Crossy Road Tips, Cheats and Strategies

Crossy Road is an endless Frogger-like from Hipster Whale. In this game, you’ll guide one of 50 charming characters across a ridiculously busy, never-ending stretch of highway while dodging cars, trains, eagles, and other voxel-splatting hazards. Gamezebo’s Crossy Road Tips, …

Before each run, decide if your primary goal is a high score or extra gold. Choose your character according to this goal. Some characters that may be difficult to achieve a high score with are actually beneficial when collecting coins. For example: characters that run at night are more challenging to play as, but coins are extremely visible when highlighted against the darkness.
For high scores, play in landscape mode. Portrait mode is more comfortable, but landscape gives you a wider view of the screen, making it easier to see where traffic and other dangers are. You can plan farther ahead in portrait mode, but you can see immediate threats more easily in landscape.
Find your “power animal.” Although characters have the same size hitboxes (area in which they can be killed) and speed, you’ll almost certainly find yourself doing better with specific characters over others. Their different appearances, noises, and even style of movement will all work together to either agree with you or distract you. (Personally, I do best when using the Black Sheep, and worst with the Swift Snail, even though neither one is intrinsically “better” than the other.)

You will die. Like its naming inspiration, Flappy Bird, Crossy Road will kill you repeatedly. Death is inevitable and plentiful, but trying again is quick and easy. The ways to die include: being run over, jumping into a moving vehicle, being abducted by an eagle, falling into a river, and more. And yes, even aquatic animals will die when they fall into water.
Always aim for grass. The only safe areas where you can take a breather without being killed by a moving object are the grassy medians and lily pads. If you aren’t currently standing on one of these, you’ll need to be alert and focused on what’s coming at you.
Master the fast tap. Although the best strategy overall is to take your time and plan your moves individually, you can often power your way through a large gauntlet of hazards via fast taps in a straight line. This is usually most helpful on roads where cars are synchronized.
…But always count your taps. If the road you’re trying to cross is three lanes long, fast tap four times and then stop. It’s easy to get so into what you’re doing that you keep tapping and run right into the next obstacle; counting while you tap helps prevent this.
Plan ahead. This is a given, but different obstacles require different levels of planning:
For roads, make a note of what direction traffic is moving. It will always move that same direction in that particular lane as well as being the same type of vehicle. So if a red car passes you going left to right, that lane will only contain red cars moving left to right. That way, if you get trapped in the middle of the road, you’ll be prepared for things coming at you from the correct direction.
For rivers, check which direction the logs are flowing. Also check if there are any lily pad stepping stones. When there are lily pads, you’ll need your log to pass them by since they are stationary–getting on a log that has already passed the lily pad will be pointless.
For trains, be aware of if the red crossing light is on. This means a train is about to go by. Also be aware if a train has recently passed through there. You’ll usually get a few seconds’ break between trains so if a train has just passed, you’re safe to move forward.
Be on the lookout for the cop car. It passes through streets only occasionally, but it travels twice as fast as any other vehicle and is almost impossible to dodge. You’ll know it’s coming by the red-and-blue flashing lights and the sound of a police siren that will give you about a one second head’s up before the cop car zooms by.
Stay near the middle of the screen. This is most important for logs since they can easily carry you off-screen and to your death if you hop on near the edge. However, it’s also useful for traffic since cars materialize from the edges of the screen and sticking near the center will give you a slightly larger window of warning.
Ignore your score. Constantly checking your score is nothing but a distraction. There’s an easy way to get an idea of how well you’re doing: every 50 points you earn (50 lanes passed), you’ll hear a “kachunk” sound. That’s the audio clue that you’ve hit the next 50, so you’ll hear it at 50 points, 100, 150, etc.
Focus on moving forward, not backward or sideways. First, you only get points for each new lane you move into. Second, there is an eagle waiting in the wings to end your game if you take too long to move forward. The eagle will come for you if:

You take more than five seconds to move forward. This includes moving side-to-side in a single lane or moving back and then forward again. The only way to break the eagle’s constant five-second countdown is to move to a new lane in front of you (a lane that awards a point).
You move three spaces backwards. Even if it’s been less than five seconds, if you move more than two spaces backwards, the eagle will come immediately. Stay aware of this in case you’re about to trap yourself in a corner.
An easy way to be aware of the eagle’s approach: the screen slowly scrolls upward even when you’re standing still. If the bottom of the screen passes you in landscape mode or almost reaches you in portrait mode, you are near eagle-death.

Play with sound. Besides the adorable and various character sound effects, there are a lot of warning sounds that will come in handy. Use the sounds of cars honking and trains whistling to get an idea of where hazards are. They are contextual and will sound louder the closer they are. Note: because of this, it’s sometimes better to choose a “quiet” character who won’t distract you from the game’s warnings. The Capybara, Grey Bunny, and Swift Snail are all good choices for a quiet run.
You can pause a hop mid-tap. If you accidentally tap and realize your mistake quickly enough, you can prevent moving forward by holding your finger down on the screen. Your character will only hop forward once you release, so as long as you hold your finger down, you will remain in place.

Unlocking characters: there are two ways to unlock characters. You can either spend 100 in-game gold on a gacha lottery that will give you a random character (although it can be one you already own). Or you can spend 99 cents to directly buy a specific character of your choice. In-game gold is earned by picking it up during gameplay, as a free gift awarded every few hours, or by watching optional video ads at the end of a run. Characters are entirely optional and are the only item currently purchasable.
Character details – SPOILERS.The following section will contain specific details about certain characters. If you don’t want to know how some characters look or act, then we’d recommend you stop reading here.

Unlocking the “secret” character. The last character in the list is the only one not available through the gacha or by direct purchase. This character is the logo mascot of the developer, the Hipster Whale himself. To unlock him, you’ll need to find him during a run: he randomly floats by in the rivers amid the logs and lily pads. You need to jump on him when he floats by. After doing so and at the end of that run, he will be unlocked as a character.
Characters with unique features: some characters behave slightly differently or change the appearance of the world while they are in use. We’ve listed some of these below, although there are plenty of others.

Doge: a setting change. While running, “Doge quotes” will pop up on screen in his famous colorful Comic Sans font. Quotes remain on screen for awhile, so they pile up and can make visibility slightly difficult (but hilarious).

Wolf: a setting change. Wolf runs in near-darkness with a soft dusk light around him. The world is darker overall but you can still clearly see hazards ahead. Coins stand out in bright yellow.

Penguin: a setting change. The green grass is replaced by white snow and snowmen dot the landscape.

Swift Snail: a character change. Instead of hopping, Swift Snail slides across the screen while a trail of ooze follows him. This blurs the path behind him, showing where you’ve come from but also creating a slight visual distraction.

Grave Digger: a setting change. The Grave Digger runs in almost complete darkness, with only his lamp to guide the way. It’s difficult to see more than three lanes ahead. Gravestones dot the landscape and ghosts sometimes pop up and disappear. (Or do they?)

Frankenstein: a setting change. Frankenstein’s world is black and white, with an old-timey film grain. Lightning occasionally strikes, creating a brief flash of light. Frankenstein is an added challenge because of this flash of light and since everything sort of blends together: coins don’t stand out, rivers look like grass, the red train light isn’t noticeable, etc.

Forget-Me-Not: a setting change. The eponymous star of Forget-Me-Not has a fairly standard daytime level, but there are pink flowers dotting the landscape that he can collect. Collecting enough flowers eventually awards a high score notifier, although your Crossy Road score and points are unaffected.

Jillian Werner

Jillian will play any game with cute characters or an isometric perspective, but her favorites are Fallout 3, Secret of Mana, and Harvest Moon. Her PC suffers from permanent cat-on-keyboard syndrome, which she blames for most deaths in Don’t Starve. She occasionally stops gaming long enough to eat waffles and rewatch Battlestar Galactica.