Crossy Road

Look, I'm not a pro gamer. I'm just a guy who plays  Crossy Road  on the bus, in waiting rooms, and sometimes when I should be working. But after 500 hours and a personal best of 2,847 points, I've picked up a few things.

Most  how to get a high score in Crossy Road  articles are garbage. They tell you to "look both ways" like you're five years old. So here are five actual tricks that took me way too long to figure out.

1. Stop Looking at Your Character

For my first month playing  Crossy Road , I stared at the chicken. Every death felt like a jump scare. Then a friend watched me play and said, "Why are you looking at the thing you're controlling?"

Hey was right. Your character isn't going anywhere. The cars are. Now I force my eyes to stare at the top edge of the screen. I don't even see my chicken unless I need to slide sideways. My reaction time tripled in one week. Try it.

2. Logs Are Not All the Same

Everyone hates the river. I used to hate it too. Then I noticed something. Long logs move slower than short logs. And if you slide to the edge of a long log before jumping, you land in a completely different spot than if you jump from the middle.

Sounds small, right? But that one Crossy Road secret trick  saved me from drowning at least 50 times. Now I always slide first, jump second. Never the other way around.

3. Cars Run on Schedules

I thought traffic was random for about 200 hours. Then I started paying attention. A fast blue car never comes alone. There's always a second one exactly one beat later. A big truck always leaves a three-car gap behind it.

Once you see the patterns, you stop guessing. You just know when it's safe. This is the real  how to get a high score in Crossy Road  answer – learn the waves, don't react to them.

4. Train Tracks Are Actually the Safest Part

Most people panic when they hear the bell. I used to hop forward like a maniac and die constantly. Then one day I froze by accident. The train passed. I didn't die. I sat there confused for a second.

Turns out, if you stand on the gravel between the rails and don't move, the train never touches you. Now when I hear that bell, I take one sideways step onto the gravel and wait one second. That's it. Don't panic. No death. Trains went from my biggest fear to my favorite break.

5. The Eagle Has a Timer – Use It

You know that eagle that grabs you when you stand still? It's on a clock. About 2.5 seconds of standing still and you're bird food. But here's the thing nobody told me – moving sideways resets the timer too. You don't have to go forward.

So when I need to think, I just hop left, hop right, left, right. The eagle leaves me alone. I can take all the time I want. This one  Crossy Road advanced tip  probably added 500 points to my high score by itself.

One Last Thing

Don't try all five at once. Pick one. Play 20 games using only that trick. Then add another. After a month, you'll be the person your friends hand the phone to when they can't beat a level.

And yeah, I still die to random cars sometimes. That's  Crossy Road . But not nearly as often as I used to.