'Dookey Dash: Unclogged' Tips Guide: How to Dominate the Bored Ape Game

Dookey Dash is back, with the Bored Ape Yacht Club-themed endless runner from Yuga Labs getting a free-to-play rendition on iOS, Android, PC, and Mac with Dookey Dash: Unclogged. It still features some well-known Apes, of course, and is also offering over $1 million in prizes for top-scoring players in the season-ending tournament.

As an Ape riding some kind of submarine through sewers, avoiding all kinds of debris, there isn’t all that much strategy to the game; a lot of it comes down to your reaction time and concentration level. But there are still a few tips and tricks that you can utilize to try to increase your score.

Hopefully these helpful tips will give you the extra boost you need to break into the top portion of the leaderboard. And even if you aren’t destined for a payout this season, they should help improve your scores in this surprisingly fun game.

Use two hands and the boost button 

A pretty simple tip to start: I’ve found that the best control system is to make use of the boost button in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen, instead of double-tapping the screen.

When you double-tap to boost through a wooden blockade, you obviously have to take your finger off the screen momentarily, and that means you stop having directional control. It’s only a fraction of a second, but I’ve had a couple of runs end because of this momentary lack of control—and you can easily avoid it.

Using two hands and the button in the bottom left corner with your left thumb, while controlling your direction with your right thumb, removes that momentary lack of control. It’s a small change, but to me, it feels a lot better.

Screenshots from Dookey Dash: Unclogged. Image: Decrypt

Fans move at different speeds 

It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize this, but the giant fans that you speed through can move at different speeds, and there are two different types; one with three prongs and one with four.

Fans are without a doubt the obstacle that has killed me the most, but realizing that they move at different speeds made them easier to predict, especially when there’s two of them in quick succession.

They also appear to have hit boxes that are slightly larger than the models appear to be, so stick to the edges and don’t try to squeeze close to the middle, as it might catch you out.

Use your energy wisely

Unless you're settling in for an hour-long session—or you're really, really, bad—you might not have noticed that there’s an energy system in Dookey Dash. Every time you start a run, you’ll consume one chunk of energy by default.

Fortunately, you start out with 12 bits of energy, and doing 12 runs is going to take quite a while if you are even remotely good at the game—so you're unlikely to run out unless you plan to play for hours. With the quick recharge times, actually running out of energy is quite uncommon.

That’s where the multiplier comes in. You can increase your trophy payout for each run by spending more energy. So if you know that you only have time for one or two runs before you have to put the game down for a while, then you may as well whack up that multiplier and spend all your energy to get more rewards.

Screenshots from Dookey Dash: Unclogged. Image: Decrypt

Ignore power-ups (unless it’s safe) 

The exception to this rule is right at the start of a run, where a power-up will always spawn and will be safe to grab. However, as each run goes on, the big, shiny power-ups will lure you into dangerous positions, so it’s usually better to just ignore them.

They often seem to spawn right in front of moving objects or in dangerous positions, and the benefits they give are rarely worth the risk. So unless you are 100% sure that it’s not going to lead to a crash, they are typically better avoided.

The sides of the sewer won’t kill you

This feels counterintuitive, but smashing into the side of the sewer won’t actually end your run—you’ll just float alongside it until you move. This technically means that you have more space to play in, so make sure to go right up to the edges if it will give you a safer route. That’s especially useful for avoiding the big fans, with the largest gaps appearing at the edge of the tunnel.

Edited by Andrew Hayward