Tournament Mode is the main game mode of Hamsterball. The objective is to complete all the races in single shot. There are three difficulties in this game mode: Pipsqueak, Normal, and Frenzied.
Difficulties[]
| Difficulty | Description |
|---|---|
| Pipsqueak | The easiest setting, for beginners! On Pipsqueak difficulty, you will get an extra five seconds to complete each race, and all enemies have been removed from all the courses! However, all scoring is cut in half! |
| Normal | The way to play! Normal difficulty will give you a real fun for your money. With all the course opponents turned on, you'll get the total Hamsterball experience. |
| Frenzied | Expert only! At Frenzy difficulty, you get five fewer seconds to complete each race... But all scoring is doubled! Truly, the most challenging way to play! |
Races[]
The 15 races in this game mode are listed as follows:
| Races in Hamsterball |
|---|
 PS3  PS3   PS3  PS3  PS3  PS3 V3.0+   PS3    PS3 V3.0+    V3.0+ |
Time Pool[]
Time Pool is the most vital mechanism of Tournament. The player is granted with a certain amount of time shown in the timer blob above the screen to kick off. As the player goes through the track, the time goes down. The countdown stops once the player reaches the goal. The remaining time will be stored into the Time Pool for the next level. As the new level begins, the timer blob takes the remaining time from the Time Pool and grant extra race time of this race.
Time Bonuses[]
Aside with race time granted at the start of the race, there are three extra time bonuses in the Up Race, Expert Race, and Glass Race.
In the Up Race, at the final section before the goal, you will get launched upwards by a friction spiral, the second one in the stage. If you land on the big red button, you'll get 5 seconds added to your time pool.
In the Expert Race, at the end of the stage with the giant ramp, try to stay in the middle of the ramp and gather as much speed as you can. At the bottom of the ramp is a jump with a bell that you can possibly hit. If you do manage to hit it, you'll get 5 seconds added to your time pool.
In the Glass Race, near the end, there are two sections of glass you can choose to fall down and roll to the next section. If you break one of the pieces of glass at the end of the extremely steep ramp, you'll get 10 seconds added to your time pool, which you'll need to take on the next three races.
Goal Summary[]
When the player finishes the race, Tournament will summarize evaluate the player's performance in the current race. Left time will be multiplied by a factor to be a bonus. And if the player beat the par time, an extra bonus will be granted. Further, the summary will show the player's rank according to their current score.
Tournament Winner (Winner Summary)[]
The player needs to beat all 15 levels successfully to win the Tournament. This happens after the final one goal summary over. Winner summary will grant a super bonus to the score. If the player lost balls within given 20, a survival bonus regarded to the remaining balls will be granted. Then the player's final rank will be summarized, and their score will be sent to the Highscore.
Disqualification[]
For any reason, the player will be disqualified with abortion from an ongoing race or rollback. A disqualified player's score won't be able to enter the Highscore despite how much the score is, though the player may continue the following races. Once the player aborts, the score will be cleared to 0.
Leaving Tournament to Main Menu is not regarded as disqualification. The player may stop at any race for next time to challenge.
Rollback[]
The player may rewind to the previous race by "Rollback" button. However, this will cause the player disqualified and clear all scores.
Lost / Gameover[]
If the player fails to reach the goal as the time is up, the race is lost. If the player is still qualified, then Tournament will summarize the player's performance and try to send the final score to the Highscore list. After the gameover summary, Tournament is suspend. The player can either rollback or start the entire Tournament over again.
Arena Unlocks[]
On Normal and Frenzied difficulties, there are hidden sections of the last 12 races that, once found, reveal a grayed-out lock. Once the lock is rolled over, an arena that matches the theme of the current race will be unlocked in the Rodent Rumble game mode.
The location of each arena unlock is listed on the race's main page. The Warm-up Race, Beginner Race, and Intermediate Race all have their arenas unlocked by default.
Trivia[]
- If the player finishes a race at exactly 0.0 time left, this time won't be displayed in the goal summary.
- Level bonuses are limited to 14625 / 29250 / 58500.
- There's a bug in the winner summary. Once the player pauses and resumes at the winner summary, a second one winner summary will appear, granting the bonuses once again. This issue can achieve an absurdly high score that even may cause crash if the score overflows.