Holy crap I'm totally lost and frustrated

[dimmu1313]

I *think* I like this game, and it has taken me all night to start to get the hang of what I'm supposed to do, but I almost always die within 3-4 sectors. I get that some power-ups should be gotten sooner than others, and i gather that i have to kill all the monsters before i leave the area, but almost always what happens is I get pinned with no options. By and large the cost of the power-ups are too "expensive" in terms of the number of mobs they produce. Case in point, reset doesn't show up until I get to a screen that starts out half full of mobs, how the hell am i supposed to buy that one when it's going to add 4 more mobs on top of all the ones already there?

I would assume there is a general "strategy" but it seems like no matter what I buy or when I buy it, by the time the 4th screen or so comes around there are simply too many mobs to kill them all in time. What the hell am I missing?? It's especially frustrating when I see the high scores list and ppl are on 8/8 with 180 points. Dafuq??

And for the love of all that is green and good, will someone please tell me what the various data on the line at the screen I start out on means? I can see a new line is generated every time I die (which means many, many lines) but "hacker"? "kid"?? I see 4/8 means I got thru 4 screens but what is all the other gobbledy ♥♥♥♥??

Thanks ^_^

[jonbro]

it is helpful to spend your siphons not just on progs, but also on resources to run the progs. Also, cleaning up the existing mobs before moving on to the next sector, or siphoning a prog is really important.
The hacker / kid is what your starting build is (notice how you have different stuff on different plays)

[yakfox]

Yep, what Jon said about spending siphons to get resources is pretty important. I'll often not siphon any progs on the first two levels, and instead just gather resources so I'll be able to use the progs once I do get them.
Also, you can often survive what looks at first like an overwhelming number of monsters, even without using any progs, if you think carefully about how they are going to move.

By the way, I actually HATED this game at first (though it wasn't quite finished yet then - I'm Michael Brough's wife so I get to play things pretty early), and now I have higher streak scores on both iOS and PC than Michael himself! I still can't get over 100 in a single run, though.

[dimmu1313]

Originally posted by jonbro:

it is helpful to spend your siphons not just on progs, but also on resources to run the progs. Also, cleaning up the existing mobs before moving on to the next sector, or siphoning a prog is really important.
The hacker / kid is what your starting build is (notice how you have different stuff on different plays)

Originally posted by yakfox:

Yep, what Jon said about spending siphons to get resources is pretty important. I'll often not siphon any progs on the first two levels, and instead just gather resources so I'll be able to use the progs once I do get them.
Also, you can often survive what looks at first like an overwhelming number of monsters, even without using any progs, if you think carefully about how they are going to move.

By the way, I actually HATED this game at first (though it wasn't quite finished yet then - I'm Michael Brough's wife so I get to play things pretty early), and now I have higher streak scores on both iOS and PC than Michael himself! I still can't get over 100 in a single run, though.

Thanks for your input :) I'll just keep at it. I do enjoy the game overall, it's just a bit overwhelming, especially when I get a screen full of monsters. Usually I can pull it off as long as none of them are the kind that can move through walls.

[dimmu1313]

I'm still capping about level 7. I waited to get powerups but i just don't see how anyone is making it past this point. There are the one kind of monster that moves fast (2 squares in one turn), and if I get a board with like 4 or 5 of those, how could anyone possibly not die? The only time I survived something like that previously was by getting backed into a corner where i can kill one at a time. Usually the monkey wrench in that plan is getting the ones that move through walls. So again, I have yet to even make it to level 8 so I just don't understand what everyone else is seeing that's so different that they can clear a room filled to the brim with monsters. There simply aren't enough moves or powerups that I can collect that can clear an entire room. I won't pretend that the game is out to get me personally, but clearly everyone else is doing something different. At this point the only thing that fails the game for me now is every time i get to level 6 or 7 the room fills with monsters and i get overwhelmed.

[yakfox]

This is not an easy game, so you really shouldn't be that bothered about 'only' being able to get to level 7 this early on. Remember that a lot of the people with the high scores are probably people who've already been playing for ages on iOS. But I do remember feeling frustrated with it, too. But then it's pretty rewarding once you finally manage to get through to the end.

By the way, in your first post you said:
"Case in point, reset doesn't show up until I get to a screen that starts out half full of mobs, how the hell am i supposed to buy that one when it's going to add 4 more mobs on top of all the ones already there?"

Generally I would try to clear out the initial lot of monsters before siphoning any progs, unless there was a good reason not to. If you don't take that approach, then I expect that might be the source of some of your problems.

[Brog]

it takes some time to figure out strategies but that is the fun of it. getting all the way to the end is pretty hard!

if you think you might be missing something important maybe check out some let's play videos and see what other people are doing - a lot of them haven't made it more than a few sectors in either!
here are a couple of videos i found of people who've made it through:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWQO9t8HHFA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efj_m1RLM3A

[Fridge Lord]

Think about the way the board is laid out and pigeonhole yourself into defensive positions. You can bottleneck monsters if you put yourself in a hole with a 1-tile wide entrance. The only threat to you will be the glitches, the pink ones that move through walls. If you know you're going to have to face a bunch of monsters after siphoning a program, make sure you can take a defensive position. If you're opened up from multiple sides, you're in trouble. Break down the monsters 1 by 1, divide and conquer. Those tactics might help.

[dimmu1313]

Originally posted by yakfox:

This is not an easy game, so you really shouldn't be that bothered about 'only' being able to get to level 7 this early on. Remember that a lot of the people with the high scores are probably people who've already been playing for ages on iOS. But I do remember feeling frustrated with it, too. But then it's pretty rewarding once you finally manage to get through to the end.

By the way, in your first post you said:
"Case in point, reset doesn't show up until I get to a screen that starts out half full of mobs, how the hell am i supposed to buy that one when it's going to add 4 more mobs on top of all the ones already there?"

Generally I would try to clear out the initial lot of monsters before siphoning any progs, unless there was a good reason not to. If you don't take that approach, then I expect that might be the source of some of your problems.

Originally posted by Brog:

it takes some time to figure out strategies but that is the fun of it. getting all the way to the end is pretty hard!

if you think you might be missing something important maybe check out some let's play videos and see what other people are doing - a lot of them haven't made it more than a few sectors in either!
here are a couple of videos i found of people who've made it through:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWQO9t8HHFA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efj_m1RLM3A

Originally posted by Infamous Pirate Nermal:

Think about the way the board is laid out and pigeonhole yourself into defensive positions. You can bottleneck monsters if you put yourself in a hole with a 1-tile wide entrance. The only threat to you will be the glitches, the pink ones that move through walls. If you know you're going to have to face a bunch of monsters after siphoning a program, make sure you can take a defensive position. If you're opened up from multiple sides, you're in trouble. Break down the monsters 1 by 1, divide and conquer. Those tactics might help.

Thanks for all the tips! I'm still cranking away. I suppose this is a good thing. I haven't been this challenged in while, so I deep down I'm actually enjoying the punishment ^_^

[dimmu1313]

Well I guess it was just a matter of time. Ran like a hundred games never making it past level 7 then suddenly I make it to level 8 not once but twice in one run!

I know people like to blame RNG but in this case I really think the RNG was just really hating me :p This last time I just kept getting good powerups for cheap and just really stacked the resources. By the time I got to level 7 I was able to use powerups like a machine gun, and managed to kill monsters in droves.

Thanks again for all the pointers and general help! I suppose the next step is to concentrate on racking points...

[Ouroboros]

Just some random advice:

Use the terrain wisely; if there's only one path for enemies to approach, you can pick them off one by one without any risk.

Damaging an enemy with a program stuns it without expending a turn.

Get debugger early, it's extremely valuable to prevent yourself from being outflanked by bugs.

Push and Wait are very, very useful programs. Push can get you out of pretty much any situation, and wait lets you deal with enemies standing on a diagonal from you much more easily.

Damaging an enemy as it spawns kills it, but generally you'll need step or d-bomb to do this.

If you get Score early, consider skipping point tiles entirely to go for large clusters of energy. Lower risk, and the rewards are as good or better. This is less viable towards the endgame, however.

There's not really all that much of an advantage to having a mix of credit and energy programs; Any one tile gives you a max of three resources, you'll never find a 2 energy/2 credit tile or anything. Just take whichever programs you want, and try to tune your resource collection to match them as well as possible.

On floor eight, grab as many points as you can and dash for the exit. Don't worry about fighting enemies, it's the final level, just kill enough to clear a path. Push is useful to keep yourself from getting swarmed while doing this. Credits and Energy aren't worth points, so don't worry about spending them here.

[Mendacious Calamity]

It's really not that complicated! Just play it and see how it works!

[iggy]

I use combination of PUSH and DEBUG. Then you can spend syphons for resources and score points. But it's really basic strategy.

[Mendacious Calamity]

I like to have a Reset around. But another simple tactic is get yourself in a 'tunnel' so that you can kill enemies one at a time as they bundle down the corridor towards you. And keep a debug around for the ones that can overlap terminals.

Also, don't cry if you never make it to level 8. I've never made it to level 8 and my hogh score is only about 20. Don't care! Just enjoy having one more go, learning more tactics evey time.

I die every couple of minutes, but it's not challenging in a frustrating sense in any way. It's just a joy to play and learn from.

[Cute Tea Goat]

Show is actually a really important program. It shows you what enemies are before they spawn, and importantly, lets you use Anti-Virus and Daemon Bomb on that turn as well. While they're spawning, they only have 1 HP instead of 2, so you can clear out a lot of enemies cheaply using those abilities along with Show.

[jonbro]

debug also works really well with .pull, which has some other interesting properties as well :)