Use our tips and tricks for Nubby’s Number Factory to reach your goals in this plinko-inspired roguelite. The RNG can make it difficult to stay alive but there are useful items to help significantly. As well as little tricks to take advantage of for better scoring.
Disclaimer: Some of the screenshots in this guide show the background of levels later in a run if you’d prefer not to see them.
Tip 1 – Add Value to the Board
The number one tip is that you want to add value to your pegs. This may sound confusing since your goal is to hit them which reduces their value. However, some of the best items you can get in Nubby’s Number Factory will increase those values. Which makes for higher scores each time you hit them.
In addition to getting more points per hit, you’ll also keep your board alive so you have more pegs to bounce off of. Helpful items include the Kazoo, Friendly Rock, and Pants. Whereas other items like the Laser Pointer are great too since they don’t pop pegs.
Tip 2 – Some Items Are Better in the Early Game
The early to mid-game of a Nubby’s Number Factory run can be tough when you’re still creating your build. This is why it’s worth buying certain items temporarily. For example, the Cheese House, Finger Puppet, and Sea Cucumber are great early on. They’ll help you restock multiple times and get coins.
I like to buy one or two items to get through the early rounds and then sell them later. To sell items, right-click one and then left-click it to sell it. You’ll see how much it sells for upon right-clicking it if you’re unsure. Regardless, some items fall off or are situational making for a more difficult run.
Tip 3 – Don’t Forget to Reroll Items
When I first started Nubby’s Number Factory I didn’t use the reroll button enough. There’s no reason not to since it’s free to reroll and you can freeze items to buy later. Even if you don’t have the money, you should still reroll since there’s a chance you’ll find an item you may want later.
Aside from the Nubby-Mart, you can reroll in Cafe Nubby, the Black Market, and even your peg board. However, you can only freeze items at the Nubby-Mart. To do so, drag an item from the shop onto the blue snowflake button above. This will make it stay when you reroll or leave and revisit later. Also, you can unfreeze an item by left-clicking it once.
Tip 4 – How to Unlock Cafe Nubby
Another way to get useful perks, money, and more is via the Cafe Nubby shop. If you haven’t unlocked it before, you’d have no reason to know it exists. Fortunately, all you have to do is purchase the three locked item slots by spending five gold on each one. Make sure you don’t do it too early but once you unlock all three, you’ll have Cafe Nubby available.
The Nubby-Mart button for unlocking items will then change to a door with a Cafe sign attached. If you’re having a strong run where you have too much money, this is a good place to sink your money into. My favorite items are the Tart Lard and the Shisk Kebab. However, there are a couple of other good ones too.
Tip 5 – How to Get Money in Nubby’s Number Factory
Now that you know about rerolling and how to unlock Cafe Nubby, how do you get money to spend there? There are a few tricks to get money but the main way is via restocking. For those who are new, a restock happens whenever you reach a goal. Although, if you reach the goal multiple times, the board will restock more than once. Each restock gives you one coin.
Aside from restocking, you can get money from Cafe Nubby foods like the Hotdog, Dave, and Strawberries. However, I wouldn’t waste your money on the Strawberries. Otherwise, there’s a Black Market item called the Crazy Straw that gives you a chance to earn one coin each round. I don’t like its odds so I’d probably avoid that too.
Tip 6 – Your Goal Isn’t to Clear the Board
Clearing the board shouldn’t be your focus but it now doubles your score after an update tweaked it.
Your goal isn’t to pop every peg and attempting to do so can do more harm than good. Clearing the entire board without adding value will make you fall quicker and not reach the score you need. This is why you need to balance buying items that pop pegs with ones that boost them too.
In some cases, you may even want to avoid popping pegs by keeping high-value ones near the bottom. While you won’t always have the perfect placement, you can reroll to try and create a heavier bottom to prevent falling through.
Tip 7 – The Goal Increases Based on Your Performance
An interesting mechanic is how the round goal constantly changes. Depending on how well your run is going, the next round’s goal can increase significantly. This is how the developer, MogDogBlog Productions, attempts to keep each run challenging. As they explain on Steam, “The round goal is calculated by adding the sum total of all pegs and their factors together, and multiplying the total by an ever-increasing number.”
This can make it seem scary if you have a really good round and struggle to follow it up. However, the developer does a good job of keeping high-value pegs around so you still have a chance. By the time it’s a problem, it revolves more around your build than anything.
Tip 8 – Knowing Where to Aim Nubby
Some of the inevitable chaos means it won’t always matter where you aim Nubby. You can hit a peg just right and still immediately bounce off the stage. Fortunately, there are a couple of tricks like obviously aiming away from empty holes or rerolling to get a better board layout. But, you may play a certain way depending on your items.
Certain items may encourage hitting the highest peg first or bouncing off walls to boost pegs. Whereas some builds rely on surviving longer so you’ll need to aim for areas where you can bounce safely. Regardless, use the arrow guidelines to aim Nubby and not the crosshair.
Tip 9 – Don’t Forget About the RNG
Nubby’s Number Factory has a bunch of RNG which means it’s consistently possible to have a bad round or the best one ever. You won’t always get the items you need, sometimes Nubby will bounce erratically, and every now and then everything lines up perfectly. Many items even have a percentage chance of triggering.
While you can only hope an item or perk triggers, you can force them to activate more. For example, the Squirmy item has a 1 in 50 chance of metamorphosizing for every 5 pegs popped. You can use certain perks to trigger that 1 in 50 chance or simply keep your board alive to pop more pegs.
Tip 10 – Creating Builds in Nubby’s Number Factory
The best feeling is when you create a great build and get ridiculously high scores. Especially when it feels like you’ve broken the game reaching over 9000 restocks a round. As you get the hang of Nubby’s Number Factory, you’ll start to notice how items synergize together. Prior to an update, you could use the Kazoo and Friendly Rock to double points and trigger the Laser Pointer frequently. But it no longer triggers based on doubling pegs.
With seven item slots, you can find all sorts of fun ways to synergize your perks and items to benefit each other. Some of my favorite items are the Yeti, Kazoo, Jake the Snake, Pregnancy Test, and a whole bunch of The Kebab Perk. Be sure to comment with your favorite items and builds in the comments below!
Jeff is a journalist with over 10 years of experience writing, streaming, and making content about video games. With an associate degree in journalism, he’s a sucker for RPGs, survival games, roguelikes, and more.