Complete guide to all achievements and more

This guide goes through all the achievements, essential character upgrades (+gold farming) and all the Arena levels.

Introduction

When playing the game I noticed that the game is lacking guides - on Steam or otherwise - and wanted to help out anyone who might be stuck with any achievements. This guide gives tips on essential upgrades, usage of different characters, and most importantly walks you through the different Arenas and how to achieve the highest level achievement in each.

Note: Reading this guide will lightly spoil some things, such as introducing the characters that will join your party during the campaign and showing off different levels and their secrets.

Essential upgrades for characters

Rogue

In the early game the Rogue upgrades aren't very essential, but for the late game (boss levels and the Arena levels) upgrading the Rogue is key.

• Agility will help you to get the Rogue where you need her.
  
• Rear Attack Multiplier and Melee Damage will help her to do the damage she needs to during bosses, Arenas and gold farming.
  
• Upgrades to the Special seem mostly useless as the Special is one of the weaker ones and you want to save your mana for other Specials.

Knight

The Knight will be a great damage dealer in the early game, so you will probably end up upgrading his damage early on. The damage upgrades might not be as relevant later on, but the Shield Special will help a lot in certain more difficult levels (especially if you aren't a pinball guru).

• Shield Special duration and mana cost upgrades will be essential to get the most out of the Shield.
  
• Melee and object damage upgrades will help especially earlier on, but also make sure the Knight stays a solid character later on as well.

Healer

The Healer is an important support character to keep you in the game through many of the more difficult levels. She quickly heals your paddles of any damage done by enemies. Certain levels can feel impossible without her, since the paddles take so much damage so easily, and playing with the short damaged paddles is very difficult even for pinball veterans. She also has the best mana collection abilities out of all the characters, so she should be used in situations where you need to gather mana to revive other essential characters or fuel their expensive special abilities.

• Revive Mana Cost upgrades are very important and you should probably prioritize those heavily. Having the mana to revive a character at the right moment can be vital for survival or quicker progress in a level.
  
• Heal and mana collection upgrades are also very important. She is basically the character you need to bring out when taking serious damage or when you need lots of mana. You don't want to have her on the board for too long (risk of losing her, plus lacking damage and specials from other characters). These upgrades make her do her job quicker, meaning you get back to using the other characters sooner.

Hunter

The Hunter is an essential character in any level where you encounter mana draining critters (rats and bats). He is the only one immune to mana drain and his ranged attacks quickly clear out the hordes of critters. The ranged attacks also help to kill enemies that you have trouble hitting directly or to deal damage while rolling past enemies when doing other stuff on the board.

• Even though you usually want to use the hunter when mana draining critters are around you sometimes don't have the choice. The Party Resistance to mana drain upgrade will help you a bit in those situations.
  
• To get the most out of the Hunter you should upgrade reload time and range. This will help with killing critters quickly and also increases damage output against regular enemies. After that you can also increase ranged damage to further help against regular enemies.
  
• The Falcon Special upgrades are also something to think about. In a few levels I found the Falcons very useful as they stick to an enemy when hitting it, which made it easier for me to kill some enemies I had a hard time hitting directly with my character.

Swordsman

Initially I didn't think much of the Swordsman, but he becomes essential in one of the Arenas and can also help during the campaign against some tougher enemies. His Flame Special allows him to do massive damage to a tough character with just one direct hit, so use him to quickly sort out mini bosses and such.

• Flame Special burn duration upgrades are the first ones to get. This makes sure you get the maximum benefit of hitting the enemy just once and dealing lots of burning damage as a result.
  
• Flame Special mana cost upgrades make it easier to get the Special off when you need it. These upgrades become very important in one of the Arenas as you don't want to waste time gathering excess mana.
  
• All damage upgrades will further help the Swordsman to quickly decimate his enemies.

Crone

I haven't used the Crone much, but she can be a replacement in healing and mana collection if you happen to get the Healer killed without having enough mana to revive her. The difference in healing and mana output is big, but at least the situation can be stabilized. Fully upgraded the Crone can potentially deal a lot of damage, but I haven't played around with her much as her low agility didn't fit my play style.

Barmaid

Another character that I didn't use much. She packs a punch, has a long stun and can even get a ranged attack plus some minor healing, so she can definitely have a solid role in your lineup.

Monk

Didn't use him much and I can't really figure out what his niche would be.

Farmboy

Haven't used him much. He packs a solid punch in melee and has the best damage against breakable objects. He lacks the Shield ability of the Knight, but if you don't see the need for that he might be the stronger choice of the two. Personally I value the Shield so high (I'm not good with pinballs overall) that the Farmboy is always the lesser choice of the two for me.

Alchemist

Haven't used him much, but he has a slowly reloading, high damage ranged attack with AoE that might come in handy for you in some levels depending on your play style and which enemies you have trouble with.

Farming gold

To progress through the campaign you probably wont need to farm gold, but if you really want to get certain upgrades before progressing or make progress easier you might want to do it during the campaign as well. After finishing the campaign you will most definitely want to do some gold farming to gear up certain characters for the Arenas. You'll also need to do this to get the "Stacked!" achievement which requires you to fully upgrade all characters.

You can either farm gold by repeatedly playing a level that gives you the most gold per time, or just replay the levels and Arenas that are the most fun to you. The latter method will take more time, but might be more enjoyable.

I found the level "The Town - Main Square" (2nd level in the campaign) to be effective for gold farming. Each play through gives you 1000-1500 gold and shouldn't take much time. Read the tips below on how to you maximize your gold gains and minimize your time spent.

• The Rogue is the character of choice for farming this level. She is the most agile character so controlling the direction of the ball is easy. She can pickpocket peasants on the board which adds extra gold to your total. She also does great damage when hitting enemies from behind, so clearing the board should be quick enough to complete the level in good time.
  
• If you have trouble hitting the crossbow men in the top right corner you can use the Hunter, Barmaid or Alchemist with their ranged attacks to deal damage even when you don't hit the enemy directly.
  
• If you accidentally get the Rogue killed, the best way to get mana to revive her is to use the healer to farm mana. Basically everything on the board will give you mana with her. The quickest mana gain area is the top left corner and the fruit tables there, but that will also lose you some gold if you haven't gotten the Gold Charm yet (see below). The flags and torches in the main area of the board are an ok spot to farm mana without losing available gold.
  
• Prioritize getting the Gold Charm first. The Gold Charm spawns after you light up all three torches on the board. After collecting it all gold sources give you more gold. Since all gold sources have limited amount of gold available you should try to collect this before hitting gold sources much.
  
• After you have the gold buff make sure you get your ball bouncing in the top left corner and get all the gold available in the fountain. Each hit gives you 50 gold after you have the buff, so this will be a big part of the gold you collect in the level. Additional gold sources are the barrels (you will mostly get those without even trying) and hitting the backs of peasants on the board. Quick easy money can be found especially from the two peasants in the corner of the left enemy spawn door as the paddle there is right next to the peasants and you can rapidly hit their backs to get all the gold they have.

Non-Arena achievements

Gold

Pinching Pennies
Making ends meet
Rolling in it!

Collect 4 000 / 50 000 / 100 000 gold. The first two will unlock while playing through the campaign and the last one will be close (or done if you farm extra gold during the play through).

Experience

Motley Crew
Band of Heroes
Steam-rollers

Hit experience level 3 / 6 / 10. The first two will unlock while playing through the campaign. The last one will require more play, but will most likely complete before you finish all the Arenas.

Campaign & Gameplay

Ball-sy
Have characters die 200 times. This will unlock easily during the campaign play through unless you are really good with pinballs.


Gone Ball-istic
Deal 200 000 damage. You will most likely unlock this during the final parts of the campaign play through.

You've got balls
Completed by finishing the campaign.




Stacked!
To unlock all upgrades you will have to farm quite a lot of gold. See the "farming gold" section of this guide.


Time rolls on...
The achievement asks you to play 600 minutes (10 hours). Steam played time is not the one tracked, so it's probably actual game time spent in play fields. Steam game time will probably be around 11-14 hours when you unlock this depending on idle time spent in menus.

Arenas

Arenas are additional challenges that will test the skills you have acquired during the campaign. Different Arena levels are unlocked as you play through the campaign. Each Arena has three achievements for achieving better and better performance in them.

If you want to venture into the Arenas before completing the campaign it's good to note that some Arenas will be very difficult to complete and achieve all the achievements if you haven't fully unlocked upgrades for the characters you want to use.



Below you can find guides for each Arena to help you figure out the secrets and methods to complete all achievements.

Arena - Pit Fight

Achievement levels: 1 000 / 3 000 / 5 000 gold

The Pit Fight Arena is a basic Arena with no time pressure. The only limiting factor is that you have 5 lives. When you lose all lives the Arena ends and what ever gold you have collected is your score. The highest achievement requires 5000 gold. As long as you are careful not to die this one is simple to do.

• The Pit Fight consists of multiple stages that are completed by killing enemies in each stage. Each stage has a mini boss in the middle who is tougher to kill. After 5 stages you get to an infinite stage. Additional death pits open up on the sides of the board at that point.
  
• Gold can be earned by killing enemies, collecting the barrels and entering a hidden room through a door in the top left level of the board. Prioritize getting the Gold Charms in the hidden room before you start collecting gold as they heavily increase your gold gain.
  
• Mana for specials, revivals and healing can be easily collected by hitting all 3 of the arrow targets in the top or by rotating the wheel in the middle.
  
• To avoid losing any lives use the Knight and spam his Shield Special whenever the previous one ends. If you can hit the targets to gain mana you will easily have the Shield up most of the time. The Knight also deals solid damage so he is overall a good character for this Arena.
  
• You can pretty much use any damage dealer of your choice in this stage. Anything goes as long as you don't keep dying. Use the healer when your paddles take damage to keep them fully healed.

Arena - Woodland Raid

Achievement levels: 2 000 / 5 000 / 10 000 gold

The Woodland Raid Arena has both time and life pressure. You have 5 minutes time to collect as much gold as you can and you also only have 5 lives to use. The lives shouldn't matter much here. The challenge is activating all Gold Charms and then collecting enough gold in the time limit.

• As with any gold collection Arena prioritize getting Gold Charms first before collecting gold.
  
• The Arena board consists of three areas - bottom, middle and top.
  
• You should ignore the bottom area and move to the middle area as soon as possible. The bottom area does have two campfires to light, but they only spawn a Mana Charm and an Agility potion. Since these do not increase gold gain you should not spend any time with them.
  
• The middle area has two campfires. You need to light both of them up by hitting them a few times. After lighting a campfire a Gold Charm will spawn. Collect both Gold Charms in the middle while trying to avoid hitting gold sources.
  
• After collecting the two Gold Charms in the middle you should move to the top. In the top area you find another set of two campfires. Light them up by hitting them a few times and two additional Gold Charms will be available.
  
• After collecting all 4 Gold Charms you should start collecting as much gold as you can with the time that you have left. Start by getting the big hoard of gold in the top. Getting these piles alone should be enough, or very close to the highest required gold amount for the Arena.

Arena - Tower Climb

Achievement levels: 240 / 180 / 150 seconds

The objective in Tower Climb is to reach the treasure chest as quickly as possible. The Arena consists of 3 boards which represent 3 floors of the tower. The treasure chest is on the last board. The highest achievement requires you to complete the Arena in less than 150 seconds. This is quite unforgiving, so you can't have too much trouble on any floor, but the run doesn't need to be perfect either.

• The first floor is a familiar board from the campaign and the Pit Fight Arena. The objective on this floor is to kill the mini boss and then enter the door in the top left corner.
  
• Any damage dealer will do as long as you can kill the mini boss quickly. I found the Rogue with her back stab to be very effective here.
  
• After killing the mini boss the quickest way to get to the next level is to let your character fall into the pit and die. You should then select the Hunter and launch him directly into the door. (Note: If you want to use the Hunter on the first floor then you probably can't use this shortcut or at least you need to have the mana to revive him.)
  
• On the second floor you need to reach the ladder in the top right corner. To get there you need to destroy some barrels and also get through a swarm of bats. This is the reason you need the Hunter here as he can clear out bats easily while he also has high enough agility to have a good chance at navigating to the ladder. To aid you on this floor there is an agility drink on the left side. Using this potion makes the Hunter so agile that you can easily get to the ladder from the top barrels. As long as you successfully launch the Hunter onto the left side of the top barrels you can just hold movement to the right and he should plow through the barrels and straight onto the ladder. If you are unable to do this the agility potion does re-spawn at some point. I'm not sure if this is time based or if you need to drop down to the lower floor to trigger this. (Note: Dropping down will lose you some time, but will not put you in risk of dying. The pit transforms into a green safe zone when you enter the second floor so you can just let the ball drop there and relaunch to quickly get to the second floor.)
  
• On the third floor you see the key and the treasure chest behind some barrels. Just break the barrels in front of the key, collect it and then launch yourself into the chest to complete the Arena. Be careful though. If you break the barrels in front of the top window you can launch yourself out from it and drop back to the first floor. This will lose you time since you need to launch back to the second floor and get through the bats again to reach the top.

Arena - Gold Rush

Achievement levels: 1 000 / 3 500 / 5 000 gold

The Gold Rush Arena is another timed arena with a gold collection goal. As with any gold collection Arenas it is important to prioritize Gold Charms. The Arena has 120 seconds to collect as much gold as possible. If you execute it well there will be some time left over after reaching the required 5000 gold for the highest achievement.

• The Rogue is the obvious choice in this Arena. She has the highest agility which helps a lot. There are no enemies so damage and abilities don't play any part.
  
• On the first board you should first avoid everything else and only collect the Gold Charm and then continue to the second board. Before going for the achievement though it's good to get accustomed to how this board works so that you know how to quickly gather everything. The board has multiple portals that always work in the same way so learning the pattern is simple.
  
• On the second board you should just collect the Gold Charm and the minimum amount of barrels at this point and move to the last board.
  
• On the last board you can spawn a third Gold Charm. This can be done by lighting up the two torches. The Charm spawns in air in the middle. You can reach it by launching yourself into air using one of the stone ramps on the sides. Avoid collecting barrels before getting the Charm, though you will have to clear some space to use a ramp.
  
• Once you have all three Gold Charms you should gather all the gold in the level. Since you are on the third board, start by collecting all barrels there. Note that you can use the exploding barrel in the top right corner to quickly collect all barrels there to save time. After clearing this board drop down back to the first board.
  
• On the first board collect all gold from the carts, then most of the barrels. You have another exploding barrel here to help you collect some of the barrels. You can skip some of the barrels.
  
• After you have gathered the quick barrels on this board go to the second board and gather barrels there as well.
  
• After you have cleared most of the barrels and carts in the Arena you should have the required 5000 coins.

Arena - Catacombs

Achievement levels: 1 000 / 4 000 / 8 000 gold

The Catacombs Arena is the second of the two Arenas that don't have any time pressure. The goal is to collect 8000 gold from enemies and different gold sources on the board. The only limitation is the 5 lives you are given. When you run out of lives, the Arena ends and any gold collected is your score.

• A Gold Charm can sometimes be triggered in the leftmost part of the board. I haven't figured out what the trigger for it is though. Gold Charms speed up gold gains a lot so you should prioritize collecting it when available.
  
• A new wave of enemies spawns periodically. Each wave has a mini boss. The mini boss can either be a skeleton who sends spike balls towards your paddles or a mage.
  
• Whenever a new mini boss spawns the pillar with doors rotates to the next door. You can hit the door by sending the ball through the long ramp. The first three doors reward you with gold when you hit them. Each door gives more gold than the previous one. This is a good endless way to collect gold. The fourth door is actually a pathway to a hidden board which opens access to even more rewards.
  
• The hidden board has 4 barriers that need to be broken. Use the Farmer or Knight for the most damage per hit. Behind each barrier is a path to a vase. After breaking all 4 vases the door opens for additional enemies and rewards.
  
• <TODO: Additional info on Gold Charm trigger and the hidden room needs to be added>

Arena - Order

Achievement levels: 800 / 350 / 200 seconds

The Order Arena is the second Arena with a time goal for the achievements. The target is to kill 3 bosses on this one board in less than 200 seconds. With the wrong strategy this is not even remotely possible, so you need to find an efficient way to kill each boss quickly. There is some extra leeway though as the game seems to accept a time that is bit over 200 seconds to count as "under 200". I personally got the achievement with a 212 second run.

• The board has a top and a bottom level. You can get to the top either by launching your character so that it rolls to the bottom left corner and use the paddle there, or flipping from the main paddles to the stairs and holding the paddle there up to open the top of the staircase.
  
• Mana can be gained from hitting any of the torches around the board or the throne in the top. Sometimes mana globes might also spawn next to the top side doors.
  
• The Arena consists of two stages. In the first stage you have the first two bosses on the board. The Duke is walking around the top part of the board and the Jailer is standing in the middle of the lower part. After killing both bosses a third boss, a mage, will spawn and the smaller enemies will also change from soldiers to 4 mages. Ignore the smaller enemies in both stages to save time.
  
• The Duke is the softest of the three. He doesn't have that much health, but being located in the top part makes him less accessible. He also walks from side to side which adds a further challenge to consistently hitting him. You can either use something that can deals lots of damage by getting just one hit (eg. Swordsman with Flame Special) or you can try to get the ball stuck on top of the Duke between him and the rounded part of the wall. This way you can get repeated hits quickly with any character that deals good melee damage and doesn't knock him down. Ranged characters like the Hunter might seem like easy ways to deal damage to the Duke without hitting him, but the damage output is too slow for the 200 second run.
  
• The Jailer has a huge hp pool and takes reduced damage from hits. Even though he is easily accessible with the main paddles he wont go down quickly with direct melee or ranged hits from any of the characters. The only way I found to do enough damage to him is use the Flame Special of the Swordsman. There might also be other possibilities to be found with Specials from other characters.
  
• The mage isn't as tough as the Jailer, but she freezes herself periodically making it impossible to score a hit on her during that period. Again, anything you can find to deal quick damage to her might work, but the Swordsman with the Flame Special is awesome here as well. The burning continues to deal damage even after she has frozen herself, so you progress with damage even during those periods.
  
• If you go with the Swordsman for the easy and quick damage output on all three bosses you should make sure to have him fully or close to fully upgraded for best results. Getting the mana to use the Flame Special repeatedly can be a challenge. You can use the Healer for her best mana gain qualities with the added benefit that she will also heal the damage done to your paddles by the crossbowmen and the mages.

Arena - Three Warrior

Achievement levels: 900 / 600 / 360 seconds

The Three Warrior arena is probably the toughest Arena in the game and requires great performance if you want to reach the highest achievement level with 360 seconds or less. It's basically a copy of the main bosses of the campaign with a tough time limit to kill all three.

To learn the strategies required watch one of the available videos from other contributors. I might add some help in written form later if anyone is interested.

[coolwahad]

As to the The Three arena, for the Jailer, something that works but is tricky: Hit him with the Rogue (with all upgrades) from behind. It's the only thing I've seen knock more than about 7 HP off of him in one blow.

[gfcjyb]

In the catacombs, when you break all 4 vases in the hidden room, it will open a hidden hidden room which contains large amount of golds as well as some gold charms. I directly obtained 10000+ gold on my first try of catacomb arena

[Tucnace (CZ)]

Actually, the best farming level is The Battle Field. I get at least 8K gold each playthrough. It's definitely longer, but as you get 20 coins for each kill, you can earn a lot during the first boss fight fairly quickly. I recommend using hunter for the first fight, as he quickly clears the field but doesn't do much damage to the boss, so he lasts longer. Then just finish the other two bosses as usual, you will also earn lots of money during that.