The basics of this game is very simple. Use your wand to shrink the enemies and then simply ‘touch’ them to squish them. I say ‘touch’ because you can squish enemies not just by walking on them, but also on ladders, while falling, etc. A shrunk monster is completely at your mercy – they do not use their special attacks – the Werelupe’s bone throw, the Shoyru’s ‘blue fireball’, or the Chia bomber’s dive attack.
After an enemy is squished, a ‘prize’ appears somewhere on the board. If you’re familiar with the game at all, you know what all the prizes are and what they are worth.
This game is very simple to get the 50,000 points needed to receive the 1,000 neopoints. If that’s all you want from the game, you can stop reading. Because after reading this, you, yes you, can easily get on the top scores list, and with a little skill, patience, and luck, can even earn a trophy.
Tips to maximize points
Number 1 – STAY ALIVE
Obviously you can’t collect points if you are dead. But there is another trick to this, I call it ‘the level 35 cheat’, which I’ll explain below.
Note that you gain an additional life at 10,000 points, and at 100,000 points.
More detail on staying alive later on.
Number 2 – BE QUICK!
You get a bonus to your score at the end of every level, based on how much time you have left. While it is impossible to calculate the exact bonuses based on time, because the bar just ‘slides’ across (I suppose you could use a stopwatch…c’mon, get a life) — obviously, the more time you have left on your clock, the better the bonus.
HOWEVER – use the ‘be quick about it’ tip with your HEAD compared to the following tip:
Number 3 – GET PRIZES!
Obviously the big bonuses in your score comes from the ‘prizes’ your enemies leave behind after you squish them. The experienced player will note two problems that arise. Firstly, if you squish a bunch of enemies all at once, you may end up with prizes all over the board, and they disappear quickly (I think I read somewhere 10 seconds…I’m not totally sure…I’m not some dork with a stopwatch :-P)
So the question becomes – which one do I go get?
The obvious answer is, and I’ve read this on other guides, go get the one worth the most points.
However, the best answer is that you SHOULDN’T HAVE TO ASK THIS QUESTION!
Why?
Because you shouldn’t go squishing more enemies when there’s already prizes on the ground!
If you don’t squish another one, of COURSE you’ll be able to get ALL the prizes left on the ground except for extreme circumstances (where you’re all the way on the other side of the board or there’s other enemies in your way).
Common sense MUST prevail though – obviously if you’re going to be right next to a prize and there’s some wimpy enemy in the way – SQUISH AWAY!
Problem 2 is the ‘end of level’ issue – after you’ve killed your last enemy, you only have a few (I think 5? Where’s that dork with the stopwatch?) seconds until it advances you automatically to the next level. I can’t count the amount of times I’ve yelled at my screen for coming up a second short of the Evil Negg or Apple just sitting there taunting at me as I float away to the next level.
The solution to this is a bit of planning, a bit of skill, a bit of patience, and a bit of luck. Try to save the last enemy until they are somewhat near the middle of the board. This way, you can quickly run to almost any part of the board from where you are and still get your prize. This isn’t always possible because of board layouts, enemy types, or time constraints, but you should be able to, at least in the easier levels, not miss out on your ‘end of level prize’.
One more caveat to this is in the ‘card’ levels – 6,12,18,24,30,36 – the level immediately ends after the last enemy is squished (unless there is a dark faerie in that level). So make sure you’ve collected as many prizes as you can before you go to squish that last enemy. Sometimes you’ll get lucky and the last enemy will leave a prize directly where you are standing. More often than not, however, you will end a card level with a prize laying innocently off somewhere, and nothing you can do about it.
Staying alive detail
Stayin’ alive tip 1
YOU START EACH LEVEL INVINCIBLE
You have a few seconds, I think 3-5 (does someone have a stopwatch I can borrow?) at the beginning of every level of invincibility. Use it! On certain levels, you actually *need* it to survive. You cannot be harmed by enemies, or their weapons if they have them, at this point. You can even pass thru them, walking or on ladders, and you can even shrink and squish them while you’re standing inside them.
Stayin’ Alive tip 2
Your wand has good range
You can sometimes shrink enemies thru a wall. You can shrink them on ladders. You can shrink a bunch at a time. You can ‘spam’ (repeatedly press the spacebar) your wand and not worry about timing a shot just right. Know your wand, love your wand.
Stayin’ Alive tip 3
Game play has momentum built in
If you’ve played this game a few times, you will realize that your character doesn’t necessarily automatically stop and start going in another direction. He ‘speeds up’ as he moves, and takes a little while to slow down and turn around.
In addition, if you are moving in a direction and teleport, you may still find yourself moving in that direction without even pressing the arrow keys.
Also, if you climb a ladder and hold ‘up’ after you are off of it, you will ‘pop’ off the top of the ladder. Wait until this pop before you start moving. Your character moves very slowly side-to-side on ladders, you want to be off it completely before you start walking.
It also appears to me that you ‘drop’ faster when you hold the down key. BEWARE the ‘hole in the ground’ bug, detailed at the end of this guide in the bug section.
Stayin’ alive tip 4
Beware of ‘move lag’
In particular, teleport lag. You may think you got out of there just in time to avoid that Werelupe bone or Chia dive bomb, but you probably didn’t. Move quick quick quick and give yourself some time to get out of there. Try not to cut squishes close unless absolutely necessary.
KNOW YOUR ENEMY
There are several kinds of enemies in the game. All appear to have a slight amount of programming built into them. Apologies for if I get some of the names wrong, I’m just not that good at them.
Kacheeks (the easy ones at the start of levels)
These brainless slow dudes just wander. They can and will go up and down ladders. They also ‘fall’ off of edges. They have no projectile, and I do not believe I have seen a pattern as to whether or not they choose to go onto a ladder or not based on where you are. I have seen them arrive at the bottom of a ladder only to go right back up it. I have also seen them reach the bottom of ‘dangling’ ladders (ones whose bottoms aren’t touching the ground) and fall, but also have seen them go right back up it.
Easiest enemy to kill
Werelupes
These guys are jerks. They move very quickly, and throw bones at you. They can go down ladders but not up them. They will go down a ladder if you are ‘lower’ on the board than they are. There are two quirks to them that are very dangerous. One is that they can and will TURN AROUND if you are behind them when they throw your bone. I was _very_ mad the first time this happened. It does not always happen, but enough that you should NOT stand behind them if they are throwing a bone anytime soon. I have seen them turn around and throw their bone behind them for no reason, as well. Secondly, their bone ‘shatters’ against walls, killing you, when it hits it. Be VERY careful if you are near a bone and a wall.
Werelupes do NOT ‘fall off’ edges.
One of the toughest enemies.
JubJubs
These guys hop along lazily. They will go up and down ladders, and appear to ‘get off’ the ladder if you are near them/on the same level. They do not ‘fall off’ edges, and have no projectile weapons.
Altogether, a pretty harmless enemy.
Shoyrus
Slow but dangerous because of their ‘blue blast’. This weapon, like the bone of the Werelupe, ‘splashes’ against walls, so be careful with that. I have also noted a bug that in several levels, certain or all Shoyrus may not use their blue blast at all. In general, I try to keep an eye on their blasts, and be in a position to attack as soon as they fire.
Shoyrus will not ‘fall off’ edges, nor will they go up or down ladders.
Just be careful with them and you should be ok.
Chias
Chias have a ‘dive’ attack. When you are within a certain distance, they will turn on their side and ‘slide’ towards you at an increased speed. This isn’t too dangerous if you know where they are. There actually aren’t too many levels that contain these guys. Chias will use their dive attack even if there is a gap in the ground between you and them (they can’t go over it though, they’ll just fall instead), and will also exit from ladders in order to dive bomb you if they sense you. Oh yeah, Chias go on ladders.
They also ‘fall off’ edges, but in general, move very slowly.
Just be aware of them and you’ll be fine.
Dark faerie
GRRR
I hate this chick. She cannot be destroyed, appears and disappears randomly, and fires deadly blue/purple balls at you. If you are standing still, the ball will come directly at you. If you are moving, the ball will go to wherever you were when she shot it. The solution is to try to be moving while the ball is coming at you. You are particularly susceptible to the move lag I mentioned above when it comes to this chick and her ball.
Sometimes it is completely impossible to avoid her.
Sometimes after she fires a ball, instead of disappearing again, she will fire another one…or another one…or another one. One time she fired 5 balls in a row, moving after each shot, before she disappeared finally. Just be wary that just because she has shot her ball, does not mean she’s gone!
Note that sometimes she will appear but not shoot anything, and then disappear again.
Also note that on levels with the dark faerie, even after you squish all the enemies, she will appear one final time before the level is complete.
You can use this added time to collect a prize on the board that you may ordinarily miss. The exception to this is level 6, a ‘card’ level. Be sure to not squish the last enemy until after the faerie leaves, so you have time to go collect your prize. She’ll appear one more time and you’ll be done.
Bugs, glitches and notes
You may still be wondering what the ‘level 35 time bug’ is. Well, here’s the idea. In level 36, after you kill all the enemies, your game is over, you’ve rescued all the heroes. However, I thought to myself one time on level 36 when I had a few extra lives remaining ‘what if I just let myself run out of time? Then I can go through the level again and collect all the prizes after squishing the enemies!’
Well, when I tried this, level 36 loaded – WITH NO FLOORS AT ALL. Myself and the enemies just fell and cycled thru the screen – eventually the dark faerie hit me with a bubble.
So I thought ‘why don’t I try this on level 35?’
So I did, and it worked! With 4 lives left, I squished all the enemies EXCEPT one, and collected all the prizes I could. I then dodged the dark faerie until time ran out, and the level restarted! I lost my life, but I retained the points I just got, and was able to squish all the enemies and collect all the prizes again! You can continue to do this obviously until you’re down to 1 life, then of course, go head and squish all the enemies.
The problem is that there is a dark faerie timer bug as well, and you won’t be able to play level 36. This is described below.
Dark Faerie timer bug
In levels with a dark faerie, if you run out of time once, it appears that the next time you go through the level, even if you squish all the enemies, the timer will continue to go down and you will not advance to the next level. I think I remember a few times where this did not occur, but for the most part, it does. Be careful on levels with a dark faerie.
Fall through the ground bug
I noted earlier that if you hold the down arrow when you fall, you seem to fall faster. However, sometimes if you are holding the down arrow while you are falling, you will fall directly thru the ground to the top of the level, even if there is no hole in the ground. I have not found an exact pattern or tested this on every level (maybe the dork with the stopwatch can).
dying-at-end-of-card-levels
This I believe only applies to level 6. If the dark faerie kills you and you do not re-appear before the ‘card in the treasure chest’ comes down, you will not lose the life you were slated to lose. Consider yourself lucky, and try not to test this out!
That’s just about everything I can think of short of a level-by-level guide. good luck and see you on the top scores list! – Reese