Total amount of money and collectables in the levels

[Mauste]

Difficulty modifer for extreme:
Every small diamond = +1,000 to their original value.
Every big diamond = +5,000 to their original value.
Every ruby = +25,000 to their original value.
Hidden treasure = +500,000$ to their original value.
Boss Treasure = +0$
Tip: As you might've deduced, it's every treasure divided by 2 (50%). Thank alias for this.

Bonus level in the Clouds:
- 88,000$ (4x small diamonds, 8x big diamonds)
Tip: Before each level, purchase something from gallery so your money looks like xxx,x7x,xxx. The maximum amount of money you can get from the bonus levels is 440,000$

Moneybin:
- 750,000$
- 1x 1up

Amazon
- 2,134,000$ (22x small diamonds, 54x big diamonds, 31x rubies)
- Extreme modifier = 1,567,000$
- The Scepter of the Incan King = +1,000,000$
- Hidden Treasure = +1,000,000$
- 2x 1up

Transylvania:
- 2,358,000$ (69x small diamonds, 72x big diamonds, 30x rubies)
- Extreme modifier = +1,169,000$
- The Coin of the Lost Realm = +1,000,000$
- Hidden Heart Container = +1 heart
- 0x 1up
Tip: You can go both routes with the minecart.

African Mines (both routes):
- 1,924,000$ (57x small diamonds, 61x large diamonds, 24x rubies)
- Extreme modifier = +1,462,000$
- The Giant Diamond of the Inner Earth = +1,000,000$
- Hidden Treasure = +1,000,000$
- 1x 1up
Tip:Kill yourself so you can go both minecart routes.

Himalayas:
- 1,980,000$ (35x small diamonds, 61x big diamonds, 26x rubies)
- Extreme modifier = +990,000$
- The Lost Crown of Genghis Khan = +1,000,000$
- Hidden Heart Container = +1 heart
- 2x 1up

The Moon:
- 1,438,000$ (24x small diamonds, 49x big diamonds, 18x rubies)
- Extreme modifier = +1,219,000$
- The Green Cheese of Longevity = +1,000,000$
- Hidden Treasure = +1,000,000$
- 2x 1up

Mount Vesuvius (both minecart routes):
- 1,800,000$ (65x small diamonds, 47x big diamonds, 24x rubies)
- Extreme Modifier = +900,000$
- No boss treasure
- No hidden Treasure
- 1x 1up
Tip: Kill yourself so you can go both minecart routes.

These numbers are from the Extreme-difficulty and they are based on my own and alias' playthroughs.
If someone finds more, please post, so I can correct them. This thread is for those who attempt to get a high-score on the "Most profitable playthrough" on the leaderboards.

[Peacespreader]

So what's the total?
And is it enough to buy all the things in the gallery?

[Mauste]

It is not enough to buy all the things from the gallery. I think you need ~60 million for that.

[Zork Nemesis]

The total money is actually difficulty-dependent (and i'm not talking difficulty modifiers either). The Money Bin for example has a drop at the end that I know for a fact changes based on difficulty. On Normal, it was a cake. On Hard, it was a 1-up, and on Extreme it was a 50k ruby. You'll make the most money on Extreme since many healing items/1-ups are gems and you've got the 75% modifier backing you up, but what you find in the level itself is based on the difficulty you play.

[Mauste]

Originally posted by <eVa>Zork Nemesis:

The total money is actually difficulty-dependent (and i'm not talking difficulty modifiers either). The Money Bin for example has a drop at the end that I know for a fact changes based on difficulty. On Normal, it was a cake. On Hard, it was a 1-up, and on Extreme it was a 50k ruby. You'll make the most money on Extreme since many healing items/1-ups are gems and you've got the 75% modifier backing you up, but what you find in the level itself is based on the difficulty you play.

I know, I said it in my original post that these numbers are from the Extreme difficulty.

Numbers edited, because I found more of them.

When I completed extreme this time, I got 29,934,000$ from one playthrough and I missed 2x rubies (= 100,000$) in The Moon. I am now #11th in the "Most Profitable Playthrough"-leaderboards. If I had taken the rubies, I would've been #8th. There's also 4 cheaters at the top.

[ewmailing]

Hello, I just managed to rank #5th on the leaderboards for "Most Profitable Playthrough"! (I've never ranked so high on any leaderboard before so I'm quite proud.)

I'm sure I won't have time to defend the position, so I might as well contribute to the conversation/knowledge-base.

I have amended numbers for the post at the top:

African Mines:
57x small diamonds, 60 big diamonds, 24x rubies
(Kill yourself to get both minecart routes.)

Himalayas
35x small diamonds, 61x big diamonds, 26x rubies
(I only found 34x small diamonds but take your word for it.)


In my 5th place run, I missed one yellow diamond (missed while running from a boulder) in the African Mines. (That number is already included in my tally above.) I apparently missed $10K in Mount Vesuvius because going into the boss I had 1,780,000.

My total for the 5th place run was $30,513,000.

Prior to this, I did a run that ranked 7th with $30,201,000. I thought I just missed a hidden treasure chest with a diamond in the African Mines, and a red ruby on Mt. Vesuvius, but I unexpectedly found more large diamonds in this subsequent run. My records aren't good enough to figure out how many more.

The other thing that was different about my 5th place run was that this was the first time I ever got Gyro's bonus round in Extreme Mode. (It was actually a stroke of luck that I missed that one diamond in the African Mines because it affected my score to allow me to go to Gyro's scene.) Because my notes aren't good enough, I can't tell for sure if the bonus diamonds count towards your score, but I think they do because I don't think I found enough new diamonds to make up the difference. (Figuring out the formula for difficulty modifier bonus might help me here.)

Anyway, if Gyro's diamonds do count towards your score, then the theoretical score max score should allow people to beat my score if you do the bonus round between every level. However, I don't think the rankings for #1-#4 are legit. Assuming the $88,000 per-Gyro run is correct, if I could do it 5 more times (I am assuming I can get it going to Mt. Vesuvius, but I don't actually know, then that would add $440,000 to my score. Add in the missing gems I still missed, and that total is still well short of the 4th place $49,414,000.

[Mauste]

I edited the numbers. I am not 100% sure of the one small diamond in himalayas, but I will leave it there just in case (I posted all the numbers at the same time, so I might've gotten confused).

As for the difficulty modifier, I think this is all there is to it:

• Difficulty level improves the modifier (the higher the difficulty, the better the score)
  
• Each diamond improves the modifier (the more you have, the better the score)
  
• The amount of Hearts decreases the modifier (the more you have, the lower the score).

So, if you took the extra heart containers from Transylvania and Himalayas like I did on my playthrough, you can improve your score without doing the bonus levels.

Strategy for the bonus levels:
Before entering a stage, go to the gallery and purchase art in a manner that leaves you with the required amount of money (xxx x7x xxx). However, you are unable to do this once you have purchased all the art (or most of it).

[ewmailing]

That's interesting about the heart container. I never thought of that and that could make the scores cap much higher.
I wish I knew the exact formula.
- Does the modifier scale differently for small diamonds, large diamonds, and rubies?
- Does tthe modifier also factor in the treasures (main level and bonus treasures)?
- Does the number of hits you take in the level affect the modifier?
- Does the number of filled hearts you beat the level with affect the modifier?
- Does the actual pick-up time of a gem record the multiplier or is it tallied up at the end of the level (i.e. if I get a gem right before I get a heart container, do I get awarded a higher bonus for getting that gem while I had fewer heart containers, or is the bonus awarded at the end of the level and just looks at the final number of heart containers I have irrespective of picking up the gem before the container?)

So in my 5th place run, I did the game in this order:
Himalayas, Transylvania, African Mines, Amazon, Moon. I grabbed all the heart containers.

In the Himalayas, I grabbed the heart container about 2/3 through the first part of the level (before the Glomgold fight). I skipped it first, went down the bottom path through Bubba, all the way to the surface and back around to the middle path. I had gotten most of the gems by that point (since Bubba's area seems to have the most).
In Transylvania, I grabbed the heart container last, right before going to Magica.

[ewmailing]

Here are more numbers I have in my notes from my previous runs:

Amazon:
$2,134,000 (22x small diamonds, 54x large diamonds, 31x rubies)
$1,000,000 The Sceptre of the Incan King
$1,000,000 Hidden Treasure
$1,567,000 Difficulty Modifier (Extreme)

Moon:
$1,438,000 (24x small diamonds, 49x large diamonds, 18x rubies)
$1,000,000 The Green Cheese of Longevity
$1,000,000 Hidden Treasure
$1,219,000 Difficulty Modifier (Extreme)

I have new information following this.

[ewmailing]

So I replayed part of the game on Extreme in this order to test if the number of heart containers makes a difference: The Moon and then The Amazon.
I'm not seeing any difference in the modifier bonus based on the number of heart containers.

In The Amazon, my score tally was exactly the same with 3 hearts instead of 5 hearts. (I think I beat the level with 2 of 3 hearts filled.) This makes me think there is no heart container modifier bonus/penalty.

On The Moon, I missed one large diamond. (I think I beat the level with 2 of 3 hearts filled.)
Moon:
$1,428,000 (24x small diamonds, 48x big diamonds, 18x rubies)
$1,000,000 The Green Cheese of Longevity
$1,000,000 Hidden Treasure
$1,214,000 Difficulty Modifier (Extreme)

Missing 1 diamond means a difference of $10,000 in the base score.
The difference between the difficulty modifier was $5000 (compare to my previous post). This means the bonus modifier adds 50% for large diamonds.

I also noticed that in the those two levels:
modifier / (gems + one treasure) = 50%

I'm not sure which treasure gets the modifier, but I'll guess it is the hidden treasure. (A run on a level without a hidden treasure needs to be analyzed.)

I'll also extrapolate that the modifier is the same for each gem/treasure at 50%.

[ewmailing]

This is me continuing on from my Moon+Amazon rerun. I still only have 3 heart containers.

I found yet one more large diamond in the African Mines.

African Mines:
$1,924,000 (57x small diamonds, 61x large diamonds, 24x rubies)
$1,000,000 The Giant Diamond of the Inner Earth
$1,000,000 Hidden Treasure
$1,462,000 Difficulty Modifier (Extreme)


I confirmed your 35x small diamonds in the Himalayas. Also, I confirmed the hidden treasure gets the bonus modifier and not the main treasure.
Himalayas:
$1,980,000 (35x small diamonds, 61x large diamonds, 26x rubies)
$1,000,000 The Lost Crown of Genghis Khan
$990,000 Difficulty Modifier (Extreme)

I screwed up Transylvania and missed 2 large diamonds.
However the 50% ratio holds. You can extrapolate the max values from these values:
$2,338,000 (69x small diamonds, 70x large diamonds, 30x rubies)
$1,000,000 The Coin of the Lost Realm
$1,169,000 Difficulty Modifier (Extreme)

[Mauste]

Cool.
I actually wasn't sure about the "heart"-rule, since someone pointed out to me and I was more focused on speedrunning that I didn't test it. I guess it's proven to be false now :P

We are still missing the information on The Mount Vesuvius. The only way to get that information (for diamonds and rubies) is to record the run. Then we would need to look at the amount of money before Mount Vesuvius and after Mount Vesuvius (and do some deducing).

I might do it later today myself, after all, it takes less than an hour :D

PS: updated the numbers

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

EDIT:
Okay I did it now. I actually found one more big diamond in Mount Vesuvius, so the total is 1,800,000$.

After Moon stage, my money was 142,779,500$. After Mount Vesuvius I had 145,479,500$. The difference is 2,700,000$. I got 1,800,000 from the stage, so negating that equals 900$ (which is the extreme modifier's 50% from 1,800,000$). The numbers are added in the first post.

PS: If you want, I can post the position of every diamond in Mount Vesuvius :)

[ewmailing]

Cool. I'll probably eventually find those diamonds. I'm a little OCD which is why I'm a terrible speedrunner (have to fight the impulse to not pick up items, break every block, and pogo every enemy).

But I'm curious how you plan to post those. A video seems easiest for you, but if you were going to draw up a map or something, like those old Nintendo Power maps that printed the whole level zoomed out and annotated item positions, that would look really nice :)

[Mauste]

Originally posted by alias:

But I'm curious how you plan to post those. A video seems easiest for you, but if you were going to draw up a map or something, like those old Nintendo Power maps that printed the whole level zoomed out and annotated item positions, that would look really nice :)

That is not possible with this game (at least I don't know how to do it) :(
The game is in 2.5D, which means the background moves with you and reacts to your position. In the old games, the background was still and you were simply sidescrolling, so there wasn't any problems with perspective while doing the map.

Instead of posting the locations, I posted the total amount of money I had after each section. This felt like the best solution.

Here is the gallery: http://imgur.com/a/32H4J
The screenshots are taken so that you can still backtrack and find the diamonds.

[Fleszbengo]

Congratulations, this is a great guide! I know that this post is almost three years old, but I want to let you know that the level Transylvania has one more big diamond (so, 73 in total), therefore the total amount of money should actually be 2,368,000$. :)