A Non Rhythm-Gamer's Guide to Spunkstock

Want to enjoy the game with minimal rhythm? Well, you can't, but you can at least make it a lot easier on yourself.

Overview

Spunkstock is a fun game with great animations and bangin' (lol) music. But it's also a rhythm game, and let's face it - not everyone has rhythm. My current "credentials" - managed to S-rank everyone, SS rank 11 of them, and managed to beat the Gauntlet. And I'm not good - but I have strategy behind me.

There's ways to make the gameplay easier, but the interface and sub-par in-game help on some things makes it intimidating to learn. This guide is to hopefully help those who don't really "do" rhythm games (like myself.)

Note that I'm not going to make this guide spoiler-free. The story's quaint and fun, but we all know why you're really playing this game.

Also note that this isn't intended to be a 100% completion walkthrough, though I've added a section to cover Boba's arc since getting the right pattern can be obscure sometimes (and information seems to be hard to find.)

Options

There's a few options in this game. Not really a whole lot, but using them can be key to helping you succeed enough to get to the endgame.

H Screen

Darken Background will fade in or out the actual H scene. This could be useful either if you're distracted by the movement in general, or don't want to see a particular character's "action."

Spacing Lines enable or disable the lines on the rhythm gauge.

I haven't figured out the "Endurance Womb State" toggle, but it doesn't seem to be super relevant anyway.

Note that you can change the keybinds here, but there's also a separate menu to handle that.

Keybind Options

You can customize the controls to your liking for the rhythm portion of things, using the Keybind Options menu. There's two initial options for the rhythm - Z and X. Z is the one you'll be using if you're trying to avoid too much difficulty.

I personally suggest changing this to one of the larger keys on the keyboard if you're going for single-button play - I used the 0 key on my numpad, being right-dominant, but Left Shift would be another option if you're left-handed. Using a larger button seems (to me) like it allows one to get into a better rhythm for button-pressing, and reduces fatigue on the hand. Also possibly personal preference, I _really_ don't like using the mouse for this game - it might be because I'm using a wireless mouse, but I feel like I miss a lot more when trying to use the mouse.

Note that you can change other keybinds as well - for example, set up movement with WASD, etc. - but the controls for rhythm are the important ones.

Manual Sync

This is how you fine-tune your play - basically, you get a screen that tells you to hit a button in time with the beat. What this will do is take reflexes (mostly) out of the equation, instead allowing you to focus on consistency (i.e. it doesn't matter how early or late you are pressing the button, as long as you're consistently early or late.)

Do this all the way through a couple of times - first, it lets you get used to the idea of hitting the button on the beat. Second, it allows you to continue fine-tuning once you're used to playing. If you find yourself getting a lot of "Hit"s instead of "Perfect"s, you may want to revisit this screen - you might have gotten better after playing for a while. You can click the detailed report button to see exactly how early or late your clicks are, and see how consistent you were.

When syncing, the "Calibrate" button will offset the timing of clicks by the amount you were off based on the test. Then you can click on the "Test" button to retry and see how you do.

The World (Camp) Map

Spunkstock happens in a camp around the actual stage. Your general gameplay loop is Meet Character -> H Scene -> H Scene 3x (Endurance) -> Knock Up Character (with a few variations on the theme.) By default, Z will select characters to talk and examine items, and usually any differences from the norm will be shown on screen. I'm not going to walk you through each tent, but there's two to make note of:

Shop

This is Mei's shop. You can buy posters, and you can purchase items that either help you along, enable functionality in your tent, or move events with certain girls along. All of these cost reputation, and it can take a while to build it all up. Getting the Lucky Charm from Mei as early as possible is recommended - it gives you a free white modifier at the start of a song, including songs where you can't normally get white modifiers.

Home

This is your own tent, where you can check out your progress (and other stuff, once you buy the items.)

Documents

This is where you can view modifiers you've seen and view your progress. Modifiers will be a separate section, but the Characters section will tell you how to complete the scene progress (seen when you save.) Oddly, it does NOT show you scene progress for the co-headliners - guess you're on your own there, or you'll need to look at the rest of this guide.

Invite Guest

The sleeping bag on your floor lets you invite someone over. There aren't a whole lot of characters to invite over - three in total - but it allows you to unlock some extra scenes. Hints are in the Documents Character screen.

Poster Display

Poster Display is where you can see either victory poses (gained once you complete a character's initial H-Scene) and any posters you've purchased from Mei.

Music Player (Purchased from Mei)

The Music Player lets you listen to the music of any character you've completed. I spend a lot of time in here, because some of the music is really good.

Paint Desk (Purchased from Mei)

The Paint Desk allows you to change the background hue of your tent. Purely aesthetic.

Modifiers

There are 12 white modifiers, 5 silver, 5 gold, and 1 red. There are also 3 "special" modifiers that only show up during one particular fight.

Each non-white modifier you gain increases your reputation gain for a song.

Note that there's an excellent modifier guide on here already with a lot more math - this is more strategy=based.

White Modifiers (*)

Seer can either be a waste of reputation or key to a particular strategy. I don't usually take it in normal H scenes (except for Co-Headliners,) but I find a level or two of it useful for Endurance mode where you need to go through a fight three times. If you're avoiding "hard" modifiers, you'll be spending a lot of reputation on rerolls.












The Sap, Needle, and Perception modifiers are useful to increase the speed that you finish a song. Sap gives a larger bonus and also counts for "Hit"s, but it also increases the drain. The Needle modifier requires more precision, but doesn't increase the drain of the bar when you're not actively hitting a note. Perception also requires precision, but it's only a chance that you'll get double progress - I tend to prefer stacking Needle over Precision. Stamina synergizes with Sap, in the sense that adding a couple of Stamina modifiers helps to reduce the negative effects of Sap. Also note that without Sap, it seems like it only takes 3 Stamina modifiers to negate idle losses entirely - there's one particular song where this is relevant.



Glass, Barrier, and Guardian all synergize. Glass makes it easier to hit a perfect... until you miss. After that, it gets quite a bit harder to hit one. With barrier or guardian, you have a chance to ignore a mistake. Because Glass requires a certain consistency, I actually don't like using it a whole lot. With that said, once you've stacked 3 or 4 Glass modifiers, it gets REALLY hard to miss a perfect. YMMV on this one - experiment to see if you like it. Personally, I don't, but it can definitely help you SS-rank a song.



Ritual is why I don't like the idea of Yin and Yang - sure, there's a higher chance of getting a 1-star modifier than a 2-star one, but some of the 2-star modifiers really suck if you're not good at rhythm games, and Ritual has a chance of triggering there.

Note that you're required to trigger Ritual at least once to open a particular character's Endurance mode - just trigger it as late as possible in a song and hope you don't get a bad random roll.



Retribution can help you to clear a song, and it can save you if you're forced to take a Doom modifier, but I practically never use it in the first place.














I imagine Blast could be a nice modifier, but I also don't use this one - when it clears the board, you need to re-sync yourself with the music, and that's a place where you'll typically get a "Hit" over a "Perfect".

Silver Modifiers (**) (1.2x)

Just don't. Some of the songs are bad enough.


Nitros is a mixed bag. It doesn't actually add a WHOLE lot of difficulty if you can get that first "Perfect" (like Blast, it clears the board and you'll have to resync,) but I avoid it when I can anyway.












YMMV on this one. If you've got reasonable precision or a few levels of glass, this might not actually be TOO bad of a hit in difficulty.














This is my go-to modifier when I'm required to pick Silver modifiers, because I can almost always get at LEAST a "Hit".

Gold Modifiers (***) (1.5x)

No, no, and no. All three of these screw up your ability to just tap your finger with the beat.


... while this one REQUIRES you to be able to tap with the beat. After 6 hits ("Perfect" or "Hit",) you're no longer able to see where the notes are hitting. If you're REALLY confident in your ability to match the beat, this could be okay, but it makes it nearly impossible to *resume* the beat after a pause caused by Nitros, Blast, or a multi-phase song like Endurance Mode or the Co-Headliners. Note that a "Miss" will clear the fog hiding the notes, which might be better than multiple misses trying to blindly sync with the music.







If I'm forced to pick a gold modifier, this is the one I want. This is unlocked (and required) during Faye's song, and as long as you've got a good rhythm, all it does is change the direction the notes are going in. Fairly easy to deal with as long as you're able to keep the beat.

Red Modifier (****) (2x)

Doom is such a mixed bag. On one hand, it's a great multiplier and SORT of easy to deal with if you're consistent. On the other hand, never combine it with something like Ghost where it's impossible to see what you're hitting, or Nitros/Blast where you're forced to re-sync in the middle of a song. Good way to lose progress.

Special Modifiers (***) (Curses):

The three curses are nominally part of the YuMei song, but they'll also pop up during the Gauntlet where you're forced to pick a Gold modifier after the 5th and 10th songs. If it comes up, Bewitch (the black disk/swirl with the red center) is actually a reasonably safe choice assuming you've been building up modifiers over the course of the previous songs. The other two are just lol nope.

Technically, the blessing modifier is part of this song as well, but it ONLY shows up in the YuMei song - I'll describe its use there.

The Openers

BPM: 130

Forced Modifiers: This is your tutorial song, and your intro to modifiers. You're forced to pick Sap or Tempo. Pick Sap. Hit the button to the beat, and you're finished.

Comments: Samga's first song has fairly clear beats in it - it shouldn't be too much trouble to pick it out, though it seems to get a bit muddled in the middle.

BPM: 150

Forced Modifiers: For Pica, you're forced into only choosing one of two modifiers for each tier. Double/Needle is the first tier, Sap/Tempo is the second tier, and Needle/Tempo is the third tier. Choose Needle/Sap/Needle, and you'll finish quickly.

Pica's song has nice and clear beats, though there's a portion in the middle of the song where it gets mixed up a bit. Concentrate on the beats and you'll be okay.

BPM: 124

Forced Modifiers: Toto's initial choices for the song are either Glass or Mini. I'm not super fond of either choice, but I'd probably take Mini if you're not confident in your ability to stay perfect - it's a smaller hit overall than failing Glass. If you've got good timing, Glass is a solid (heh) choice.

If you're just going down the line of tents, Toto is also your first introduction to the concept of rerolls. You can spend reputation to reroll your modifier choices. This is why it's good to be familiar with the modifiers - you can pick and choose, and when starting out, you might want to grab a less-desirable (but still relatively safe) modifier and suck it up rather than spending your precious reputation on getting super good ones. Choose two more modifiers.

Toto's song also has a pretty clear beat. It gets covered up a little bit once the song gets going, but it's still distinguishable.

BPM: 126

Forced Modifiers: Ick. Forced choice between Mine and Fission. I don't like either.

Choose your poison and try to make it through. I would NOT recommend taking a Glass modifier, if only because hitting a mine will break it - not a lot of room for mistakes.

Fortunately, it's a fairly slow song with clear beats - it makes dealing with Mine (my choice) easier, at least.

BPM: 125

Forced Modifiers: Your forced choice here is between Barrier and Perception. You can choose either, but Perception will help you finish the song more quickly.

As far as the music, hell yes Electro-Swing. One of my favorite songs in this game. It's got a good clear beat for most of it, though towards the end just before it loops, the beat drops out somewhat and gets hard to pick out.

BPM: 160

Forced Modifiers: Forced choice between Yin-Yang and Nitros for Yoni. Really, Nitros isn't actually all THAT offensive, but Yin-Yang is the safe choice.

This is a faster song than the ones you've seen so far, and there's a place in the middle where the beat gets a bit muddled.



Reaching Faye requires you to go through the platformer minigame. ugh. It's not super hard or anything (okay, path 1 is,) but it's tedious. Note that this is STILL a rhythm game - this is hinted at, but all the environmental effects (e.g. disappearing platforms) are synced to the music.

BPM: 160

Forced Modifiers: You're forced to take the gravity modifier here. The trick to dealing with it is to make sure you keep the beat - which seems obvious, but y'know.

Comments: Fortunately you should be familiar with the beat (if you're not entirely sick of it) - Faye's music is the same as what plays during the entire platformer sequence. You're most likely to mess up during the flips, but the beat's good and clear on this song. Note that after you're done with Faye, you can hit Escape and click on "Return To Camp" to get out.

BPM: 180

Forced Modifiers: ugh again - Ritual or Doom. Note that this is the highest BPM song in the game - if you're not confident in your ability to not miss, Ritual is your only choice here - just hope you end up with a benign modifier.

Comments: Fastest song in the game AND no clear beat? lol have fun with this one

BPM: 140

Forced Modifiers: Guardian or Ghost. Take Guardian.

Comments: The beat breaks down into a bit of chaos in the second half of the song, but overall this one isn't super difficult.




BPM: 128

Forced Modifiers: Your choice between Retribution or Stamina. Unless you're prone to failing, Stamina is probably more useful - but not by much.

Comments: Nice slow song (and one of the ones I enjoy listening to,) but it's easy to lose the beat if you're not careful once it gets to the second half of the song or so.

Note that Mei is also the shopkeeper - the only thing I'd say to grind out for initially is the Lucky Charm (for 7000 Reputation.) It allows you to pick a free white modifier at the beginning of each song, which can be quite an advantage at times. Everything else is optional or can be saved until later.

BPM: 128

Forced Modifiers: A choice between Seer and Blast. Blast wouldn't be terrible, but I usually choose Seer here for cheaper rerolls for the other tiers.

Comments: Another of my favorite songs, but it's more difficult to deal with. At the start, it can be hard to pick up the beat - there's a slow start AND a period of silence before the beat drops. On top of that, it changes things up partway through - again, easy to get caught up in the change and miss a beat.

BPM: 128

Forced Modifiers: Whip or Hold here. Whip is the better choice - it only penalizes you if you miss entirely, and hopefully you're managing not to miss.

Comments: It can be hard to pick up the beat for the first few seconds of the song, but once it gets going, it's clear and consistent.


BPM: 126

Forced Modifiers: Secret has no forced modifiers.

Comments:
If you're not a fan of Secret's "secret," you can turn "Darken Background" all the way to the right in the options.

The song's got a decent beat to work with. It might be worth doing Secret (note, you have to if you want 100% completion) before doing the co-headliners, since his music is quite slow compared to the others. I went back to this after doing the co-headliners, and the sudden slow beat really messed me up.

Samga2 and YuMei

All the co-headliners (and Samga, who is the boss to get there) have unique mechanics during their songs. Essentially, you'll need to repeatedly finish the song until the mechanic is complete - sometimes this can be four or five times through, sometimes even more than that. I'll outline them below.

Samga2 is the "boss" to get to the co-headliners. Once you've beaten Samga2, she'll be in the co-headliners' space instead of in front of her first tent in the openers area. You can still do the initial tutorial song from there though.

Note that for Samga2 and beyond, you're not forced into choosing anything specific for the first tier of modifiers - you can reroll and pick your modifiers as desired. You'll also be doing multiple rounds for all of the co-headliners - this means there's some strategy to be had in choosing your modifiers.

Modifiers stack - this means that Seer is a solid early choice because you'll get the discount on anywhere from 8-14+ other modifier choices on average. It also means that modifiers such as needle are more worthwhile - you finish each individual round more quickly, which lets you finish faster overall (except for on Eran's song.)

Samga2

Song BPM: 130

Mechanics and Comments:
Samga's mechanic is her womb. After finishing each round, click the "Hit" indicator while you're deep and try to score high. Note that the thrusting is synced to the beat of the song - once again, rhythm game.

Note that your multiplier affects how many points you get from each hit - it may be worth taking a whip or two early on to make it go faster if you're confident in your ability to not-miss.

I believe the indicator bar at the bottom is 200, which means that with no multipliers and perfect hits every time, you'll need to go through a minimum of 4 rounds. Realistically, expect 5-6 rounds with no multipliers. Taking three whips to start can shave 2 rounds off with good hits (a multiplier of 1.6 will net you 72 stamina reduction if you hit at least 45 for each finish.)

YuMei

Song BPM: ??? (Fast)

Mechanics and Comments:
Oh boy, this song. The strategy isn't clear, and it's possible that you won't figure it out yourself until multiple failures if your rolls are bad. Of course, it's probably THE best song to grind reputation on once you've figured out the mechanics, if you're good enough to avoid misses...

As the popup states, the objective is to complete Yu's progress bar. This is harder than it looks, due to Yu's curses - these give debuffs and add silver and gold modifiers to your progress bar. I recommend setting your "flip" key to something that's on the hand NOT being used for the beat - in my case, I'm using the Z key to flip because I'm using Numpad0 for the beat.

Every time you finish Mei's progress bar, you get to choose more modifiers. You can finish Mei many times, so it's definitely worth it to grab a Seer modifier. Mei also has a unique modifier - a picture of her face - called Blessing. Taking the Blessing modifier allows you to ignore one of Yu's cursed modifiers when you reach it on her progress bar. You'll need a minimum of 6 blessings, and it's not worth taking more blessings than that. Note that Mei will ONLY roll white/1-star modifiers.

Baseline strategy

Focus on Stamina modifiers first. Get at least 3 of them - this means that Yu's progress bar won't drain, as long as you don't take a modifier like Sap that increases progress bar drain (and as long as you don't miss, of course.) Based on what I've seen, it feels like 3 Stamina modifiers cancel out 2 Sap modifiers - if you want to take Sap, keep this in mind. You'll be leaving Yu's progress bar idle for much of the song, only flipping to it to make sure it doesn't run out - this is why you need to get Stamina ASAP.

Also grab Seer modifiers when you see them. Eventually you'll want to try and get at least 6 (and no more than 8) Seer modifiers. Once you hit 8 Seer, your cost for a reroll will be free, but 3 reputation for a reroll is plenty cheap enough considering how much reputation you can get out of this fight.

Choose Needle over Sap - sap seems to be a slightly higher progress boost, but it also causes your progress bar to drain faster when idle. Needle gives less progress on hits but more progress on perfects - but at least a hit means "no change" rather than a loss.

Grabbing a Perception modifier or two doesn't hurt at all either - this lets you get double progress out of a critical hit. Due to how the modifiers stack, you don't need more than 9 of these - at that point, you've got 100% crit rate.

I don't recommend getting the Glass modifier here unless you can be consistent enough to build it up to 4 or 5 modifiers - breaking the Glass just tanks your Perfect threshold, and you'll want to be as perfect as possible

Once you're finishing Mei's progress bar quickly, you can keep grinding. If you're in the Gauntlet (see later in this guide,) you can stack Whip modifiers, but note that you get +0.5x multiplier per completion of Mei's progress bar - this is how you grind out reputation in this song. With a lot of grinding, you can keep finishing Mei while Yu's progress bar sits half-completed, and see how high the multiplier can go. I manged 16k reputation on this one once.

Once you've got 6 blessings, 3+ Stamina, plenty of needles, and maybe some perception, you can finish off Yu's progress bar in one shot and move on.

In the song

YuMei's song is unique in that there's three different sets of beats.
At the beginning of the song, there's a beat pattern where there's 5 beats, then a pause for three beats: OOOOO--- which repeats three times.
After that, there's a pattern like this: -O-O-O-OOO-O-OO-O-OO-O-O-O that repeats twice.
Beyond that (until the song loops,) it's just a continual beat pattern. Fortunately, the beats on YuMei's song seem extremely clear to me - I've actually managed to SS-rank it after 1000+ perfect hits.

When playing this song, make sure you don't let Yu's progress bar run down entirely - once you've got a good beat pattern going, flip to her for a bit so you can advance the bar some without hitting one of the curses. When you have blessings, you can advance farther in her progress bar. Once you've stacked enough stamina, you can basically ignore her progress bar until you're ready to finish it.

Eran, Nammi, and Samga3

Eran

Song BPM: ??? (Moderate)

Mechanics and Comments:
Eran's mechanic is to corrupt (or un-corrupt) her suit. This is an instance where faster completion of rounds (via Needle, etc.) doesn't necessarily mean faster completion of the song.

Your general loop is to pick a modifier from the Corruption (initially) or Purification trees and then pick modifiers. The corruption modifiers will modify the rate of change of the bar at the bottom. Once the bar's all the way to the left or the right, you've finished the song.

The three modifiers are:
+1: Rounds take 20% longer to complete.
+1.5: Rerolls cost +100 Rep (Requires x2 Multiplier)
+2: Misses and Overclicks deal 100% more base damage. (Requires x3 Multiplier)

These are the only modifiers available at first. Depending on your strategy, either the first are last ones are the ones you want to shoot for. The first one can be helped along by taking sap/needle modifiers. The last one can be reached by stacking whip modifiers (which are "safe") and repeatedly completing rounds. Like the other co-headliners (except Samga2,) you gain 0.5x multiplier per round. +100 rep per reroll is potentially damaging - I'd recommend grinding out +1 corruption modifiers until you're able to take the +2 vs. ever taking the +1.5.

The song itself is reminiscent of something out of an oldschool side scrolling space shooter. Kinda appropriate based on the H scene background. It's also got a good and clear beat to work with. Remember - the song ends when you finish the progress bar, not when you finish the corruption/purification bar. Keep tapping!

Note that you'll have to do this scene twice eventually - once to corrupt Eran, then once to purify her. The modifiers are the same as the corruption ones - you just want to go for negative numbers the second time around.

Nammi

Song BPM: 128 (interesting that I initially listed this as slow and Samga2 as moderate, but they're only 2 BPM off...)

Mechanics and Comments:
Nammi's mechanic is that she's got three different songs that play - Hype, Bass, and Chill. When the Hype song is active, the crowd satisfaction meter at the bottom fills quickly. It seems like the progress bar is sometimes frozen during Hype, but I've seen it move too - I'm not entirely sure what the mechanic is there. While Bass is active, all meters fill as normal. While Chill is active, the progress bar is frozen until you hit all the notes in the linked set (it'll be very noticeable - they're connected by a line.) Once you've hit the notes, a ratcheting noise is heard and the progress bar will jump up a bit.

As with Samga2's song, the Crowd Satisfaction meter is directly affected by your multiplier. This means that it may be worth taking some whip modifiers between rounds to speed things up. Note that Sap/Needle don't seem to have as much of an effect in this song - as far as I can tell, you're not building up progress during chill to be "released" when you hit the linked notes, so it might not be as worthwhile to stack them up super high. With that said, during the Bass phase, they'll still help you advance. Remember - more completions = more modifiers for the pile.

Nammi's music has some parts where it's incredibly hard to pick out the beats. Somehow I managed to SS rank both her fight AND her endurance mode on the first try though while writing this guide - there must be something to pick up on, but I'll be damned if I know what it is. Maybe someone can clue me in.

Samga3

To start this final song, you get to make your own band out of all of the characters you've met so far (except for Samga, of course.) You've got three parts - your lead, your rhythm, and your drum/bass. Who you pick for each can actually heavily affect the difficulty of the song - as I've noted before, sometimes it's hard to pick out the drum/bass line (which is how you time your button presses,) and sometimes it's super easy and clear.

I suggest Cali, Faye, Mei, Secret, Eran, or Nammi for their bass lines - I find they're the most clear, and they're loud enough that they're not drowned out by the rhythm and lead.

For the other two, experiment and make the style you like. Some combinations are weird together (Try Yoni as lead and Cali as rhythm, for example,) but others synergize nicely (Cali lead and Secret rhythm.) On top of that, not every "good" lead/rhythm combination goes with every bass - compare Mei/Yu/Secret to Mei/Yu/Eran. Fufu/Pica/Eran sounds cool though. Eran's bass is actually really hard to match right, now that I'm playing with it more...

As far as what I picked, and these aren't strict recommendations or anything:
Dom: Secret/Cali/Nammi - Saxophone sounds with that lovely swing background that Cali provides. Nammi provides clear drumbeats to keep the beat going.
Sub: Faye/Toto/Mei - Faye's synth-y sounds accompanied by whatever Toto's playing (it kind of reminds me of a Japanese koto?) with Mei providing the beat.

Dom Mode

Once you've chosen your band and you're in the song, you'll be presented with one last mechanic. The trick is that you need to choose more silver (or better) modifiers than white modifiers. I recommend a LOT of Seer or coming in with a LOT of spare reputation, because you'll have to choose 13 silver modifiers over the course of six (!) songs.

For the first three songs, it's like any other endurance mode - choose your lucky charm modifier at the start, and choose modifiers. You'll notice that the scale shifts between Dom and Sub depending on which ones you choose. This is why I say that if you want Dom mode, you've got a maximum of 4 silver modifiers you can add (plus the lucky at the start of each set of three songs.)

My recommended setup: Seer x 3 (one from Lucky Charm,) Needle x 2, Whip x 5.

Once you've finished the first set of 3, you get to pick another Lucky Charm modifier - I picked needle, but Sap might possibly be better since it's a fairly fast song (which means not a whole lot of time for it to drain between beats.)

Starting the second set of 3, you'll notice that no matter how much you reroll, no white modifiers for you. Just reroll for whips and play out 3 more rounds. :(

Sub Mode

This one's significantly easier, obviously. You'll have the opportunity to take 18 white modifiers, plus your two Lucky Charms. 5 Seer mods gives you a cost of 6 per reroll, and leaves you room for 15 (!) other modifiers - Needle, Sap, and maybe a Stamina or two if you take a lot of Sap. A Perception modifier is always welcome - probably not worth trying to stack 9 of them (9 Needles gives you WAY more than 9 Perception,) but a single one is a good return on your investment.

Endurance Mode

Endurance Mode is unlocked differently depending on the character. For some, all that's necessary is finishing the initial H-scene. For others, there are more complex unlock conditions - for example, unlocking Toto's Endurance Mode requires talking to her after the H-Scene and then choosing the options until you see her "victory pose."

Endurance Mode consists of three rounds, and in the end of it you'll have impregnated the character. Some characters can't be impregnated - this is denoted by a symbol with an X through it on their portrait in the fast travel menu.

Your strategy is similar to the co-headliners - either spend reputation rerolling, or take a few levels of Seer before doing it, then stack Needle/Sap.

Unlock conditions:
Samga1 - No endurance mode. You take care of her during Samga2.
Pica - Complete 6 H Scenes then come back. Choose "Talk" -> "What's an alien doing at a music festival?" and then make the most of it.
Toto - Talk to her about the mess in her tent, then view the victory scene. You'll have the option for Endurance mode after that.
Faye - Nope. Which is kind of a shame, really - it'd have been fun to do more with her.
Yoni - Find her part in the first trash can (next to where you initially spawn) and give it to her.
Fufu - "I need a bigger thrill"
Cali - Buy her tape from Mei, view it in her tent, then talk to her about it.
Mei - Buy her Platinum Membership (10 S-rank tokens) and then talk to her about membership services.
Yu - Complete the Haunted Hall once to unlock her endurance mode.
Ruth - Trigger the "Ritual" effect in a song, then talk to her about "a better ritual".
Ayra - Invite her to your tent and have her take her top off ("You're in MY tent...",) then go to her tent for the option.
Boba - Buy the vibrator from Mei and give it to Boba ("About that favor you owe me.") Go through the minigame - Medium->Low->Medium->High->Full Blast worked for me. Back to Boba after the scene, "About that favor..." and you'll have Endurance mode unlocked.
Secret - "I can do much more" leads to Endurance Mode. Obviously this doesn't lead to pregnancy (no mpreg here lol) but it does lead to one last scene to unlock for completion's sake.

Co-Headliners:
The co-headliners don't really have endurance modes except for Nammi. They can be impregnated though, except for YuMei (you take care of them individually as openers.)

Nammi - Talk to her about an "Encore" but note - you can't use 1-star modifiers. Time to break out the whips. One song each of Chill, Bass, and Hype.
Samga2 - Her boss scene is when you impregnate her.
Eran - When you purify her suit, that's when you impregnate her.

Boba's Scenes

Boba has the "Exhibition Arc" that you can play through. The minigame you play involves the vibrator you buy her, and deciding how to run it while she's talking to someone. You'll choose dialogue options, and things change depending on which ones you choose. Each sequence ends with "Full Blast" if you've done it correctly.

Toto: Medium -> Low -> Medium -> High
Samga: Medium -> Low -> Medium -> High
Samga Alt: High -> Low -> Low -> Medium -> Deny
Ruth: Medium -> Low -> Medium -> Low
Additional Scene: Go to Nammi's after finishing Nammi's song, and go through the left door in the club (you'll have VIP access.) Steal the clothing from the clothes hamper and go through the scene.

The Gauntlet

Endurance mode not enough for you? Want to bang almost everyone at once? Like being forced to choose between Fission, Ghost, and Double? The Gauntlet is for you!

The Gauntlet is the boss rush mode of Spunkstock. You have limited resources (GC) for rerolls and the like for each Gauntlet run, you need to choose one white and one silver modifier per song, and at the end of the 5th and 10th songs, you're forced to choose one of three gold modifiers. Note that GC are reset when you finish/fail the gauntlet - you need to ration it for each individual run.

At the beginning of the Gauntlet, you get to choose three characters to exclude. None of the characters include forced modifiers from their H scenes, so you don't need to worry about that. Typically, I'll choose to exclude Secret (lol not a fan,) Ruth (because of that horrid 180BPM song,) and typically one of the other high-BPM songs like Faye. As far as I can tell, this doesn't affect your reward, so if you have issues with a particular opener's song, definitely exclude that one.

Note that you'll go through every other character's songs, including all four of the co-headliners complete with their mechanics. Note that for each round of these, you'll get to pick a white modifier... but you'll also have to pick a silver modifier. Unless you invested heavily enough in Seer to bring your reroll cost to 0, you'll need to be careful how many times you complete. For YuMei specifically, you get 3 blessings each time you complete Mei's progress bar, so fortunately you don't have to reroll for those.

For overall strategy - you'll want a few levels of Seer to start with to save on GC. Your base reroll cost is 20, so 2 levels of Seer brings that down to 5 per reroll (and 3 more levels makes rerolls free.) After that, choose Needle/Sap/Perception as your white modifiers, and keep rerolling for whips as your silver mods. Be careful of rerolling too much - again, you only have a limited amount of GC to use for rerolls on each run.

When you finish your fifth song (which will be a random song with a co-headliner,) you'll have an opportunity to buy white modifiers for 50GC each, and then you'll be forced to pick one of three randomly rolled gold modifiers. Gold modifiers to watch for as ideal choices: Gravity, Doom, and Bewitch. If you have to pick anything else, still play it out - even a failed gauntlet run gets you Gold Reputation (used to buy global and permanent modifiers in the Gold Reputation shop.)

After choosing your gold modifier, you get 108GC more to spend on rerolls.

The above repeats after the 10th song.

And after the 15th song, congratulations - you've beaten the gauntlet!

Acknowledgements and Final Comments

I want to acknowledge the three guides that are on here at the time of this writing, just because they're good.

How to Full-Combo YuMei: This is actually what inspired me to write this. I was stuck on YuMei, but while reading that guide didn't really explain the Blessing mechanic, it DID imply that it was a lot easier than it felt - which made me go try it again and realize how brokenly good it was for grinding reputation.

Modifiers and how they work: Highly recommended. I've focused more on strategy around the modifiers and how to minimize bad effects, but that guide actually has MATH.

All possible ending: Means I don't have to play the game over and over and over again to see how the endings happened.


Let me know if there's anything else you want me to add to this guide in the comments. Note that this is NOT intended to be a full completion walkthrough guide - remember that the "Characters" screen in your home tent actually has a checklist of how to get all the scenes (filling the checklist will get you 100% completion from a game perspective.)

[eppycl]

@midknight7199 - as far as I recall, it's just another purchase from Mei. Might have to knock her up first though, or maybe at least get to the... "platinum" level maybe? Basically, finish all her content and it should be available at some point.

My computer died and I lost my saves, but my vague recollection is that you need to S-rank 10 girls to get it.

[Midknight7199]

how do you buy the band of friendship? I can't find this information anywhere.

[eppycl]

@nort - glad you enjoyed it. After the second or third time digging the Boba patterns out of the forum thread where it's mentioned, I resolved to add it to this FAQ. Ain't nobody remembering that.

@n.C mixam - Thanks for that info - I'll add that in at some point.

@totalledshoe64 - You might have to clarify that question with some context or ask on the general forums for help.

[totalledshoe64]

how do u get boba to talk to the others

[n.C mixam]

And Samga 2 BPM is 130

[n.C mixam]

Nammi BPM is 128 btw

[nort]

@eppycl
Thank you for the guide! I only had the Boba alt-scene left and I didn't want to brute force it

[nort]

@invesibel11

I SS'd Ruth on my 4th try, it wasn't that bad. I just prioritized glass, followed by needle, then barrier. If they weren't available, I chose options that didn't affect SS gameplay (ie. whip). It should be even easier after you unlock drinks. I didn't have them unlocked when I originally SS'd Ruth but after SS'ing dom samga, I am very thankful for the perfect boosting and critical boost drinks. Give it a try and see if it helps.

I feel like people abusing an autoclicker takes away from the core gameplay and at that point, what is even the point of getting the game, just watch porn for free lol.

[Campbell's Biology FMJ Ed]

ruth is not hard dude, you just have to minmax the game. always start with proctect and set up an autoclick bind ot kill yourself at the start. You get something like needle, barrier, cat and sap? taht way. Then just make sure you dont pick tempo, mine, fission and its easy. Samga 2 is honestly way harder since you cant abuse that trick and yumei are both insane beat count slogs for the SS. whip is also very nice and stamina is super underrated. Seer is kind of a meme. you dont need it unless youre going long and have tons of rep. much better to get the shop upgrades, and buy full vending with your hearts over picking a do nothing special over needle which has a noticeable effect. FYI the revive special doesnt carry over the buffs for gauntlet or samga 3.

[invesibel11]

@eppycl
if you wish to see someone who can SS Ruth .. requirements:
must have defeated all the following with 0 defeats:
Battletoads NES, Ghosts'n Goblins NES, Ninja Gaiden NES, Geometry Dash,
Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde NES, Friday The 13th (1989) NES, Bubsy 3D , Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (DOS And Amiga), E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial NES.
if you can find someone who can defeat them in a single go ALL OF THEM back to back with 0 defeats .. then Ruth's SS will be a piece of cake.