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[twillight]

For Garden 9 actually 10 life is only what's usually lost, at least that's seem the number. Still, gathering spare lives will release you earlier for later, so 20 is still a good number.

Garden 10 is HARD by maps, but there are some good news:
- as startegy try to go for rows of specials. That's the way to win.
A "combo" to keep in mind: if you get any of the "colouring" or so to say "cloud" bonuses AND right then a rolling bonus (even if it rolls forward), you'll effect an even larger amount of balls, especially if the rows turn a lot.
About the cloud-bonuses: the "dot"-like icon eliminates the balls in its could, while the "flower"-like iconed one re-colours the ones in its cloud (to its own colour). This was actually pretty hard to test out
You'll most likely loose a life or two on each map of this garden, but fortunately there's a level (I think the 4th) what is a) an easy map b) all balls in the row contain a letter. So despite the row almost imediatelly filling the path, you have a good chance here to re-fill more then one life, and win without loss.


Garden 11:
it has 8 sublevels, all are insanely fast, although most are versions of earliest levels. The worst exception is what has the map of 8-6, but now has 3 rows.
Because of the speed of the levels no strategy can be followed, just hoping the best and shooting all your balls as fast as you can to the best place you can.
Don't forget you can shoot to nowhere you balls to despise them (on most levels).

One more garden to go, and one map what is unseen yet.
I suggest keeping 25-30 lives for the last go, what shouldn't require too much effort, considering you already accumlated a lot just to be on the safe side.

[twillight]

Sinjid

Krinn's latest flash-game's hard mode I found lately "pretty challenging", what means "how the bleep do I win this", but it is at least not repetitive, and you know/feel the win is just not overlooking the right strategy (what noone seem to use consider normally, heh).

I found a strategy guide for the priest class (your hear me yoga?), so let's make a playthrough trying that.

Area#1:
Well, Meditation is now a big help, actually so much it feel OP. Really, with the simple summoned shadow and the basic missle you're pretty much invincible.
Don't forget of course to shoot from out of screen
What you'd like if you find is a staff and a helm above what the guide says. Oh, and do not buy anything in town. It isn't needed.

Area#2: pretty much the same as the previous.
To gain more exp I suggest after finding any quest-component to go back to town and start over the area. Gives nice amount of exp.
I also suggest collecting consumables one for each type of buff. Just to be on the safe side.
To reach the Kabuki Mask keep "up" pressed, and fast exchange the left-right directions (when reaching the walls). The last "jump" to the platform with the chest can be reached by Blink easier. The mask is heluva strong despite the "madness" suffix, so wear it.
From the boss I got Izumi's Grip (gloves), a nifty thing giving Int. Do NOT change the blue Bo (staff) you found in this area to anything else!

Area#3: Most things can be killed out of screen, and what comes alone the shadow will keep it up as before. The "madness" lowering of Int does NOT hurt, as your shadow against any single enemy lasts long enough, and you'll be able to cast your missiles until you can Meditate again, what means you can out-focus a healer, what is cool.
Battle#3 is potentially deadly IF you're unexperienced with your skills (most likely at this point). To win first summon a shadow (as distraction), MEditate to gain back focus, wait to gain back Meditation, and shoot a missile to pull out the enemy. Then shoot a Frost Spike to slow the one ahead, and Blink + run to the other side of the screen. This'll pull away the warrior, giving you a big chance to cause serious damage (summon shadow, missile). When the other guy shows up again do the Blink-away trick again as needed. If you get into trouble (most likely after the first Blink) drink your potion.
If you find "Shaman Spellblade" (dropped randomly by shamans) even one outclasses the Spirit Bo I used until that, so it might even worth to repeatedly visit this area for a second one.
Where I say nothing specific here or otherwise it is suggested to not move too much initially on a new screen to avoid finding more enemies, and be able to shoot them out of screen.
Beating the local boss is easy. Jump on the top of the boss-platform, but stay at the edge. Remove Kabuki Helm (you should have Hood of Night for switch), summon a shadow, meditate, wait until you can almost re-cast these, then activate the fight, when you immediately cast another shadow. Keep casting shadows whenever possible, and fire missiles the rest of the night. It don't even last too long.

PS: I don't know where I got "Shadow Walk" (boots), but definitely an advantage with its Swiftness attrib.

[twillight]

Still Sinjid:

Area#4:
you have to carry here 1 crab claw. Your backpack will start to fill up. Keep the rare buffers, and get rid of some food-type to be able to carry more item to sell (there are nifty-looking items in town, but money is scarce at this point, so I did not buy anything). Do NOT buy a mining pick!
Lucky Cat Amlet as long as you'll be able to survive worth wearing, despite Necklace of Wisdom will fall (keep that in store).
On Hard mode do NOT try to step in spikes as that's now instant kill. If an enemy dies on them, try gaining their stuff from the edge of the ground.
Crystals give buffs, what means only 1 from each type can worth its price. So if you find more of them either use it up immediately or throw it away, as they are not useful any more (except rising quality). Gold can be used multiply times, so that's the only one never to throw away.
Again do not listen to the guide, but on me. The initial strategy is to not move, cast a shadow, pull out one enemy with missile, and meditate as needed, then missile everyone from out of sight.

The fight against Lord Dajin is far from undoable, but lasts ages (compared before fights). The trick is to slow him down with Frost spikes, then Blink away and run to the other side of the screen, from where cast missiles when the extra buff is expired from him.
Oh, and to have enough focus, again change the Kabuki Mask!

Area#5:
don't forget to buy an Empty Potion.
This is the area your shadows tend to last shorter then you can re-Meditate yourself, so watch out, but nothing spectacular.
Ryota the Sly (the poison-cloud guy) surprisingly not last long. With shadow to block the poison-projectile, Blink and speed to run away from it, and Meditation to get healed, not to mention Frost Spike to slow him down it is an easy fight.
The good thing here is that you can find some new equipment, the bad is, they came rare and in poor quality (or just the random don't like me). And though the Venom Staff is god (in terms of Def and Int), but I'd keep my old Acidic Blade (damage over time effect, works with spells) and Shaman Spellblade (chance t replenish focus) around. Man, I wish for a bigger stash!
Anyway, in case you find anything good, save the game! Go back where it autosaves for you (because of all things being random and stuff).
Takeshi, the local boss, also known as "slefhealing scum with large area attack" is doable, although lasts finally as a normal boss somewhere else. The trick is to put a shadow on him, run away, then hit him hard with frost spikes, and meditate back your focus. When none is awaiable cast the regular missile for more damage. This cause enough dmaage to counter his regeneration.

Area#6:
For the first fight summon a shadow right away, and use Frost Spike, because the regular missiles are not enough anymore in real combat.
Haddaku the Swift is the first serious fight. You can not allow him to hit you any time, or you'll loose. Cast a shadow, hit him with Frost Spikes, and ALWAYS Blink away and run to the other side whenever you see him. The trick is to find out the timing of Frost Spike, Meditation, and the narrow limit Summon Shadow. Then all is about lasting out.
The fight after that differs from the previous one that you have to run up and down constantly. Meh, no more "did not even seen'em" victory
For killing the two mage next you can only dream about separation. You have to run in, cast a Shadow at the middle, then jump around (not Blink!) and recast the shadow and Frost Spikes and most often the regular missile until the mages run out of focus and you finalyy will have the chance to kill them. Ugly, especially as the next fight isn't the slightest easier. The good thing is they can drop Staff of Order, in which case you MUST go back and make a save, it's just that good (60 Int, 34 Def).
For the next fight run in! After pulling out the nearer enemy of course. That leaves you much more space to manouver.
You HAVE TO take the bonus area for the cool Int-boosting stuff. Eat a shadow-potion (makes you invisible), run in to the chests, drink the second to open the chests, then the third to get out. Then go back to save.
Against the boss that Energy Field really do help to cover you (especially along Shadow, what will be here secondary to that). Oh, and again you'll need tons of focus (aka. mana), so swap helm again. Actually, a Nomad Cunning (beats me where I found it, probably in this area) might make you permanently remove the Kabuki Mask.

[twillight]

I tried out this awesome technology called "screen recorder":

Let's play Necronomicon

part two

part 3

part 4

[twillight]

Sinjid part 3

(The Necronomicon playthrough will be updated in the post above.)

Area7, Haruki Residence:

On trinkets: as from the robe we get Lucky buff you want to take up Paku's Glass Doll instead Lucky Charm (which might be preserved in case you want hunting in the last area).

Most fights here start in visible range, but not hard and have the same strategy:
shoot the bad guys with missile to initiate the battle, cast a Shadow as meat-shield, then alternate shadow missile with frost spike, and meditate when avaiable.

I think the 7th battle was the first including something special as both attacker had lots of HP. The key was not let them corner me, teleporting away and running the other side of the screen. Otherwise the same.

For the 8th battle if you don't move too much (shouldn't be hard) you can dispose the remaining two opponent from out of screen.

NOTE: whenever you find a good trinket, look for an autosave (going backwards).

For the 9th battle: DO NOT MOVE for all that is holy! The second opponent should NOT be lured out as he can do insane damage for whatever reason. Instead lure out the first guy with a missile, change to frost spikes for the remaining time, and cast a Shadow when he basically starts to hit your head.
If the first guy dies, the second can be shot out of screen.
You'll find snow Silk Leggings here what is just time to swap for your outdated Leatherhosen. It has Reflex, so you can exchange your gloves too in case you got Mystical Vambraces in this area.

Lord Tetuso, the boss of this area is bad news, though not hard if you know what you're doing. Just annoying, because he can do a one-hit-kill.
To start the battle get to the edge of the starting platform, but do not step down to the Lord's level to initiate the battle. Instead summon a Shadow, then consume some Spring Water. Then initiate the battle, and immediately cast Soul Shatter and right next to it Frost Spike. The strategy from now on is to run far away to gain time, always have a Shadow running to spare you from instant death, and Energy Field on Tetsuo to keep him at bay (and prevent his healing). On the offensive part do the Soul Shatter + Forst Spike combo EXCLUSIVELY.
Oh, and whenever you see his boomerang coming and you have no Shadow up - teleport away, or you'll die.

----

Area 8:
The first who'll mean annoyance is Kazuro, the first half's boss. He is annoyingly strong, and can do a full heal.
Your chance is to do the strong combo of Soul Shatter + Frost Spike, although you can have enough charges to be able to cast TWO Shatter before the Spikes will be more useful (the Shatter loads back way faster).
Summoning Shadow is a necessity, although not a primary objective.
If you manage to whack his HP down, and you see he start casting something long, THEN should you cast Energy Field on his head, what interrupts his casting (lucky us), giving the chance to be able to finish him off (Energy Field both creates a Field where you stand in which if you manage to lure the enemy they'll get frozen, and the same time fully recharges you mana).

The next battle is easy-peasy. Lure out the first one, kill him not moving, then shoot the priest from out of screen.
Exchange your helm to Lunar Shako.

The next one is entirely out of screen victory. Keep in mind you should always check for this.

When you reach it wear Naga Eye. I knw what the walkthrough says, but as long as I can get away with my way, I'll stick to it. I don't get hit that often, and Soul Shatter relies hughly on the amount of focus, so duh.

The 9th battle here is though. Summon a Shadow (else you'll be pulled by some pesky ability to the middle of hurt) and rely on your "strong combo". When you have to run away, cast Energy Field on top of the farther one's head to trap both. Kill one ASAP. Might take a few tries, but doable.

The worst thing of the coming boss is, that there's no save at the beggining of her room.
The strategy should be otherwise: cast Shadow, do "strong combo", run away and heal, and Energy Field her whenever the ability is ready. Manageable.

Area 9 (final):
#1: summon a shadow and keep your distance to not get whacked to death.
#2: easy.
#3: shoot down the worker out of sight, then summon a Shadow, and Energy Field the coming enemy. This'll do it.
#4: cast Energy Field, because while it lasts you'll have infinite mana. Shoot a Shadow Missile to lock the target, then Soul Shatter to oblivion the priest.
#5: another "to hell with it" boss. She has 2 moves (ok, she has a standard attack too, but that doesn't matter):
First is an instant kill Gaze, what can be avoided if you turn your back to her. You can know it is coming if she starts casting something long. If you manage to turn back, you'll suffer a "normal" 4-500 dmg.
Second is a series of poison shots while she is in the air. Your only chance to avoid these shots if you run from one side to the other, preferably staying right under her if possible. A Shadow can draw some shots away from you.
You should start this fight with 2 Soul Shatter and a Frost Spike, then run under her avoiding the poison, then Energy Field her, then cast a Shadow behind her, run forward her, turn around - this time the Energy Field will fade -, shoot him the combo again, then try to stay close to her, and by all meaning keep her on screen to be able to see what she does next. With some luck she'll mostly do the Gaze, while you should stand passive and Meditate when your life drops. If you gain enough charges, shoot Soul Shatter on her! With not a little luck you'll survive until you can Energy Field her again, when she must have adequately low HP, thus that should it be.
To mention: she can drop Emeralds, so if you run out of hope but can beat her, then you can come back if necessary for infinite amount of gems. Good to know, eh?
#6: a strong, but uninteresting fight.
#7: shoot blindly 2 Soul Shatter + 1 Frost Spike. Some Shadow Missile if the "enemy died" popup doesn't appear. Heck, you can even just cast an Energy Field, and Soul Shatter all 3 enemy here to death.
#8: with a single Soul Shatter you can destroy the worker, and with a Shadow + Energy Field combo you can survive the priest's first moment. This is enough to run to the other side and escape. I hate this, but it IS a solution.
#9: start with a strong combo, what hopefully kills the first guy. Do NOT run around from the warrior, but keep him up with Energy Field / Shadow, and pump him strong when your mana charges back.
#10: final boss. No insta-death, so not that staggering. Basically you have to keep your distance to prevent to be stunned, and just Energy Field/blast him. Use Shadow to keep him up more. When he is in the air and summons his minion that's no worry, just be sure you hit the minion, as he himself will be invulnerable (I think it's a bug you keep aim him), and the minion is weak. Killing the minion fast gives you time to rest, as his levitation is set for a given time.
Finally I finished it on Hard Mode too!


(more to come)

[twillight]

Finished Sinjid this time with warrior.

Focused on damage, vitality, defense and strenght.

Build:
Level 2: Iron Discipline 1/2
Level 3: Iron Discipline 2/2
Level 4: Brutal Advantage 1/3
Level 5: Brutal Advantage 2/3
Level 6: Brutal Advantage 3/3
Level 7: Concentrated Brew 1/2
Level 8: Doom Blade 1/3
Level 9: Doom Blade 2/3
Level 10: Doom Blade 3/3
Level 11: Blood Thirst 1/2
Level 12: Blood Thirst 2/2
Level 13: Heavy Armor 1/5
Level 14: Avenger 1/3
Level 15: Avenger 2/3
Level 16: Avenger 3/3
Level 17: Heavy Armor 2/5
Level 18: Heavy Armor 3/5
Level 19: Heavy Armor 4/5
Level 20: Heavy Armor 5/5

Strategy (this is an almost nobrainer build):
- separate the enemy
- run around until your abilities (mostly the basic stunning hit) recharges
- there's a self-buff what can heal. Rely on that at times.
- kill weak enemy ASAP if separation not possible
- leave the last priest alone (just like with the priest)
- food is your friend, especially if they give vitality-boost
- wear "tank" buff armors

[twillight]

Rage of Mages 2

Because The Gamers 3: Hand of Fate comes, as tribute for The Gamer 2: the Dorkness Rising - the best pen&paper-RPG based movie ever made! - I started this old gem with a female lance-specialised warrior character, and this time I'll play it regularly!

The game was designed to play the campaign mode with a mage protagonist (a warrior and another mage will join), so this will be a proper challenge, especially as I took Hard Difficulty!

As I'll need all the advantages I can make, I modified the initial stats to this:
32/39/34/20. This way my damage don't lowers, and for the tradeoff of 20 HP (99 initial HP instead of 120) I got more learning, aka. skillrise. As there're a fixed number of thingies to kill in the game, this feels quite important.

I remember fire resistance will be important because of animals (including dragons) and astral + air resistance because of enemy mages (the group of necromancers).
From the magic elements air is cool for Prismatic Spray, what is a multihit-autohit spell (up to 5 enemies, and is quite strong). Water is for Ice Rain / Poison Cloud, what the AI don't use too much as far as I can remember. Fire has the good old Fireball and Firewall, the enemy constantly blasting you with Fireball, so it'll be important (sadly key thingies will be highly resistant to this). Earth is negligable element, while Astral has healing, lifedrain, shielding and so on buffing.

At the start it is key to be able to do ranged damage for some extra $$$ and to incrise your skills.
Each and every critter has some or more regeneration, so especially on the higher difficulties it is advised to rise your skills by hurting things, then letting them heal (even heal them by yourself). So the first map will probably last ages this time at me, pls be patient.
Most things I managed to kill without real problem, there remain only 3 things: a troll (but don't even try to go against the quest-giver troll, even though trolls are slow as mountains rise, his bats would easily dispose you), an ogre (can be shot from the safety of trees, worth doing), and some turtles.
The problem with turtles is I barely land a hit on them, they have quite good HP against a starter, and as any critter-group, they attack as group, and is very hard to pull away any of them (impossible to separate). I still managed to kill all but one until now, so I'll be able to train my pike-skill (I think I'll have the patience to go 25. Initially I had 20 as tagged skill, and got 2 along the way).
As I'll need strong ranged damage, training the bow on the ogre and the troll will be what'll demand hours and hours of play, but sonner or (likely) later I'll kick their asses. Not the donkeys.

08.09
Pike skill at 22, and because with this a single turtle is trustably damagable, even 23 can be a problem, so that'll be my limit.
Shooting skill is 15, and still miss too much. Training on the ogre currently.

08.10
Pike skill is 25, but then I got out of patience waiting all the time the turtle get healed, so I killed it finally. There must be other turtles somewhere right, if future need will arise?
Shooting is 20. I keep training this. Would be good if I'd finally be able to see the ogre's HP...

08.11
Shooting skill is 30. I think now I'll go and kill the quest-troll as I start to hit more reliably (since skill 17 I started to hit the ogre once in a while, at 22 no longer just once a year).
Also by skill my attack and damage goes up too, what is a good thing.
My HP went up too, what is even better.
EXP-gain is by successful hits, but I think with higher skills you have to land more hits to gain another point in the used skill, so rising all skills to 25 can mean just a little extra HP without the need to find some special enemy to train on. Good enemy to train on is what has high HP and low dmg. To help yourself, preserve very low dmg weapons for this purpose.
Unfortunately it seems you gain knowledge of enemy stats only by killing incrised numbers, and nut just hurting one of the species a lot.
Speed is good to engage the enemy, or to run away from. Engaging only counts for the warriors (being mostly melee), but running away is always useful - if I went into stats I tell you this too.
Sight is important to be able to see and select target, especially for mages, whose attacks gain distance when their skill incrises I assume.
So that's it for today.

08.12
After realising I do an "awesome" one dmg per shot to the troll, I decided to load back and train as much as possible on the ogre.
Man, the longest starting area I've ever done. The dragon at Might and Magic 7 was like this, but that was waaaay faster!

08.18
To show my persistance - and because my net went away for a short time - I rised my shooting by 10 points today (40 in all).
I rly want to kill the ogre here, no excuse, although I just remembered this game (what I think uses the Warcraft 2 engine) only drops items you see the enemy is wearing. And the ogre has a club, what doesn't fit, but whatever.
And why I train so hard? Aside the feeling of perfection when you choose to play on Hard, you must be ready in any game to use the nasty tricks, especially when it gives you free levelups. So be patient, I'll finish with this sooner or later. Because any time I could move to the next area, nothing stands in my way, except this ogre (what can be avoided), and that sidequest to kill the troll.

[twillight]

I found my old Diablo 1 CD, and it was not glitchy (except some beeping during the town music).

Cleared even lvl 4, and wasted all my gold to try punish King Leoric, but I failed with that.
No death until now, but King Leoric will have to w8 until I get some serious equipment.

My Necronomicon and Rage of Mages CD went dirty, and I lack 100% alcohol at home, and the holiday prevents me getting access to it, so I checked what else, and finished Thumblebugs!

The last but one garden (I won't check if I wrote about it already) was just about shooting wild like no tomorrow, all level being extra fast.
The last (12th) garden had instead all levels with an inward spiral (prevents you to spam out unsuable balls), demanded to rely on RL-luck for series of special balls coming (and be avaiable to the balls you can shoot out!), with the last level being a 3 row of balls to dispose of, each covering the other. Fortunately they have pathetic speed, so it was managable after a couple of deaths.
There are 9 freaking sub-levels for the 12th Garden, what is encumbering.
I lost 10 lives on all but the last, and 5 more on the last one. 30 lives I had, and that's probably the life-insurance here.

The end of the game is fraud, just atitle-screen with "Congratulation, To Be Continued". WTH happened?!? I was.

[twillight]

Let's play Necronomicon part 5

part 6

part 7

part 8


Rage of Mages 2

08.21
The Ogre died at Shooting Skill 41. Droped 809 gold, what is even more then the offered reward for the troll (700). Got a dialoge for disposing the "old and toothless" ogre.
I made an archive-save and went troll-hunter. I can not come out of this "arena" I'm in, because Hydun The Second would kill me Big Time. No chance against that lvl 2 troll and its lvl 2 bats (4 of 'em).
I want to KILL the troll as soon as possible, so whenever I have HP filled, I try to improve my Pike skill by melee. It sux at this point, but if I'd reach 30, I'd expect to do damage like no tomorrow. Too bad I dunno how the exp works, let's hope it does not give 1 skill at exact exp, because that'll likely be my Shooting skill, as between regeneration I use my bow to prevent the troll's regeneration (it has incrised regeneration I assume).
Fortunately lvling my bow provided me some extra HP (141 now), and the troll don't hit that large (10-25 in face of the ogre's 30+). And even my bow does some damage now (ca. 3-5 per shot), ca. the same my pike can when it finaly lands a strike.



08.22
Shooting: 44
Pike: 27
The skills I tested, and grow independently from each other (so it is not "skill rise to the last hit when lvlup). I bet this'll go on until Shooting will reach at least 50.

08.24
Shooting: 45
Pike: 28

08.25
Shooting: 50
Pike: 31
I feel I start to deal continuous damage (ca. 6 per hit). But if I'm wrong (actually the hit-rate is only ca. 50% with bow), I'll kill the bastard as it took too much of my time already.
Anyway, MY regeneration-rate is 1/second, applied in every 3 seconds (so 3 HP gained back in every 3 seconds if you couldn't follow).
There's also a stat "weight". This is hidden stats of the items, and effects Speed (at least it is told that way), what is derived from Agility (and not Body, what I'd equal with the more common Strenght).

[twillight]

Let's play Necronomicon part 9

RM2:
09.14:
pike: 32, shooting 51

09.15
pike: 36, shooting: 55 (at 220K exp)
According to the damages I suffer the troll's damage-potential is 15-30 (from what my absorption comes down, what is 4). It's absorption is ca. 13. Of course what'd interest me is the bloody amount of HP this earthslide has...
Weight seems only effect the characters by what they wear, and you can potentially carry around infinite amount of item. At least this is indicated that by changing my weapons (bow and pike) causes a change in weight. Related to this the char-sheet says Body (stat) effects the strenght (aka. how much weight you can carry), but there's no feedback to check that claim, thus you can only rely on Speed-change if it'll occur.
The xp you gain is also effected (along number of successful hits) the amount of dmg you cause, you having a bigger stick does worth it

09.20
pike: 37 shooting: 56

09.21
pike: 40 shooting: 58
If I had to make an estimation, I'd say at 50-75 will I win this battle. Wish I just would need persistance for Baldies too....