This is the standard screen you see when actually playing through a level in Tadpole Treble.
Most of it is taken up by the musical staff where the level actually is along with important information being along the top.

First is the life bar/note in the top left.

This shows your current "Treble Charge" level.

Your current streak (i.e. how many notes you have dodged up to a maximum of 30).

Your current score

The color of your score seems to be dependent on what your current multiplier is.
The score colors are

• black between 1x and 3x
  
• blue between 4x and 6x
  
• green from 7x and up

Your current multiplier

And how many of the bubbles you have gotten in the level.


That covers the basics of what is on this screen, but what about what all of these mean.

Before we can dig too much into the mechanics a brief stop at what those things on the staff part of the screen are. Tadpole Treble is fairly straightforward for a music-game. Run through a song, avoid bad things, get good things.

Here's my rundown.
There's the good


The Bad


And the Ugly


But what do these all do?

I'll start with the good:
This is a bubble. You collect them throughout the levels and they unlock bonus extras. They are the most ubiquitous "good" thing to pick up, but at only 1 point each you won't be racking up high scores any time soon with these guys.






These are, for the lack of a better term, the "purple sparkles". These are a great source of points, as they are always worth 30 points when you hit them.










Finally the tall things. On the left is a cymbal. When you run into one of these and hit it (with spacebar or the equivalent controller button) you will gain 1 to your multiplier and be launched either up or down (depending on the cymbal).
On the right is a bamboo. If you successfully hit these on the beat you get 200 points.

There are in any level generally two types of things to avoid. (Many individual levels have level-specific foes that you should also avoid). These are the notes, and what I will call "trails"










Trails are easiest to explain. They are your run of the mill barrier. You will get hurt if you hit or run into them, but get no points for avoiding them. They are literally just there to get in your way. Don't hit these.


These are "notes". They are scattered through the level following the music (hence notes). Not hitting these is essential, and is what will get you the bulk of your points as well as charge your Treble Charge (more on that later). When you have safely passed by a note it will turn green, and the points you get will pop up. The number of points you get is equal to your current streak value up to a maximum of 30 multiplied by your current "multiplier" value (more on that later too).

Next onto the life bar. It lives up here.










The life bar has 5 steps from completely full, dropping down to empty and blinking red.
Whenever you run into a note, or a trail or take any sort of damage from another source, your life bar goes down by one notch, your multiplier goes down by 1 (but will not go below 1), and your streak resets to 1. If you take damage when the life bar is empty, you die and have to start that level over.



If you run into food your life bar goes up by one. You don't get points for eating food.

The streak is essential in getting you points and is easy to raise. Simply don't run into a note, and it will go up by one. Keep not hitting notes and it will keep going up until it maxes out at 30. Taking damage will reset your streak to one. As said before, the number of points you get from dodging a note is equal to your current streak, so hit a note with a streak of 10 and its 10 points, streak of 30 and it is 30.

At least when your multiplier is 1. Which brings me to...

This is incredibly useful and also somewhat confusing. Your streak and multiplier combined determines exactly how many points you get when you dodge a note. You start with a multiplier of 1, and each time you hit one of the cymbals your multiplier goes up by 1. This rapidly adds up to a ton of extra points, as having a multiplier of 10 your notes at max streak will be worth 300 each rather than 30 at one.

However! Here is where it is somewhat unintuitive. The multiplier ONLY impacts the points that you get from notes. Bubbles are always worth 1, purple sparkles are always worth 30, bamboo is always worth 200 and trails are always worth 0. It doesn't make much difference in how useful the multiplier because of how many notes there are is but it is important to remember.

The Treble Charge is a mechanic that you have sitting there from the beginning of the game, but only gets explained after you have beaten Midnight Bayou (The fifth level if I remember correctly).

Here's the gist of what it is, how it works and what it does.

First what it is. Treble charge gives you temporary invulnerability against almost all damage sources (a notable exception is the barracuda in its respective level) and allows you to break notes by running through them instead of dodging them.

Your Treble Charge meter charges once your streak maxes out at 30. It then takes (if I counted correctly) passing 50 subsequent notes to fill your charge meter entirely. There are two visual signs your Charge meter is full. A music note and circle that expands around Baton
And the a shine on the Treble Charge meter itself.






To activate the charge when your meter is full you must press and hold spacebar (or the equivalent controller key) while staying in the same level on the staff (I.e. you can not move up or down). Once the animation has played, and "Treble charge" is activated, you can and should move around. The temporary invulnerability and ability to break through notes is useful for hard spots in a level you are trying to get through.

Breaking through notes and clever use of the Treble Charge is also essential in getting those high scores! When you pass a note at max streak you get 30 points per note. When you break a note using treble charge you get 31! That single extra point is able to be multiplied by your multiplier. This means that at a multiplier of 10, you are getting 10 extra points PER note that you destroy while the charge is active. Hit 20 notes in a charge and that's 200 points you wouldn't otherwise have had, and can make quite a major difference in the scoreboards, especially in the top couple of places.

Thought I should add in a brief summary table for quick and easy reference.

I'll add more things to this guide when I get a chance.
Potential things to talk about:
-Level specific 200 point targets and/or hazards
-High score strategies
-Cymbals that don't give a multiplier? (I think I've run into at least one of these but I need to check)
-? (Suggestions welcome)