Mina the Hollower: How to Complete the Ring Master Challenge Guide

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Mina the Hollower How to Complete the Ring Master Challenge

Published May 29, 2026, 12:00 AM EDT

Tay Garcia is a Staff Writer at DualShockers and a Brazilian journalist who has been covering games professionally since 2017. Her work spans news, reviews, previews, lists, guides, and features, with a particular focus on horror, retro games, theories, puzzle games, Metroidvanias, Soulslikes, and story-driven titles.

Before joining DualShockers, Tay worked as an assistant editor and contributed to Jovem Nerd, one of Brazil’s largest pop culture outlets, as well as Editora Europa, a major Brazilian publisher known for gaming and technology magazines. She has also worked as a streamer, YouTube creator, and podcaster. Tay holds a B.A. in Journalism, has postgraduate training in Social Media, and is certified in professional video game journalism. She was also a member of Podcast UP, which won the Cubo de Ouro Award for Best Podcast in Brazil in 2021.

Who says a difficult and punishing adventure like Mina the Hollower can't have a few lighthearted minigames to break up the tension? That’s right! Yacht Club Games' gothic title doesn't just feature a beautifully tuned Soulslike risk-and-reward system, but also leaves plenty of room for some arcade-style fun – and a prime example of this is the Ring Master.

To track down this minigame, exit through the southern gate of Ossex and push directly south into the Southern Outskirts. From there, hang a right to enter a screen featuring a jumping purple flower, and step into the nearby cave entrance. Navigate through the cavern interior (using more purple flowers to launch yourself across the gaps) until you reach the opposite exit. Follow this new path to its end, which will lead you straight into the Sandfalls region.

From the main checkpoint of this zone, head into the screen directly below you to enter Sifted Sands, a treacherous playground packed with quicksand pits and volatile dynamite carts that you must detonate to clear the path. However, our objective is tucked away on the far right side of this screen, so make your way to the eastern edge, dispatch the hostile minotaur guarding the path, and burrow into the open hole to drop into a hidden cave – and welcome to the Ring Master’s arena!

How to Reach the Maximum Score in the Ring Master

At its core, the Ring Master is a reflex-based minigame that requires you to jump and burrow directly inside glowing, colorful circles as they spawn across the arena. While it sounds incredibly simple on paper, it can be quite tricky because it demands precise timing and a little bit of luck. And to walk away with the reward, you need to score a whopping 5,000 points before the timer runs out.

To start the challenge, speak with the Ring Master NPC and pay an entry fee of 100 Bones – don't worry too much about the cost, since, if you perform reasonably well, the game will refund a decent portion of your currency at the end of each run.

The best mindset going into this challenge is to abandon the idea of playing perfectly. If you accidentally miss a ring and break your score multiplier, do not panic! You can easily recover and still hit the 5,000-point threshold. During my own successful playthrough, I actually messed up three times and still managed to cross the finish line with room to spare.

So, the trick to optimizing your score is just to keep in mind that landing inside consecutive circles builds up a precious score multiplier that sends your points skyrocketing. Also, you should look out for yellow circles, which require you to burrow into them twice before they completely disappear, so always make sure you land dead center inside them to immediately dig a second time. Conveniently, the game layout usually positions these yellow rings in a way that allows you to burrow through them while simultaneously catching a neighboring green circle, so keep an eye out for these overlap opportunities.

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The ultimate trick here is to keep a cool head. If you miss a ring, don’t let it throw off your rhythm. Instead of trying to dive-bomb multiple targets at once (which will quickly cause you to lose control of Mina), simply focus on calmly clearing the next upcoming ring, once at a time.

Once you successfully cross the 5,000-point mark, the Ring Master will reward your spectacular acrobatics with the Tunneling Codex Trinket. This incredibly powerful charm fundamentally changes your movement toolkit, allowing Mina to hold down the action button to burrow repeatedly in mid-air without needing to touch solid ground first, a nice upgrade for late-game exploration.