I suspected this adventure was bugged, so I spent several hours checking one by one each and every possible route from each mask to every one of the others, and determining which is the fastest or most efficient possible route between them to reach the next mask while also keeping a constant speed boost..
After all the testing, I did several attempts, following the fastest possible path every time, to find that I was right. It is bugged.
Most of the paths produced will make impossible to reach gold tier even if the fastest possible route is taken every time and the mushroom speed boost is maintained constantly.
Increasing the timer again will not solve this problem, it would only make a few more of the random possible paths viable, while making the few currently possible ones too easy.
Because of this, reaching gold tier is mostly about luck rather than ability, so something should be done to fix the problem.
For example: Less time could be given at the start, but in exchange extra time would be given each time the next mask is reached. The extra time would depend on the distance between the masks, the farther the next mask is, the more extra time would be received when soothed this way if the random path is too long, there will be extra time to compensate.
Also, there’s some bouncing mushroom that will not fire every time when jumped on. At least the ones at 12 and 6 and in the central circle when facing north. I’ve made several attempts to jump on them with and without the mushroom boost, falling at different parts of the mushroom to see if it was a problem with the shape of the triggering area, and it seems it only happens while the adventure is active, and it seems to be completely random. I found no way to reproduce it on demand. They just won’t fire sometimes when stepping on it when the adventure is active. Lag doesn’t seem to be the cause of the problem, since I had very constant ping under 70ms, and it did not happen at all while the adventure wasn’t active. If the mushrooms there behave differently under the effects of the adventure, there may be a problem their interaction.
SUGGEST-A-TRON says:
PAY—ONCE—UNLOCKS—ARE—ALWAYS—BETTER.
No exceptions!