Tips & Tricks for Every Game

Just sharing my own personal advice for each game, to help anyone struggling with getting into a specific game.

Introduction

The purpose of this guide is just to give you some tips to get a better handle on playing the games yourself without fully telling you how to win or what to do the entire time. The bulk of playing the game is up to you, this is just to share what I've learned with each game and help you if you just can't get a grip on what to do.

01 Barbuta

As a lover of La-Mulana, I think Barbuta is a perfect game. The roughest and most unforgiving games usually have a lot of secret charm if you can meet them halfway.

- Take notes and draw a map, it'll help a LOT. Every single thing about the game is the same every time, so note what is where and how to get it.
- Every item does something, the game just isn't forthcoming about what. You'll have to experiment to see what exactly changed.
- Be patient and take a whole room in safely upon first encountering it. Lives are at a premium so you need to be patient and play it safe.
- You need to be EXTREMELY observant. If anything looks even slightly suspicious or weird, something might be up about it. Stab it with your sword, touch it with your character, jump up and down on it, try anything you can think of. This game's full of secrets.

02 Bug Hunter

Be deliberate and careful. You need to be really on top of these bugs or you'll get overwhelmed before you know it.

- When on top of the upper layer of blocks, you can use Move actions to "walk off onto a bugs head" killing them. Keep this in mind to kill efficiently.
- On that same note, Moving into bugs while grounded can push them around. A push into an energy cube will kill them, and a push into a hole will kill them as well. Do NOT push them into anti-energy, it'll make an egg!
- Shooting an energy cube will make it explode. Chains of energy cubes can be the difference between a winning run and a losing run... but don't forget to pick some up! You need that money!
- Bugs will evolve if still alive at the end of the turn. On first evolution they'll gain a power dependent on what kind of bug they are. Learn which bugs do what so you'll know ahead of time what you want to avoid and how to deal with what's coming.

03 Ninpek

Classic arcade platformer action. I'll give some tips but in the end what matters is practice and skill, so do your best!

- It's NOT an endless runner, there is an end. Once you reach the end you'll get a chance to run through a second time with some slightly harder obstacles. You can do it!
- Enemies can drop a ninja star item which will let you have one more ninja star on screen at a time. You can only pick up three before they stop dropping it, and you lose all of them when you die. Play safe with no upgrades as you're much weaker, but once you have the max never stop blasting everything in your path.
- Standing in certain locations will trigger a sandwich to spawn in another specific location. There's no way to really tell where these triggers are, so if you stumble onto one try to remember that spot! A sandwich when picked up gives a really nice boost of points, so they're pretty helpful for getting extra lives which will in turn help you get farther.
- When you respawn after a death, you become vulnerable the second you jump or shoot. Do NOT respawn anywhere near an enemy or your one death will become two deaths.
- At the end of the day, it's just a matter of learning the game. Learn what enemies do and how to deal with them, learn where the tricky platforming sections are and the best path through, etc. You'll know when you're getting better when you glance over and realize you've got a bunch of lives stocked up when you used to be floundering.

04 Paint Chase

Splatoon for cars. Simple tips for a simple game, this is another one where you'll just get better at it with time.

- Paint the floor. I know it sounds obvious, but if you focus too hard on playing defensively around what you already painted, you're probably leaving a big chunk of the map unpainted anyway and you should be painting it.
- Learn problem enemies. Certain enemies are way worse than others and should be dealt with at your earliest opportunity. Slugs and Grenade Cars are prime offenders.
- Abuse power ups. You can use a power up whenever you paint the square it's on, which means letting an enemy paint over it lets YOU paint over it again, using it again.

05 Magic Garden

Everyone's favorite highscore chasing game! Collect the red Oppies and avoid the blue Oppies, how hard could it be?

- You get a potion to spawn upon saving Oppies, the cat on the left will show you any "potion progress points" you happen to have. A red potion will spawn at 6 Oppies saved, but if you overshoot you'll get a blue potion for 7, a green potion for 8, and a gold potion for 9.
- If you leave a potion on the ground it'll rank up in color every eight seconds.
- A red potion will make blue Oppies flash for 45 seconds, letting you kill them on touch for increasing points. A blue potion does the same but it will make the mushroom enemies vulnerable too. A green potion does all that and gives you a x2 score multiplier. A gold potion does ALLLL that AND adds an additional red Oppie spawn for the entire rest of the run.
- Blue Oppies will look in the direction they're about to move, so look slightly ahead of yourself to see if you need to do some fancy footwork to survive. If you happen to block their path with your trail of Oppies they'll end up moving in a random other direction though, so don't stay too close to one that you manage to squeeze by.
- If you just want to clear the game, pick up all potions ASAP and clear up enemies whenever they're in your path. The more gold potions you get, the more red Oppies spawn, the more red Oppies you save, the more gold potions spawn, etc etc. The last hundred saves or so should be extremely safe.
- If you want a high score there's plenty of different methods. My personal strat is to purposely throw a chain of Oppies on the ground, turning them into enemies, and then pick up a potion and chain through them all. Really high scores involve chaining potions for super high enemy kill combos. Pick what works best for you, 20000 isn't as hard as it seems!

06 Mortol

A short platformer where lives are money and you have to pay your way to the goal.

- Learn the basics of getting the most out of your movement to use less lives for more progress. You can jump up three tiles high, anything higher can probably be cleared with one single well-placed arrow platform.
- After a death you respawn by floating out of your helicopter. During this you can float long distances without touching the ground and you're invincible the entire time, meaning you can use this to make some tricky sections much easier.
- REPLAY LEVELS. The list of all the levels is actually a Level Select and it keeps track of your best "change in lives" for each level. Going back to a level you didn't do great on and ending with more lives than before will carry them forward for every level afterward!
- Kill enemies as you solve puzzles. Often you'll need to explode to progress, forcing you to spend a life. If an enemy is nearby, make sure to catch them in the blast, as every three kills grants you a life! The more kills you can safely acquire without spending many of your own, the more lives you'll end the level with.
- Special mention for the long rhino enemy that charges you. You cannot jump over it if it's charging you. All your instincts will tell you to do this and you will die every time. This enemy charges you if you stand on the same platform as it regardless of line of sight, and jumping over it will cause it to instantly turn around and get you. If you jump backwards off the ledge though, it will follow you off, potentially dying in the process or at least getting out of the way. If you tried to kill this yourself with explosions or blocks he has 3 hp meaning it would take 3 deaths just to kill this one guy. Be extremely cautious.

07 Velgress

Non-stop climbing action. If you stop you die, and if you die you start over. Brutal and short just the way I like it.

- Best way to survive Velgress is SLOW DOWN. I know I just said if you stop you die, but the screen only scrolls up when you force it up by jumping. The ground breaks under your feet, but rock breaks a lot slower than cloud or crate so you can stop jumping like a mad woman for just a second. Since the screen scrolls based on your movement, don't go for huge tall jumps to speed up to the top, keep your jumps safe and controlled. Speedrun the game AFTER you beat it.
- On the 12th floor of each level a bird will spawn at the top of the screen. Shooting it a bunch will make it drop a key, get all three to make it to the final level. The bird does nothing other than this, so if you just want the gold clear and not the cherry, ignore it.
- You can actually jump on enemies to gain your double jump again. This doesn't help in level 2, but in the first level you can do some big jumps, land on a bat chasing beneath you, and jump even higher. This isn't safe but it is fast and useful.
- Best upgrade to buy is recovery. At some point you'll get hit by something and the faster you have the ability to jump out of the arc it threw you in the less likely you are to be dead.
- Increased weapon damage is only good if you're getting all the keys and going to level 4.

08 Planet Zoldath

Completely randomized adventure game! It's short, mercifully, but it's decent fun.

- Run around and get a feel for doing things in the game before going for a full clear. More often than not you'll be dodging enemies not fighting them, so you'll have to be confident you won't get hit as healing can be scarce.
- There's four resources on the right, each used for different equipment or traded as money with local aliens. Learn what's common on your seed and what isn't, and figure out what you'll need to make progress.
- Two alien species are picked randomly to be friendly NPCs. You can spot them by the fact that they always face downwards and never move. Walk up and press A to say hi. One speaks your language, the other speaks alien gibberish and you'll need an item to understand them.
- Your end goal is to find three pieces of a treasure map and return to your ship with them. Hunt for items, learn which items deal with which obstacles, and before you know it you'll be able to find your way to where all the map pieces are what you need to do to grab them.

09 Attactics

Hope you like this one because there's a lot of Attactics to play. Nonstop strategy action.

- Every unit has upsides and downsides, which the game usually highlights for you. Make the most of all your pieces to the best of your ability.
- Unfortunately, 9 Attactics Seconds is not a long time to make your moves on your turn. Focus on keeping useful units alive and sliding key playmakers into place. Obviously you'd like to slide everyone out of the path of the enemy archer, but it's more important to aim your promoted archer at the enemy cavalry and put a spearguy in place to kill two enemies at once.
- A long row of units with no gaps will deal as much damage to the enemy fort as there are units in a row, as enemies will never have the chance to get in the way to stop it once it gets there. This holds true for a row of enemies coming towards YOUR castle, so make sure not to die in one fell swoop.

10 Devilition

Satanic rube-goldberg machine simulator. I'm glad the frog is the icon for the game because I think it's cute.

- While putting demons in the crosshairs of your pieces is important, it's just as important to hit empty spaces as those let you build more and more pieces onto your chain of events.
- Don't forget you can build onto your chain backwards as well. Just because you've been imagining this whole time that a specific piece would be the start of your whole chain doesn't mean you can't use some pieces to hit it instead and build your way over to some tricky demon that's hard to hit otherwise.
- Sometimes townsfolk die. You want them alive for a high score and they help give you a buffer against the demons if you don't kill them all in one go, but if killing one townsfolk is the difference between all demons killed and leaving some alive, kill the townsfolk.
- Purple demons take two hits to die, and the floating ones will regenerate hp from red to purple again if left alive after one hit.

11 Kick Club

It's honestly so funny that the first game on the list with a sports theme is not a sports game. It's an arcade platformer instead, tricked you!

- You'll want to take some time to really learn to handle the ball. Most important skills to learn are the angle of upwards kicks, the angle of a charged neutral kick, and how to kick the ball in a straight line.
- Points. Are. Everything. This game is LONG (40 stages) and you die in a single hit, meaning every life matters. The only 1ups are point based so learn to maximize your point gain.
- After kicking the ball, if left untouched for a second the ball will lose some color and grow dim. This is a signal that your combo has ended. As long as you don't let the ball sit on the ground every enemy killed will grow your combo.
- First enemy killed in a combo will drop a 100 point item. Second will drop a 200 point item. Third is 500 points. Fourth and onward drop 1000 points.
- Certain levels have hidden dessert items you can find by kicking the ball through wherever they are. They're not easy to find but once you know where one is take note of it for future attempts. Every point matters in this game of survival.

12 Avianos

Bird game for birds. A miniature grand strategy game got crammed into UFO 50 and it's honestly pretty amazing how well it works.

- There are five gods and what they do is always the same. Learn who is good at what so you'll know ahead of time what you'll need and when you need it.
- On your turn you get to choose between three gods. The two you don't get to pick are whichever you chose last and whichever your enemy just chose. This goes for the enemy as well, meaning they'll never pick the same god twice in a row and they'll never pick the same god as you right after you.
- Units function on a sort of "rock paper scissors" type system, with some caveats. Bombers beat Swords, Range beats Bombers, Swords beat Range. The caveat is the amount of each unit matters, and you might end up needing specific Sword or Range units depending on circumstance.
- Normal Swordsmen are cheap and effective at swarming enemies. Archers are near unstoppable in a castle but otherwise need backup or they don't shoot fast enough to survive long. Hawk Knights have shields to protect them from multiple ranged attacks so they're perfect for a castle siege, but they still get rocked by Bombers. Owl Priests are similar to Archers but they do more damage, shoot slower, and move slower. Bombers are completely unstoppable when it comes to ground units, but Ranged units pick them out of the sky with ease as they don't have much HP.
- It's easy to tunnel vision in on the objective ("just one more castle and I win!") but don't forget to take random ground from your enemy as well. Every tile on the board can be built on and the more resources you allow your opponent to have, the more enemies will end up knocking on your castle doors.
- Every action you can take with a god is useful. Snowing in an enemy can let you hold castles longer, letting you win the game. Teleporting a mountain into a key place can cut the enemy off from easy castle access. Building Nests lets you spawn units at non-castle tiles. Muster gives you units for free. Make use of everything you can to build an advantage.

13 Mooncat

Part of the joy of Mooncat is learning it yourself so I almost don't want to say anything, but if you're here just for this I might as well help.

- Two buttons only. One half of your controller moves left, the other moves right. Pressing one while already pressing the other will make you jump, and again will make you slam. More complex moves are possible but not entirely necessary.
- Flowers are a signal that a secret is nearby. Look at the current screen and determine where would be the hardest place to get to, it's probably there.
- Don't give up! Once Mooncat clicks with you it'll become second nature.

14 Bushido Ball

The actual first sports game of the bunch. Used to be extremely painful due to skilled AI, but it's less brutal now.

- Learn the ins and outs of your character. Rolling and hitting the ball will pull off some crazy angles, and every character has both a projectile type move for half a special bar and a charged strike for a full bar.
- Unfortunately there's not much more I can say. It's really as simple as "figure out what everyone is capable of, then beat them."

15 Block Koala

Here's where I'd put the tips for Block Koala... if I had any.
I haven't beaten it yet, sorry. It's a block-based puzzler though, so just figure out how to push blocks and then get pushing. Best tip I've got is to not be scared to skip a puzzle and come back to it later.

16 Camouflage

Another puzzle game but this one's pretty fun and doesn't involve pushing blocks at all for all you sokoban haters out there.

- Carefully study the dangerous tiles each enemy emits, and for moving enemies make sure you understand how they're moving and which tiles will be come dangerous at points in their path.

... I mean it's a puzzle game so that's kind of all I got for you, sorry. If you change color inside of a log you'll turn black like the darkness inside the log but it's not helpful or anything it's just a fun little secret. :>

17 Campanella

CAMPANELLAAAAAAA. Finally the titular UFO of UFO 50 has arrived on the scene (ignoring Planet Zoldath) and this game's a real winner.

- The most important thing to know about Campanella is that you get a 1up every 1000 points, always and forever. Anything that gives you points is valuable as thats a pretty easy threshold to hit and you'll want as many lives as you can get.
- Every level has a secret coffee cup triggered by touching a specific tile of the level, exactly like the sandwiches in Ninpek. There's no way to tell where it'll be, but you can get a feel for it after you've found a handful. Each coffee gives 500 points so they're good for 1ups, but if you're not confident in your Campanella skills you can beat the game without any of them without too much trouble.
- Your fuel meter is the most important thing to keep an eye on. Learn which enemies and objects will give you fuel when struck and make sure to play carefully but confidently so you never run out.

18 Golfaria

The first of two golf games in UFO 50 and it's a golf metroidvania. It's a fascinating but tricky game.

- The beginning of the game is brutal. Use the camera free-look (X) to look around and find holes to go into. Most holes around the starting area have a stroke upgrade, each one gives you a few more shots before death.
- After getting some more strokes, you'll want to talk to some NPCs. One tells you about a Wise Ball who lives to the south, and talking to him will lead you to your first major upgrade.
- Once you've got the first upgrade, the Wise Ball tells you your next location to hit up, and from there the rest of the game should click into place. Hunt for stroke upgrades as you go, search around and talk to people, it's not too tricky after the beginning hurdle.
- One last thing of note, keep an eye out for Green NPCs. They're NPCs you can "save" by talking to them. You'll want as many of these guys saved as you can find. Trust me on that one.

19 The Big Bell Race

Or as I like to call it, Campanella 1.5. It's a pretty fun concept but the game's super short.

- Controls exactly the same as Campanella, and every race is a single screen just like how every stage in Campanella was one screen.
- Simply... go fast? There's not much to say here. If you manage to fly around without hitting walls too much you should be leading the pack pretty easily.
- You have 3 HP in this one, and you lose one for touching a wall or being hit by certain "items" enemies can use ala Mario Kart. You heal 1 HP every time you finish a lap. Dying is a massive time loss, so playing it safe for a heal is smarter than pushing it and dying.

20 Warptank

One of the biggest and imo BEST games in the whole collection.

- You will never not be touching a surface in this game. Learn what is and isn't possible for your tank, as each level is built around finding tricky ways to make the impossible possible.
- The game tracks your best time per level but there's no timer, so don't rush too much. Take your time and mentally map the path your tank needs to take when you hit a hard obstacle. It's best to start from the end point.
- Every level (except the combat challenge levels) has a hidden coffee cup in it. They're triggered by touching a specific surface, usually something out of the way and hard to get to. They're signaled by a flower somewhere nearby, but flowers only show up after beating the final boss.
- When you warp, the warptank will emit two small blasts to the sides which have the ability to kill enemies. It comes in handy more often than you'd think.

21 Waldorf's Journey

This game didn't win me over at first, but after a few more tries I ended up loving it. Reminds me of a lot of browser games back in the flash days, but with more polish.

- This entire game is built around learning the exact properties of Waldorf's jump and how to control it. Be patient and get a handle on it as best you can.
- Your goal is to go very far to the right, so it's tempting to do big powerful jumps in that direction to get there faster. DO NOT DO THIS. The harder and faster the jump, the harder it is to safely land that jump.
- You have an energy bar you can spend in midair for some height and control. Use this sparingly and save up any energy you can gain (eating fish) as you'll want this for dangerous end-game jumps.
- Spend shells at the penguin shop for items to make your time easier, but this is only helpful if you're going for a gold clear and not a cherry clear.
- The absolute worst obstacle you'll face is wind. It messes up the momentum of all your jumps and makes everything much more dangerous. Luckily, if you can find a weathervane on a platform while there's wind happening, touching it will make the wind stop. Don't touch a weathervane while there's no wind, or the wind will start!

22 Porgy

One of multiple metroidvanias in the pack, Porgy is huge and intimidating, but once you understand your limits you'll get it down.

- Fuel is life, life is fuel. You need to carefully conserve your fuel to both make it to what you want to get to and also make it back to base after. Move slowly and patiently without dashing, and try not to get hit by enemies too much.
- Conversely, dash all over the place! There's no actual penalty to dying, it just takes you back to base. Consider dashing around expecting to die, looking around just to see whats around an area, then plan a more careful expedition down there after your deserved demise.
- Bosses are dangerous and have huge HP bars. Don't bother fighting them near the start of the game, but once you have a handful of torpedo upgrades you might want to try and take on the first areas bosses. Plus, you don't have to beat them in one go! If you disengage from the boss and make it back to your base without dying, all damage dealt to the boss will be saved.

23 Onion Delivery

Okay, I'll admit it. I haven't beaten this one. In fact, I haven't even played much of it yet, I only made it to Day 2 on my second go.
But! I still have a tip to make it less daunting for those who bounced off immediately.

- Your health regenerates as long as you drive fast! If you continue moving without hitting things for a short while your HP will come back, so it's not as punishing as the initial impression might seem.

24 Caramel Caramel

Sorry y'all. I'm a shmup fan. The Caramel Caramel haters don't get how good this one is.

- Frontloading some info on how the game works since it isn't fully evident to most. You start on Stage 1 with ZERO lives. You die in two hits. Gaining points will earn you lives, as well as picking up secret repair items in each stage. There are no checkpoints.
- Your camera is EVERYTHING. Taking pictures of enemies will freeze them in place and make them worth double points, prevent them from shooting revenge bullets if they would have, and make them die in fewer shots. Taking pictures of certain environmental hazards can have helpful effects to make them easier to deal with. Taking pictures of weird parts of the background will release a bunch of orbs worth bonus points that increase in point value for each background orb object photographed. TAKE. PICTURES.
- Each of the three main stages has an enemy about half way through that'll be red that usually isn't red. Don't shoot, take a pic! It'll drop a repair item that will give back 1 HP if you were hit already, or give a 1up (!) if you haven't taken damage yet (but only once, if you die and replay the stage it won't give another life.)
- If you hold the shoot button long enough it'll build up a charge shot that shoots little bouncing bullets in a spread. Use it for enemies around tight corners you can't shoot with your normal shot, or just to stack big damage on an enemy while frozen with your camera.

25 Party House

I am NOT the one to give you tips for this I am so bad at it. I tried to beat the first scenario 5 times with no success, then watched my friend swoop in and beat every single scenario first try. Just because I play a lot of deckbuilder roguelikes doesn't mean I'm good at them.

EDIT
Luckily for everyone someone much better at Party House has graciously provided tips in the comments which I will relay here. Everyone say thank you to ChefWhatnot

Originally posted by ChefWhatnot:

1- Any guests that help reduce your Trouble Level (Hippies, Cute dogs, Counselors) are absolutely vital to prevent the cops from getting called. Whenever I start a run they're always the first thing I buy. If you're in scenario 5 or a random scenario where risk-reducers are hard to come across, you can substitute them with guests with the "kick" action like security, wrestlers, or cupids.
2- Photographers are EXTREMELY good. They have an action which lets you score any of your guests, which basically lets that guest count for double points, or even more if you have more photographers! If you have photographers in your scenario, by god buy them and use them. They work especially well with cheerleaders, which refresh the actions of all the guests, and with guests with base high money/popularity. They do also cost money to have at the party, though, so don't buy them until you have a few guests who make more money
3- The Athlete and Grillmaster have a "take outside" action, which basically shuffles all the guests back into your rolodex. This is a pretty niche effect but its useful if you have too many low-scoring guests, or are trying to perform a strat with the Climber guests, who score more points each time they enter.
4- Save buying the star guests until last, since a lot of them don't do a huge amount outside of winning you the game. You want a good points engine before you start trying to get the star guests.
5- Mr. Popular and the Celebrity aren't worth it, they bring in more guests when they enter which can easily result in your party getting busted from too much trouble or overflowing and getting shut down by the fire brigade (yes this is a real mechanic). Introverts are also probably not worth it.
6- The bonus to popularity that Stylists give is PERMANENT, and will last for the rest of the run. This is very good! Especially if you have, again, photographers and cheerleaders.
7- Money is important! Make sure you're getting it! Money lets you upgrade your house, which gives you more slots for guests, which lets you get more popularity and more money.
8- Once you're in the end game, any guests that help you actually get your star guests to the party are very useful. These include the drivers and P.I.s, Dogs and Spies (which both let you take a look at the next guest and kick them if you don't want them there), and even guests with the Boot action since they let you curate a more awesome party (this is the most effective strat I've found for scenario 5).

26 Hot Foot

HOT. FOOT. Sports games return with a vengeance, and revenge it shall have, this one's mean.

- Mess around with characters to figure out what each special move and ability does so you'll know which ones you want to use. I'm a fan of Amy for the wind ability and wave special, but that's just me.
- Don't throw your sacks away without purpose! If you just throw at an enemy the second you have a sack, they'll either jump it or you could just miss. Surefire strat to land a hit; wait for them to pick something up. Picking up anything leaves you motionless for about a half second which is the perfect time to slam them with a sack. If they fall over close to the line and the sack bounces back to you there's even a chance to throw it lightly for a second quick hit.
- Your AI partner will jump when you jump. Try to save them from being hit if possible.
- Being touched by a sack that's moving in any way will count as a hit. This can be used to your advantage if you get creative. As an example, using the wind ability right as an opponent throws a sack will cause it to fly backwards into their face, counting as a point for your team. And if the wind blows a sack across the floor into the opponent's feet? That's another point for you.

27 Divers

I haven't fulled dived (heh) into this one yet, mostly because I feel it would be beneficial to draw a map as I go and I don't want to do that yet, also I've been sinking into Grimstone instead. That said I do have one or two things to point out.

- Equipment and damage comes in three elemental types that have varying effectiveness on different things. You'll need to be experimental and jot down what works and what doesn't.
- Different equipment has different properties despite the fact that in battle all it says is either Attack or Defend. Same thing here, figure it out and add to your knowledge base.

28 Rail Heist

Real Cowboy Gaming. This game's one of the best in the whole damn bunch, and yes I AM biased by the fact that I am charmed by cowboy aesthetics. It's a platformer-based stealth game where line of sight is everything.

- Every level has three bonus objectives beyond just getting the money and getting out. Kill everyone, kill no-one, and a speedrun challenge. Focus on beating the level first then you'll have a better basis to attempt the challenges.
- Enemies are like stealth game guards in that they have eyes, ears, and a memory. If they hear a gunshot, they'll run to the source. If you punch them and run, they'll chase in the direction they think you went. Use this to your advantage.
- If you want a quick and dirty way to kill enemies without loading and firing your gun over and over, punching through the floor will make an instant death pit to knock enemies into.
- If you hold a barrel over your head and hold down for a second you can hide in it, during which you're completely invisible to enemies. You can even roll during this if you do it on your turn, which enemies will detect as a suspicious action but they won't understand how to deal with, letting you roll straight past someone and hit them in the back.
- Holding down for three seconds or otherwise just sitting still will Pass your turn, giving control over to the enemies early and saving a few precious seconds of time for later.
- Another tricky thing you can do; if you stand near the top of a ladder at the end of your turn, any enemies climbing into you on their turn will get "auto-punched" when they approach you.
- In a similar vein, if you load your gun and point it somewhere an enemy will walk, when they walk into your line of sight on their turn you "auto-shoot" them for a bit of karmic justice.

29 Vainger

There's a whole Metroid in here!! That's perfect because I love Metroid.

- There's no limit to how many times you can flip midair or how fast your flips can be. With some proper timing you can make some crazy distance.
- There's a map to help you explore, but you can only see it at Save Points. Press Up to jack into the point and check out your map, and press left on the map screen to swap to your equipment screen.
- Dying isn't so bad as it'll respawn you in the same room you died in with full HP, and all your lives get replenished when you touch a Save Point. Running out of lives simply returns you to the last Save Point you touched.
- If you hold down the shoot button you can continue to face one direction while you strafe around, which is helpful for focusing on dodging while you fire in the right direction.
- If you get lost and don't know where to go, check your map and just look for places you haven't explored. You'll find something useful or interesting before long.

30 Rock On! Island

An extremely in-depth tower defense game, lurking in the midst of UFO 50, waiting to strike the unsuspecting. Satisfying yet challenging, like all the best games of its ilk.
Unfortunately I suck at this and get through each level with almost no health remaining. As a compromise I'll tell you what all the tower types do so you can make informed and strategic decisions.

- Basic Caveman: Hits enemies with bones. Can be upgraded in three paths, either Spear, Rock, or Fire.
- Spear Caveman: Hits enemies with spears. More damage than bones but throws them slower. Can be upgraded to either Spear 2 (more of the same but stronger) or Bow.
- Rock Caveman: Hits enemies with rocks. Low damage but throws them fast. Can be upgraded into either Rock 2 (more of the same but stronger) or Wheel.
- Fire Caveman: Hits enemies with fire. Medium damage, medium speed, but pierces the defense of "armored" enemies. Can be upgraded into either Fire 2 (which will get its own bullet point because its different) or Tar.
- Fire 2 Caveman: Instead of the single long range fire bullets of Fire 1, this caveman spits a short range flamethrower type spread of damage. It's strong, but any enemy that moves quickly can get in and out of his range without too much damage taken.
- Bow Caveman: Trades the spears for arrows. Attacks the slowest out of all caveman types but has a huge range and massive damage. Consider this your sniper tower.
- Wheel Caveman: Trades the fast rocks for one big slow rock. Throws a wheel that rolls in a straight line for about four "squares", dealing heavy damage to enemies it hits. If you can get him to roll it down long straight sections it's pretty good.
- Tar Caveman: Trades the fire for tar, obviously. Throws a glob of tar that slows any enemy it hits for a brief duration. Good in combo with other towers to maximize how often they can hit the enemy (cough cough fire 2.)

- Extra tips! Chickens take two turns to cook if next to a fire, giving you a bunch of meat to spend on towers, but if you place a chicken next to two fires it'll cook in one turn. This means if you can set up a small 2x2 checkerboard pattern of two chickens and two fires, you'll get a bonus 60 meat every single turn.
- You can actually upgrade yourself! Select the base you're defending and you'll have the option to upgrade your damage and your throwing speed+range. These upgrades are extremely powerful, and on certain maps you might be able to solo entire lanes yourself while the other towers pick up the slack.

31 Pingolf

Sports games are BACK and they're GOOD. This is the golf game to end all golf games.

- The main gimmick of Pingolf is the Dunk, and how good you do at this depends on your mastery of it. Do Dunk on slopes for speed boosts and into the hole to secure your win. Don't Dunk willy nilly on random ground for no reason as the bounce can end up trying a decent approach into a horrible Out of Bounds.
- The hard part isn't making it through Pingolf to the end, the hard part is doing it with a good score. Accept that mistakes happen and don't rage quit, keep going until you see all 18 holes. You'll need the practice.
- Sand is your friend for once. Treat it less like an obstacle on most holes and more like a safe landing zone to aim your next shot.

32 Mortol 2

Mortol's back and he's pissed. The fun snappy platforming of the original and the ebb and flow of lives are both GONE. This one's a huge metroidvania styled map that you have to search through with a cast of characters with different powers. You've got 99 lives, no way to get more, and no way to save. Buckle in.

- Before giving it a serious shot, goof around in the starting area with each character. Learn how they move, how they attack, what their power is, etc. You need to know what you're capable of to make it through here. When you're ready to go for real, reset the game to get those lives back.
- This should be obvious by each character's power, but you'll live and die by how well you support each character with the other characters. Use Gunner to spawn an ammo restock point inside the arenas of boss fights. Use Scout for tricky platforming and then create a portal shortcut for everyone else to use. Effective use of your abilities will cost you lives sure, but save lives in the long run compared to the struggle of going without.
- Unlike Mortol 1, in this game the Stone Block sacrifice has no gravity. You can spawn blocks in midair to make platforming easier if need be.
- Beyond all that the main tip is to take notes. There's no saving, but the map is always the same. If you learn where switches, dangers, keys, etc all are then you'll have no trouble getting through it again in the future.

33 Fist Hell

UFO 50's take on a classic beat em' up, and if there's one thing they got right it's the difficulty. Prepare for a STEEP learning curve.

- Pick Jay starting out. The other characters have their perks but Jay is the easiest to succeed with and has great stats.
- Your two buttons are Jump and Punch. Double tapping the Dpad vertically does a dodgehop, horizontally does a dash. Attack while dashing for a dash attack, attack while jumping for a dive kick. Move into an enemy after a punch to grab them, at which point Attack will throw them and Jump will piledrive them.
- Move carefully into enemies and punch them to the floor before they start punching you. Learn to deal with each enemy type safely and confidently, and before long you'll be able to deal with them and manage a group of enemies all at once.
- Weapons are overrated usually. Pipes, boards, chains, none will as consistently keep you safe as your fists. A few outliers are okay on occasion, like the gun.
- Resign to the fact that you'll need to use Continues like crazy to beat the game at least once. The game loves to ambush you with nonsense, healing is scarce, and if you die at all it's game over. Mash those Continues and learn what every stage has in store.
- Here's what the stats do. Power is damage per punch, Recovery is how fast you get up off the ground, Toughness is how much damage you take, Throw is how much damage you do with throws and how fast you execute throws. Power and Toughness are the two most important stats, thus Jay is the best starting character.
- If you go left at the very start of the first stage you can go to a wave-based survival mode. You'll have to get deep into this to earn the Garden gift for this game, but it's also helpful to just learn to deal with big crowds of nonsense enemies all at once.

YOU CAN DO IT!!

34 Overbold

Alpha's back say hi to Alpha. We've boiled gaming down to its bare essentials and locked you in a room with a bunch of bad guys. Win over and over until you win it all.

- This one's hard but fair. Everything's the same the entire game, it's just random what you'll be fighting. Learn how to deal with specific threats without upgrades and you'll have an even easier time when you're buffed up.
- Figure out which upgrades are worth rushing for and which are not needed. I'm a big fan of some of the gun upgrades like Firing Speed and Damage Up, but I don't think the $600 Drone is worth buying.
- Don't forget you have bombs! They're good! You're faster than near every enemy type, so just letting a bunch of guys chase you then dropping a bomb can deal with a whole crowd.
- There's a specific bomb upgrade that will make going for the cherry disk a lot easier.

35 Campanella 2

Why is it called Campanella 2 if you don't play as Campanella in this one? :thinkingemoji:
I love this one. They took the fun of controlling the UFO in Campanella and turned it from an arcade adventure game to a Blaster Master styled Roguelike.

- Fuel is EVERYTHING. You will run out of fuel constantly and quickly. The star pickups that you need to clear a stage give small amounts of fuel on pickup so you can't ignore them, and going into doors on foot has a good chance to find a fuel item that gives a huge chunk back. Do everything you can to keep fuel high or you will die.
- Speaking of fuel, after collecting all the stars needed to finish a level and the final countdown starts, small green spinning gates will appear in a few places. Flying through one gives you fuel and pauses the countdown briefly, so if that little bit of fuel is life or death you'll want to know about it.
- There's fall damage if you're outside your ship and it's not messing around. Do not attempt to move downwards in any way on foot or you'll end up dead. Be very careful getting into your ship as well, if you get too antsy and press buttons in the wrong order or miss your "get in ship input" you'll probably accidentally jump off a cliff which is an instant run-ender.
- All items in this game are cryptic symbols with no names or descriptions. Take note of what does what so in the future you can make informed decisions.
- Health is scarce, so try to avoid damage like the plague. When offered items you might see an icon that looks like a red blob with a purple icon border, that's a +5 HP heal. It's one of the only ways to heal in this game, so if you need it, take it, better alive than dead.

36 Hyper Contender

One of the few games with furries in it. Pretty great fighting/sports game here, you should fight your friends in it.

- You can't just "jump" in this game. Every character has a unique way of getting around and that's what your A button does.
- You can block by holding Down, which protects you from melee type charge attacks but not projectiles. Successfully blocking a melee attack stuns the attacker briefly.
- Down and Attack will let you do one of the aforementioned melee attacks. They're pretty powerful but if you're close range expect your opponent to try the same, or even block you and counterattack.
- Basically just kinda smack your opponent around with projectiles while you mop up the rings and you'll be fine. There's infinite continues and no penalty for doing so, so you can get through this game without trouble with enough effort.

37 Valbrace

I've not played much of this, but everyone else has. I'll put tips here when I have some but I'm sure another guide has what you need in much more detail. Sorry.

38 Rakshasa

Pain made manifest, Rakshasa tasks you with clearing an entire action game in the style of Contra or Ghouls and Ghosts, but you die in one hit and respawns are... limited, in a sense.

- This is one of the most "try it, die, learn it, repeat, win" games in the whole collection. You need to deal with enemies safely, learn to deal with bosses confidently and ideally without getting hit, and know what's coming on every new stage.
- Very rarely you might find a Bell pickup. GRAB IT. This will spawn a floating object that when touched will remove one skull of difficulty from your respawn bar, essentially granting a 1up. Nothing is more important than this.
- You can fire your weapon forward, forward while crouching, or at an upwards angle. If you hold down while jumping you can fire at a downwards angle as well. Holding the shot button will charge up your next shot, which has different effects for each weapon.
- Sometimes you can find a Green Egg which hatches into a little floating eyeball friend. While he's with you he can point out the occasional secret point item trigger, but most importantly he acts as armor. If hit while you have him you won't die, instead just losing the friend. Treasure him always.
- Fall down holes! There are no death pits in this game. Every hole in the ground is actually the entrance to a small secret room containing either bonus pickups or a small group of enemies to fight. While fighting enemies might not sound like a reward to some, if you're going for the cherry you'll want the extra points they drop!

39 Star Waspir

- Tapping the shot button will fire in one way while holding it will fire another way. Use what fits the situation.
- Enemies drop E and G pickups which are used for various effects on the left. EGG will increase your score multiplier, which is what you want to spell most often. GGG will give you an option that shoots bullets but also blocks a few before breaking, so spell that twice to get both options up and spell it again whenever one breaks. EEE will power up all your shots for a short while, which has its uses but I don't spell it often. GEE is different per character, you'll have to see whether you think it's useful or not for your playstyle.
- You die in one hit so you'll want extra lives, but the only way to get lives is with points, so you better be EGG EGG EGGing you there. I mean it.
- Beyond that it's all just a matter of skill. Figure out how enemies will shoot at you, learn to dodge the patterns, develop amazing reaction speed, we will turn you into a touhou player yet.

40 Grimstone

The Final Fantasy of UFO 50. If you like retro RPGs you'll love this, if you don't you'll hate it. I think it rocks personally.

- At the very start you get to choose four out of eight characters to save from a fire. This is your party for the game and you'll only get vague descriptions that hint at the character's strengths. The good news is that you can win with near anyone with enough effort.
- In battle, basic attacks have a timed hit component to them. Hit the button in the white you miss, in the yellow for a hit, in the red for a critical hit. Yellow hits can miss based on enemy evasion but Red crits will never miss. High skill can turn an unwinnable situation winnable.
- Whenever you get to a new town with better equipment it's usually worth spending 10-15 minutes beating up nearby enemies to afford it all, and the exp is a nice bonus.
- Healing can be pricey in this game. Some characters learn healing skills, but until you have some you're relying on bandages. If you want to refill MP you'll need to buy Root Beer from the bar.
- The game saves when you enter a town and when you leave a town. If things didn't go your way while out and about, feel free to reset the game to undo that mistake.
- Similarly, buy and use random stuff to see what it does. There's no item descriptions, so it's important to know what all your items even do in the first place.
- Take notes whenever someone mentions something interesting. It can be easy to get lost in this game, but some proper exploring and talking will get you back on track.

41 Lords of Diskonia

The Disks are revolting, milord. This is a strategy combat game unlike any I've seen before, having more in common with a tabletop game at times.

- Out of combat, your goal is to battle your opponent enough times that they run out of resources and are forced into combat with nothing, or get to their base and beat them in combat there. Taverns can be used to buy new units but can only be visited a few times before closing up shop.
- On your turn by default you have a choice between three random units to control. You'll then flick them in whichever direction you choose. Hitting an enemy does damage based on your units damage, and if they ricochet into more disks of either color they'll take even more damage.
- This rule applies to the enemy as well. If they hit one of your disks into the middle of all your other disks, you're about to take big damage. Learning how to capitalize on enemy disk placement while keeping your placement safe from combos is vital.
- When new pieces are introduced try and learn what they do sooner rather than later, so you know how bad of a threat they'll be. For example, despite starting with Ogres on the very first level, I never actually landed an attack with them all that time, so I never knew how "Stun" worked. (It makes it so on the next turn that disk only has two bars of power for its flick, meaning it can barely move at all!)
- A general good strategy is to try and get your opponent in between your disk and a solid wall. That way when you hit them they'll bounce off the wall back into you and take a second hit for easy double damage.

42 Night Manor

They put a whole Shadowgate in here!! I love point n click adventure games so dearly, and you should too.

Unfortunately due to the nature of the game I can't really give tips here without straight up spoiling things or telling you what to do. Best I can say is make sure to try and interact with everything, never know what might be important.

43 Elfazar's Hat

Pocky and Rocky gameplay has snuck its way into the UFO 50 collection and it's a good time. Highly recommend you play this one with a friend in co-op but singleplayer is just as fun.

The main confusion from this game comes from the item pickup system rather than the gameplay, so I'll explain the items in-depth to you and let you figure out how to shoot things yourself. It's not so bad.

- Picking up an item will add it to one of the three slots on the left, and once all three are full it will "cash out" based on what you have. If they're all different you get nothing, if two match you get a small power up, if all three match you get a big power up. All power ups are lost on death.
- Purple Ankh Symbol: One of the most important items, this one can heal you. Matching two of these will give you one bar of health back, matching three will give you a bar of health back AND up your maximum life from 3 to 4.
- Red Eye Symbol: Matching two of these will make you drop a bomb whenever you dodge, matching three will make you drop a bunch of bombs when you dodge. Bombs don't hurt you, they just hurt enemies.
- Green Moon Symbol: The other most important item. Matching two will make you fire occasional diagonal bullets, matching three will fully upgrade your shots into a 3-way spread.
- Orange Brimstone Symbol: Matching two will give you a small option buddy that shoots bullets along with you at enemies, matching three does the same but your buddy shoots even more.
- Blue Star Symbol: Matching two will give you a single rotating spike ball that blocks enemy bullets, matching three will give you a full shield of five rotating spike balls.

- Bonus tip! In specific "out of the way" spots of levels if you shoot the empty air you can cause a ticket to spawn! Pick it up and after the level you'll have a shot at the bonus stage where you can earn extra continues.

44 Pilot Quest

Part Zelda 1 and part Idle Game, this is the one everyone talks about in-between talking about all the other games.

- Don't stress too hard about being super optimal in this game, you'll have plenty of everything. Just set short term goals and finish them.
- First buy a bunch of tree upgrades, then spend your first ingots on an empty house, a workbench, and the hunters shack. These will help kickstart your resource generation.
- Play the wild area safe when you only go in with a few meat, but if you're going in with 6 or more be confident and really get in there. Embody greed.
- Going east and then north from the start will eventually bring you to a small castle full of spider enemies and a spider boss. Beat this spider boss as soon as you can.

45 Mini and Max

Out of all the metroidvania style adventures in this collection, this one's my favorite. It's absolutely HUGE and a total blast to play.

- Going all the way to the leftmost flowerpot and climbing up it, you'll find a house. This is a super important early game location to find.
- When in doubt, get curious! Go somewhere you haven't been before and look for any single piece of ground that looks even slightly more interesting than normal, and then get in there and investigate it!
- One other super important early game upgrade can be found in a dusty room near the center of the carpet. It'll cost you though, so do at least a little bit of exploring first.
- Never forget that fast travel is at your fingertips at all times. Just get big, move a few steps over, shrink again. You're there!

46 Combatants

The black sheep of UFO 50, reviled by near all. I can't deny that this game is frustratingly difficult, the AI is less than stellar, and you move slower than even my main man Barbuta. Despite everything though I still enjoy this game. Winning a level feels like conquering a mountain.

- Don't use Instinct, the AI can't be trusted to make informed choices. Use Follow to drag them around to do what needs to get done.
- If you're wondering what Instinct even does, it puts ants into their default state. By default ants just sort of wander around until they're close enough to a food pellet to see it. Once spotted, they'll go directly for the food, and once they have it they'll walk directly back to the queen. This does mean if you drag a bunch of units over to food and press instinct they'll take it all back on their own, but once they get back to base they'll just wander again, which could end up drawing enemy attention and costing you units. I wouldn't risk it, but use your best judgement.
- Engage all enemies extremely carefully. Pretend that all the blue ants have 3 HP and all the red ants have 6 HP. If a blue and red ant get into fist to fist combat at full HP, the blue ant will die and the red ant will come out with 3 HP. Each bullet from a soldier ant does one damage, so a red ant will die in 6 shots.
- Red Soldiers have bad aim. If you tell your Blue Soldiers to Hold in a specific location and Red Soldiers approach, they'll start shooting nonstop but without getting into range to actually hit because they don't want to get shot in return. Use this to your advantage by circling around and carefully shooting the Soldiers from another angle just barely in range. You'll kill them without taking any damage if all goes well.
- Take a moment on each level to walk around and fully understand the layout and the objective. You'll need to scrap together every advantage you can to beat the enemy.
- Spiders will show up in most of the lategame levels, they have tons of HP and kill any ant they touch before going into a brief eating animation. These are your new best friend. Most levels with spiders can be taken down by standing just close enough to lead the spider around without dying and taking it directly into the enemy base.
- Even if you do everything perfectly, sometimes the enemy AI does something smart and your AI does something dumb. Sometimes you just lose. Accept the loss, refuse to give up, and beat. this. game.

47 Quibble Race

LET'S GO GAMBLING!!!! This game's simple, fun, and addicting. Bet all your money on every single race, you'll never lose!!

- Quibbles have a hidden stat that ranges from Steady, to Clumsy, to Very Clumsy, that determines how often they trip during a race. Normally you'll never know this stat, but paying the Info Broker will reveal that stat for a Quibble for the rest of the run. Sponsoring a Quibble will also tell you the stat in the Training Menu.
- The Info Broker can also tell you with absolute certainty how fast a Quibble is in the given race. If he says a Quibble is the fastest one in the race, it will be. Before sabotages of course.
- You can only buy one thing from the shop each round. Choose carefully between sabotaging another Quibble to help an underdog win or protecting the current champ for a safe likely win.
- Sponsor Quibbles!! Once you pay to sponsor a Quibble you can train it to run faster, giving you someone to bet on in future races that you know will win. As an added bonus, if any Quibble you sponsor wins a race, you get a fat chunk of money!
- Don't be afraid to take a loan if you're shooting for a high amount of money. A loan of $500 that you have to pay back with 15% interest means next round you have to pay back $575. That extra $75 is nothing if it means making huge money on a massive successful bet.

48 Seaside Drive

Didn't expect another arcade game this deep in the list did you? One of the best was waiting down here the whole time.

- Main mechanic here is that drifting maintains the charge level of your shots. Moving to the left charges your gun, so make sure to keep a steady rhythm of movement to keep your charge up.
- Finishing a level without a death will earn you a bonus round with the potential to get a few more lives.
- Try and kill potential problem enemies as fast as possible with concentrated gunfire. You only have so many lives.

Other than that this game's just a simple good time.

49 Campanella 3

Campanellaaaaaaaaa. The series that can do no wrong. This one's an arcadey rail shooter of sorts.

- One button will shoot forward into the distance, the other will shoot in the opposite direction of your movement on the 2D plane of the screen.
- You do NOT need to kill all enemies to progress. Feel free to play it safe if you're having trouble, but then again the enemies can't hurt you if you kill them first...
- During Bonus Stages, you'll earn a continue if you shoot a certain number of balloons. Note that the Red balloons are worth one point while the Yellow balloons are worth three, so if you can only shoot one or the other, shoot the yellow one.

50 Cyber Owls

This game is a lot. It's Contra, it's Ninja Gaiden, it's Cheetahmen, it's Metal Gear, and so much more. AND it's one of the games with furries in it.

- During Octavio missions you'll be on foot. Punch and kick enemies as you make your way to the goal. You have a charge attack that shoots a small projectile to take out a bunch of enemies. The charge attack can also delete certain projectiles, so learn where it's useful. You can also do a jumpkick in midair which can hurt enemies and deflect thrown grenades, use this to your advantage.
- During Huxley missions you'll be riding a bike of some sort. Hold the button to shoot directly forward, don't hold it too long or you overheat and get hurt. This playstyle is simple to a fault, there's no tricks here.
- During Engle missions you'll be in a sort of over the shoulder perspective. Move left and right to dodge bullets while also moving your crosshair over enemies to shoot them. My best advice for these levels is that mashing the shoot button shoots faster than holding the shoot button, so line up the crosshair and mash mash mash.
- During Guin missions you'll be playing Metal Gear. HP is extremely small so mistakes are heavily punished. All guards reset on room transitions so if you get spotted bail as soon as possible and then just come back. Most of your trouble here will come from not knowing where to go, so map it out as you go and you'll have a better time in future.
- In a bizarre twist, this game has additional content for those who Game Over. Losing all your lives in one of the first four missions will lead to your player being captured in a cage, and you'll then have to rescue them with another of the birds. The rescue mission plays out in a small turn-based grid style dungeon combat type minigame. Grab the keycard, get to your guy, you win. If you enjoy this minigame (like I do) type GETM-EOUT into the terminal to play it on repeat until you die. My highscore is 12 in a row before some unfortunate grenades ended me.

Thanks

It means a lot that anyone would read this. I hope my general tips helped you get started with a game that wouldn't click for you, or even taught you something about one you already beat. It's probably obvious that I have a lot of love for nearly every genre of game, and this game blew me away completely. No matter what you get out of UFO 50 or this guide, I hope you come out the other side satisfied.

Play Forever.

[Ulhar]

A little note for 36 Hyper Contender: in 1P Tournament mode, losing will let you demand a rematch (i.e. retry), but losing in the rematch will expel you from the tournament and you'll have to restart. As long as you never lose a rematch though, you do effectively have infinite continues

[Σ]

In ninpek shooting doesnt stop you being ghost

[Lasagevev0]

Cat's skill is that she can double jump in any direction after landing a jump kick.

[Lasagevev0]

I haven't figured out what Cat's skill is yet, though

[Lasagevev0]

Tip for 33 (fist hell): In addition to their stats, every character in Fist Hell has a special skill.
Jay can hold down jump while holding an enemy to charge up a spinning piledriver that disintegrates low health enemies (instantly blows up low health bombers! Careful!).
Amy can hold down attack while throwing an enemy to charge up a throw which causes the enemy to explode after they initially land.
Victor's fully charged punch (accessible to everyone by holding down attack) is stronger than average and can disintegrate just like the piledriver (instantly blows up low health bombers! Careful!).

[FluffyMittens]

In Magic Garden, it appears the limit to how high you can get that score multiplier is how many potions you can get on the ground at once, which with the limit of oppies you can drop off would be 33-ish.

Additionally Mushrooms are only spawned if you allow the drop off area to despawn and move, so the best tactic for high scoring is to just drop off 3 oppies constantly to prevent it from happening and allow the potions to level up over time. Maximise potions on the ground! The score bonus for dropping off oppie chains is nothing compared to how much you can get for eating them pacman style.

[Yatsuzume]

(Combatants tips dump 1/2)

I just cherried Combatants for some ungodly reason, here's a quick infodump of what got me there:
- If there's a spider, bait it immediately towards the enemy (like the guide says). It does a hundred times more than you ever could.
- If there's no spider, your best strategy is typically to shut down the red ant construction immediately. Try to get a sneaky kill on their queen on your own.
- Another option (like on stage "Surprise") is running immediately towards the starting red ants, bait all of them towards following you, so they don't produce anything. Ideally you have them reach your queen, so she can meatshield for you whilst you kill all the starting red ants & have full reign immediately.
- On most stages, I seem to become invisible to the AI when I hug the ceiling. Useful for cheesy kills on ants or the queen.

[Yatsuzume]

(Combatants tips dump 2/2)
- Put 1 worker somewhere hidden/behind your queen, to make it likely you'll always be able to respawn.
- If you have a way to get ~4 food safely, put it towards making 2 soldiers. Reason is next point:
- If you can stack 2 or more soldiers on top of each other & hold them there with Hold command, it's really easy to kill red workers by leading them into your soldier range like they're bloons TD monkeys. 2 Soldiers will need occassional support from you, but more than 2 will make it near impossible for a worker to reach you or your soldiers.

[Discord Inc]

There's another trick for getting high scores in Magical Garden. If you chain potions that give a multiplier, the bonus stacks. I don't know the cap but I've managed to get a x4 multiplier.

[♥Puroseki (she/her)]

@IanBoni_ There's a ticket in level one at the top of the screen during one of the horizontally scrolling sections. It's a little open empty space about the size of a square with nothing in it. Shoot there a bunch, pick up ticket, beat the level, then good luck on the bonus game