Cut the Rope
A Walkthrough by KJT CD ACD
Hey guys, my name is KJ and I'll be your guide through the Windows Phone and Windows 8 title, 'Cut the Rope'. This is a simple little physics-based puzzler involving the delivery of a mysterious package. Contained within - OmNom, and his insatiable lust for candy! Your job as his owner is to cut ropes, pop bubbles and squeeze balloons to direct OmNom's favourite food to him.
There's not much to this game, no real playthroughs that can be spoken of. Chances are you will have to backtrack to improve upon previous levels towards the end of this guide, but if you're good at the game, you should be fine. We'll be going through the achievement list as they become available in-game. Some achievements require grinding on certain levels, so you can do them as they come or go for 300 stars to unlock all the levels you'll need to grind, before backtracking to do so.
With that in mind, here we go!
Cut the Rope
A Walkthrough by KJT CD ACD
This game's achievements are staggered between skill-based and cumulative achievements. There are a few things you'll need to master in order to complete this game. An example of which will be the tools and obstacles you encounter along the way, which I will now get into a little deeper. There is a new mechanic introduced during each world that increases the difficulty of the puzzles:
Ropes:
The main mechanic of the game, ropes tether the candy in place, stretch themselves to fling the candy and can be manipulated by other tools to swing the candy. These can be tricky if your fingers aren't in the right place, or jammed right up against the screen, or if two ropes are very close together. Accidental cuts are probably the most common cause of restarting in the earlier levels. However, any and all cut ropes count towards Ultimate Rope Cutter, so your mistakes will eventually loop back into a positive, be that an achievement or a lowered grinding time.
Balloons:
Balloons blow the candy relative to the direction they are facing; horizontally, vertically or diagonally. These can be used to make the candy swing on a rope or alter its course while in a bubble. These require quick fingers and reactions and knowing how many times you should squeeze the balloon on any given level to influence the candy's path correctly. Too much or too little, and your candy is gone.
Bubbles:
Bubbles, when entered, reverse the candy's gravity in a direct vertical line. This line can be manipulated by ropes and balloons. Most of the time, bubbles require quick thinking to pop them at the right time to give the descent angle the correct trajectory for maximum swing on a rope, or to drop the candy directly into OmNom's mouth. Pop too early or too late and you'll lose your candy. Don't pop the bubble and you will lose your candy. In either case, this is progress towards achievements you'll only need to grind later.
Magic Hats:
Magic hats teleport your candy! These are colour coded sets, meaning you may find two or three different coloured pairs of hats in the same level. Everything about these hats scream 'Portal' - you can almost hear GLaDOS saying; "Momentum, a function of mass and velocity, is conserved between portals. In layman's terms, speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out", which is absolutely dead on the money. The candy enters and exits hats at the same speed, making for some frustratingly challenging puzzles. As with the bubbles, timing and reflexes for the perfect trajectory are required here.
Spiders:
Spiders sit at the top of a rope that your candy is, or can be, connected to and descends slowly in an attempt to steal it. This adds a time limit to cutting a certain rope. If the Spider reaches your candy, you'll lose it, but hastiness in cutting the rope to stop the spider can also lead to a loss of candy. Take your time, figure it out, and - if need be - let the spider take the candy once. There's achievements for losing the candy and for letting spiders take them. Might as well get the grind on early while learning the levels.
Spiked Bars:
Mostly in the earlier levels, spiked bars will break your candy if it touches them. Timing and reflexes are essential to bypassing these annoyances.
Re-unitable Candies:
In the final Box covered in the walkthrough of this game, you will be presented with the candy split in two halves, which you must master all of the above tools and avoid all of the above hazards to rectify before figuring out a way to feed the whole candy to OmNom. There is an achievement for doing this 100 times, but you might as well file this under 'To Grind' with the rest of the cumulative achievements, as progress for the sake of a progress achievements stops once Box 5 is unlocked.
These are the only mechanics you will be required to have knowledge of for this walkthrough, as the achievements do not require you to progress beyond Box 5. You will be introduced to all of these concepts in what I like to call 'tutorial puzzles', but it's just as effective to have read what they do and how they can be used instead of taking up time figuring it out for yourself.
With your tools and hazards explained and out of the way, it's on to the achievements!
Cut the Rope
A Walkthrough By KJT CD ACD
And finally, we come to the actual walkthrough. This will be structured by Box and the achievements will be listed by the earliest point they can be obtained, and then again by the most convenient place to grind and/or combine it with other grindable achievements. Some will not be listed, as the first place it is possible to obtain an achievement may be the very first level in the game; nobody is about to replay the first level 2,000 times for Ultimate Rope Cutter.
On that note, forget about the Rope Cutter and the Scissors achievements; they will either come through natural play or you will have to backtrack to obtain them. All the Rope Cutter achievements, despite the chances that you'll have 100 and 800 by the time you unlock Golden Scissors (300 stars), are listed under level 1-7, the grinding level. The Scissors achievements are noted at their earliest points in the game, obtainable if you've 3-starred every level leading up to then. These achievements will unlock differently for everybody depending on their level of skill and style of play.
That in mind, here we go:
Box 1 (Cardboard Box):
The second level (1-2) is your first opportunity to obtain Quick Finger. Just slice quickly across the top of the screen and you'll get it.
The seventh level (1-7) is your first opportunity to obtain Master Finger. As with Quick Finger, swipe quickly in a circular motion and you should cut six ropes at once, granting you the achievement. Additionally, 1-7 is the best level in the game to grind Ultimate Rope Cutter, as well as being a place to retrospectively obtain Quick Finger, if you missed it on 1-2.
1-7 is also your first (and one of the easiest) opportunities to take Tummy Teaser. For this achievement, you will need to make OmNom open and close his mouth ten times in one level without losing the candy. The process is simple: you are confronted with six ropes in a circle around the candy. The cuts to complete this achievement are: top left, top, bottom left, top right (he will open his mouth at this point, first time of 10), wait for the candy to stop moving, bottom right. OmNom will continue to open and close his mouth well after you've made him do it the remaining 9 times. You have to fail the level to do this, but you'll have to fail it to get the other achievements.
Level 16 (1-16) should see you popping Bronze Scissors if you've 3-starred every level thus far.
Box 2 (Fabric Box):
The first level is the best level to grind Calorie Minimiser if you've not lost enough candies during your quest to 300 stars. The candy is very low to the bottom of the screen on a rope, making the time between cut and loss significantly shorter than most levels. This also works for Weight Loser if you've not got that yet.
The sixth level (2-6) is your first opportunity to grind Bubble Popper and Bubble Master. This is the best level, in my opinion, as you can direct the bubbles with the diagonally facing air-cushions to make sure you get the candy into the maximum number of bubbles possible. Other TA users have suggested 3-21 (Paulfc) and 2-8 (griffey95), and you're welcome to use whichever level you please to tag the achievement.
The twenty-third level (2-23) will see the earliest (if troublesome) point you can obtain Candy Juggler. This is a Windows Phone solution, unless you have a touch-screen monitor with Multi-Touch enabled. Use Multi-Touch to cut the ropes evenly and use the air-cushions to keep the candy afloat for 30 seconds. This can be arduous, and an easier solution that can be employed by both Windows 8 and Phone is a little further down the page at 4-16.
Candy JugglerKeep the candy in the air for 30 seconds without ropes or bubbles
The final level (2-25) will see you popping Silver Scissors, if you've 3-starred every level thus far.
Box 3 (Foil Box):
The eleventh level (3-11) is the best opportunity to grind out Spider Lover, Spider Buster and Spider Tamer. In this level, two spiders are connected to the candy by two ropes on sliding bars. For Spider Lover, simply ignore your phone/computer entirely, except to make sure it doesn't go to sleep and stop progress. Eventually, you will hear the achievement pop, zero effort required. For Spider Buster and Spider Tamer, simply cut the ropes. You'll get two spiders stopped in a row, making Spider Buster 20 instead of 40 and Spider Tamer 100 instead of 200. You'll also get half the grinding done for Calorie Minimiser, and quite possibly unlock Weight Loser if you haven't already, in the process. Very productive!
Box 4 (Magic Box):
The sixteenth level is the best opportunity to obtain Magician, as well as grabbing Candy Juggler on top of it. Cut the rope, allow the candy to fall through the green hat to collect the first star, then when it comes back down, press the air-cushion once to give the candy a little more momentum, then let it go. It should collect the second star then drop in and out of the green hats for around 60-90 seconds. If done right, towards the end, the candy will rapidly flick between the two green hats, greatly speeding up your obtaining of Magician.
MagicianDrop candy into magic hats 200 times
Candy JugglerKeep the candy in the air for 30 seconds without ropes or bubbles
The final level (4-25) will see you popping Golden Scissors, if you've 3-starred every level thus far.
Box 5 (Valentine Box):
The very first level (5-1) sees the last cumulative achievement available. It is also the best place to grind Romantic Soul. Simply cut the two ropes with one swipe to reunite the candy, refresh the level and repeat until you have the achievement. The candy does not need to be fed to OmNom to count.
Box 6 (Toy Box}:
There is only one achievement for this box, and it's for obtaining enough stars to unlock it.
There it is! All the levels outlined by Box ready for you to grind and obtain at your leisure. Enjoy!