Tower Unite Tower Unite - Salmon Says Efficient Note Taking Method

An efficient way of taking notes for easier inputting the orders in the Salmon Says minigame, which will help you get high scores and achieve 'Take Me To The River' and 'Drop Me In The Water'.

How To Achieve Take Me To The River And Drop Me In The Water

Cons Of Writing Down Only RGBY

In the Salmon says arcade game you have 20 seconds to repeat the combination, this timer will not refresh upon pressing the buttons. The most obvious way of taking notes to beat Salmon Says is just writing the first letter of the colours, RGBY. But would you trust yourself in inputting this in 20 seconds:

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GRBBGGBGGGBYBGYRYBBBBRYYRGRGGR

Inputting them once isn't enough either, as you have to input it for every turn. Getting to this length (30) and entering it, would take 465 button presses. That's 465 button presses you have to do without making a single error. Writing down the colours in this fashion makes it hard to enter, and prone to error. It is also slow, as you have to read the next letter for every button press.

The Symbols

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Instead of writing down a symbol for each colour, write a symbol down for every other colour. So that each symbol represents two colours. This means that every other round you would not write down anything (I'll get back to this).

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The symbols are:

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.
Straight arrows.
Quarter circle arrows.

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Whenever the two last colours were the same colour, you write the direction of the colour. So if there's two Green in a row, you write down ^. That way when you are inputting the colours and you read ^, you can rapidly press the button in the upward direction (green) twice. Similar for the colours in the other directions: Blue (>), Yellow (v), and Red (<).

Now for the arrows. Whenever the last two colours are either Green and Yellow, you write a vertical arrow in the direction of the order. So if it's GY then it's a downwards pointing arrow, YG is an upward pointing arrow. The same thing for when it's Red and Blue, RB is arrow to the right, BR is arrow to the left.

The last is the quarter circle arrows. Whenever the two last colours are next to each other, you write down one of these. In the same way as the straight arrows, the arrow starts from where the first flash was, and points towards the second. So if it's GB, then you would write down the quarter circle arrow which points from right to down. RY for example would be from down to right arrow.

How To Use Them

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A normal game when using this method is much like how you would do a normal note taking round. You wait for the commands, add the final flash to your notes (there's only one extra flash at each round!), then input what you have written down. The only exception is that since every symbol represents two symbols, you wouldn't add anything to your note line when you only have one symbol, and would instead wait this round. Essentially this means only writing down symbols in the even rounds, and not in the odd ones.

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For an example of a game:

Last flash is red - odd round, don't write anything.Last flash is blue - RB, write down right facing arrow.Last flash is blue - odd round, don't write anything.Last flash is yellow - BY, quarter circle arrow pointing down then left.Keep going until loss.

As remembering the last colour after an odd round is difficult and error prone, I recommend writing down this colour in a separate line as not to interfere with your symbol line, so when you're playing the odd round you would input the symbol line and then finish with the last line of the odd round line.

Pros Of Using This Method

Because there is one symbol for two colours to input, it's twice as much inputting as reading. This gives you a bit of a buffer, and some extra time, to read the next symbol while you're inputting the previous one.

I would argue that it's much more intuitive and easier to input these symbols, as opposed to the RGBY symbols. As soon as you get the system behind the symbols, inputting them only relies on the muscle memory of knowing where the buttons are relative to each other. While with inputting RGBY you need both the muscle memory of where the buttons are relative to each other, and in which direction each colour is.

I got to 39 using this method, and these are the inputs I wrote down. I failed not because of time, but because I misclicked.

Even if you do know this method though, it is not guaranteed that you will get the achievement on your first try. It takes some effort getting used to, and nonetheless 30 rounds without error is pretty long. And, although less than with the normal note taking method, there is still some muscle memory to learn. Though overall I believe this method is better and easier than taking direct notes.

Advanced Strats

Once you're familiar with the method, there are some extra symbols you could use to take your game to the next level if you care. Those being, half-circle and three-quarter circle. And superscript numbers (like exponent) to indicate how many times the symbol was repeated (so blue four times, >>, written down would be >²).

I'm not sure if these methods are worth it though, as it adds a bit of complexity to the note taking, and the three-quarter circle for example breaks the ratio of two to one in colours and symbols.

Source: https://gameplay.tips/guides/7443-tower-unite.html

Tower Unite - Salmon Says Efficient Note Taking Method