RiverMan Media

Now that you know how to maximize your Quake Time, what do you do with it? This section should give you some ideas.

Quake with 3 Seconds or More
3 seconds is just a rule of thumb, but I've found that any less than that is too short to do much damage. You'll get exactly 3 seconds from a 4x combo (assuming you didn't lose any clear bar from strikes). It looks like this in the bar:

Shake Fast, Not Hard
The game measures how quickly you are shaking (as in, back/forward/up/down motions) to determine how powerful your Quake is. It doesn't measure how much you are actually moving the controller (except for the visual effect). The glowing MadStone that rises from the pool is a rough indication of how quickly you are shaking (higher is better). If it's not moving, then you are shaking at the maximum measured speed. This happens when it gets about half way up the screen.

Quick Shakes, More Breaks
The higher up your glowing MadStone rises during a Quake, the faster your blocks will break. Also, there is a much larger chance of breaking opponent's MadStones when you are shaking at the maximum speed.

Quake Damage Revealed
While you are using a Quake, this is how the game determines how to deal out the damage. There is a random chance that the Quake will do damage in any given instant while you are Quaking. This chance increases based on how fast you shake the controller. Once the game has determined that damage should be done, it picks a square at random on your play field or your opponent's. If there is a block in that square (or a MadStone, in the case of your opponent's play field), the Quake damages it. Keep in mind that Quakes don't trigger bombs.

Good Quakes
The most productive Quake happen when:

-There are a lot of blocks on your play field.
-You have more than 3 seconds of Quake time.
-There aren't too many bombs on your play field
-There are a lot of MadStones on your opponent's play field.

Here is an example of a great Quake opportunity for Player 1:

Player 1's grid is filled with blocks, so the Quake will be doing damage constantly. Player 2 has 1 big MadStone and 5 small ones, totaling 9 different chances that one of his/her MadStones will be hit. Player 1 also has enough Quake time to cause some serious damage.

Bad Quakes
On the other hand, here is an example of a bad time to Quake. Player 1's grid is mostly filled with MadStones and bombs, which won't be affected by the Quake. The bombs will also stop 3 of the MadStones from falling into the pool. Player 2 has no MadStones to break, so that feature of Quakes will go unused. For my opponent, I tend to wait until they have at least 4-5 MadStones on the grid before Quaking (Note: 1 big MadStone has the same chance of being hit as 4 little ones).

In this case, it would be a better idea to quickly set off the bombs and collect all of those MadStones with normal strikes.

Play While Quaking!
The computer plays while it Quakes (on the harder difficulties) and so can you. It's not easy--it has taken me a long time to learn how to play while Quaking, and I'm still not great at it. But with practice, you can learn how to coordinate shaking the controller and making good moves.

Ending Combos Can Be Good
It may not seem like a good idea at first, but sometimes it makes sense to end a combo, even if you could keep it going. Here are a couple situations when it is smart to end your combo:

1. Your opponent has a bunch of MadStones on screen, and you have some clear bar but no colored bar. In this case, you can end your combo now, which will turn the clear bar into colored bar (giving you Quake time). Now use that Quake time since there is a large chance that you will be able to destroy a few of your opponent's MadStones (which is always good).

2. You don't have any MadStones on screen, and you aren't in danger of losing any time soon. If you don't have any MadStones on screen right now, chances are high that it's going to take a ton of strikes to collect even just 1 more MadStone. And as we've seen earlier, more strikes mean less Quake time. This means that you may need several more MadStones before you will actually gain any more clear bar, and you will be losing clear bar in the process. Ending the combo now will allow you to break a bunch of blocks, get a few MadStones on screen, and then start a "fresh" combo, one in which you aren't already penalized for making a lot of strikes.

I'll add more as I think of them.

End Combos by Stopping the Cascade
You already know that your combo will end "naturally" if you just wait until everything on your play field has stopped moving. But let's say you are in situation 1 up above. It's critical that you end your combo as quickly as possible so that you can gain your Quake time and break some of your opponent's MadStones. If you wait too long, they will collect the MadStones, and you will have missed your chance to break them.

To end a combo quickly, you just need to stop everything on the play field from moving. The easiest way to do that is to figure out where the cascade is going to continue, and strike the blocks that would prolong the cascade.

Remeber this situation?

Well let's say you wanted to end the combo right now. You could just wait until the MadStone under the cursor fell and broke the first ice block, then fell and broke the second ice block, then sank into the pool. But this would take at least a second or two. Instead, you could just manually break the two cracked ice blocks below the cursor, which would cost you two strikes but get you your Quake time quicker.

Thanks For Reading!
That concludes the Official MadStone Strategy Guide. Any time I update the guide, it will show up on the update log (which is on the front page of the guide). Thank you for taking the time to check it out, and enjoy the game!

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