching a video can also be used as a continue of sorts, allowing you to continue from where you just perished with your score intact but no powers you might have equipped. You only have until the hammer that flies in from the left side of the screen to decide (Thor, is that you?), and there's a limit to how many times you can extend a game in this manner, but if you've got the 30 seconds to spare, there's no harm in kicking on in this manner.

Got other Bonecrusher tips you'd like to share with 148apps readers? Hit us up in the comments section and be heard!