Running With Friends: FAQ, Walkthrough and Beginner’s Guide, part 3

Welcome to part 3 of the walkthrough for Running With Friends! Click here to go back to part 2 of the guide, or read on!

What can you spend gems on? Boosts and restarts, that’s what. You get two restarts (or continues) per round, which cost between fifty and 200 gems depending on which round you’re on. Using your continues will massively stretch out your distance and allow you to collect more stars, so don’t make the mistake that most people do and never use them, unless you’re trying to build up your gems.

At the beginning of the round, you can spend gems to earn boosts. The boosts consist of increasing how many stars you earn for crashing into an item, or increasing the amount of time that the magnet power up lasts (magnets automatically suck any star that you pass in your direction, so that you don’t have to move to collect them). Usually, though, they will amount to earning 50 stars per traffic cone, 100 stars per normal breakable obstacle (box, barrel, hay bale etc) or 150 per runner that you slide into.
You can earn three power ups per spin, and any duplicate power ups are added together. For example, if you earn three of the “50 stars for sliding into traffic cones” boosts, you’ll earn 150 stars for each traffic cone that you destroy.

In the main screen you will be able to see your position compared to everybody who you are playing against, whether they are your Facebook friends or you’re just playing against them randomly. This is calculated solely on how many meters you run. Stars don’t factor into it at all.

See those little ribbons by people’s names? Those indicate what level they’re at. Notice that the ribbon by your name will change color every time that you gain an experience level. That’s the only perk to gaining a level, though, aside from the bonus gems. There’s nothing that you can unlock by gaining a level.

You’ll see Words With Friends style tiles in the middle of each stage, as well. Collect them and you’ll be able to spell out a word. Once you spell out a whole word, you’ll earn bonus experience points and gems.

You can check the leaderboards by hitting the menu button in the top right corner of the screen. There, you can also buy new avatars using your gems, edit your profile, buy more gems, change which Facebook account your game is associated with, or go to the options screen to change the music and sound effects settings or access the help menu if you have further questions about the game.

Other than that, that’s the basics! Enjoy Running With Friends!