Crowd Surge: How to Pick the Right Gate Every Time

You start Crowd Surge with four runners. By the end of a good level you can have four hundred. Everything in between comes down to gates, and most people pick the wrong one at least twice a run.

The trap is that a multiply gate looks better than an add gate. Bigger symbol, bigger feeling. That is only true once your crowd is big enough, and early on it is usually false.

Compare what each gate does to the crowd you have right now, not the crowd you want. A x3 gate on 8 runners gives you 24. A +29 gate on 8 runners gives you 37. The add gate wins, and it is not close.

Flip it around later in the level. A x3 gate on 60 runners gives you 180. That same +29 gives you 89. Now the multiply gate is the obvious pick.

You do not need to do that sum while running. Just remember the shape of it. Small crowd, take the plus. Big crowd, take the times.

From level three onward the game stops making it easy. Instead of one good gate and one bad one, you get two good ones. That is when the rule above stops being optional.

Look at your counter, then look at the two numbers. Nine times out of ten the answer is obvious once you have actually compared them against your current count instead of guessing.

Between gates there are red and white barriers sweeping across the track. They take a percentage of your crowd, not a fixed number. That matters more than it sounds.

A barrier that costs you 20 percent takes 2 runners when you have 10 and 80 runners when you have 400. So the bigger you get, the more a hit actually hurts. Winning does not make you safe.

The ground under each barrier lights up red as you get close. That circle is exactly the area it can reach. Steer around the edge of it and you keep everyone.

Every level ends with a wall that has a number on it. Beat that number and your crowd smashes through. Come up short and they bounce off it.

The number is set from what a perfect run would give you, so it is always beatable. If you are losing, you took a bad gate somewhere, or ate a barrier you could have dodged.