Gem Craft (in Off-topic)

This game (it is close to the top on the "Out of BA" page) has had me busy for the past couple of weeks, and I am now stuck. Game seems to have gotten real hard, real quick after the third Epic Boss level...

First, my character is level 30, I have done my best to get all I can get going by maxing out points on previous levels. There doesn't appear to be much I would gain in skills even if I hit level 31 or 32 anyway.

I am stuck on the only-two available levels a little bit beyond the third Epic Boss (yellow) level. They don't have names, so I will describe them:

36 waves, gems green, yellow, lime, orange (as far as I can tell)
AND
36 waves, gems green, yellow, blue, purple, turquoise

I can't even get CLOSE on these levels. I have tried all gem bombing, all Mana Pool, a ton of water, a ton of towers... I just can't get beyond level 27-28 on either.

Hints?

I am at about the 4th epic battle (I think I just passed them). I have got pretty much all glowing frame so far (so my level would be pretty high) except the hidden battle (which I got the first 4th to glowing frame in my last session), I basically get the highest level gem I can (with the starting gem thing), and put it on and pump the mana pool first, only merge gem when I need to, from about the 8ish wave, you would need to start to merge, at about 1.8x (or a little higher) the mana, you start spamming the highest level gem you can make and merge them to even higher level, it shouldn't be very difficult. BTW: duel mastery is very useful (I keep that on most of the time, except for hidden levels)

I can't even get close to glowing frame, especially on those early levels (only 8 rounds!) How do you do that? I pumped Mana Pool the entire time to maximize score and still can't even get close...

What am I missing?

What does Dual Gem Mastery get you? I could try maxing that out...

OK, I am DEFINITELY missing something on how to get big scores... I just did level 1 and spent every single Mana on Mana Pool (that's the only way I know to increase score...) Final score was 146,000 or so. Glowing Frame score for that is 790,000, so I am not even 25% of the way there!

How else does one increase score?

Figured out the pre-release aspect of waves (how did I miss that?) I had no idea it would increase score so much... Time to go level up a bunch. *smile*

Actually, the key for me was to reset and redistribute all my points. Once you have the ability to get increased pure starting gems, then you don't need any points at all in the first increased basic starting gems. Hope that makes sense. The 2nd thing is to combine a couple initial gems, place them, and then hit the fast forward button and release all the waves at once. Then build towers, add gems, or build traps as the flood comes at you. Hope that helps.

oh, and I never invested in gem bombs even once. Didn't ever need them.

Yeah, the releasing of stages is key. I just glowed the first two rounds without much problem, plus the game goes faster. *smile* Just have to know what's coming and work faster...

Once you unlock the skill that lets you start with higher level gems, reset your skills and MAX THAT SKILL. You will end up with a lot of HIGH (I think multiple grade 7, grade 6, and grade 5) level gems. Put them in the towers of early levels, SPAM the early release, every single wave right as the level starts and keep hitting the mana pool increase. You'll end up with double the require score for glowing frames.

Im stuck on the very last battle. Im level 50. Many things that help are maxing out your armoe skill and mana giving skills. Once you can get the high grade starter gems skill, i would max that as well it save a lot of mana and can usually get you through about 10 waves without buying a single gem.
If your stuck go back and try to gain more points so you can level up. The key to epic battles is having enough mana stored up so you can banish the boss at least once so he has to go through your towers another round. This means get enough mana points saved up ,usually several thousands, so that you can afford to have him run through your gauntlet of towers and water more then 1 time.

why isn't "mana" in the spell checker? Also, I have yet to find a secret level and I have about 15 glowing frame scores, so I have no idea what that's all about.

sorry 3rd post.

BTW I just found my 1st secret level. I completed the first 6 levels at a glowing score and it appeared.

QBsutekh137- THe key to getting high scores is being super quick and completeing many tasks, such as creating gems, towers, upgrades, and gem bombimg. All these give you amulets wihich add to your score after the battle, you can get a many ten's of thousands of extra points from these. Check amulet page to see what I mean.

Oh, it's easy now, at least up through Epic 1... Once I release the gates and go nuts with maxed gem bombs, I glow on 2-3 tries... Here I have just been slogging through in slo-mo! Looks like I still have a lot of fun left in this game!

Well, just four hours after posting, I am now level 45 and glowed pretty much everything up to Epic 4 (haven't tried it yet). Needless to say, the two levels that were giving me fits are a piece of cake with high-level starting gems. *smile* Thanks for all the help!

My arm hurts! *smile*

I've completed the final boss level. Still no secret levels (I'll need to redo a few more levels at a glowing score to get that I think). For that level, reduce armor is the key. The first few times I failed, simply because it would not spam any purple gems. At the successful attempt, I had about 4 purple gems. While the monster was doing it's walk, I kept swapping those gems to keep them in its path. Then, I also made sure I had enough manna saved, so I would survive a few rounds of him.

Glowing the first 6 game me my first secret level as well. It's 4M to glow, and you only get Poison (green) gems. :( It's a pain. I might leave it until I've got Pure Gem mastery.

game finished, except the ending is that (spoiler alert)...







... the forgotten just kill the corrupt wizard and take over my body instead. *sigh*

I can't wait! I am loving it now, haven't even used Pure Gem, I just start with large gems and bomb the crap out of things. Course, I am only up to Epic 4.

Any idea how to transfer a game between machines? I played at work a bunch Friday, but my game here at home is just starting -- I don't want to redo everything, I am spoiled at level 45. *smile*

level 82, every board glowing, every skill maxed, every amulet gotten :8^)

Nice!

I can't even get passed the 1st epic boss ._. . Any hints/pointers?

the game gets kinda lame after lvl 35 or so once you have a decent (or maxed out) level in "high grade starting gems"... After that point, it's not so much strategy as it is clicking your mana pool until your multiplier is 2.4+, then just playing with different gem combos and bombs until all the monsters are done coming out.

I've not yet come across a single level that gave me a hard time since I got my high-grade starting gems... I could just not use them... but that would be like using Ryu without hadoken...

as for the first epic boss, by then, your first stat (that raises starting and max man) should be maxed out, with high replenish per second and mana per kill. early on, upgrade mana pools, and everything will fall into place later. The epic boss is a killer, so have 1-3 points invested in the armor skill, and stop spending mana 2-3 waves before he arrives. It is extremely difficult to stop him on his first run through, but simple enough to kill him halfway on 2 rotations

Pointers:

Place trenches by red towers, this will cause many monsters to bunch up in one spot, maximizing spread damage.

Watch your gem mixing. special abilities are dependent on the hues of the gem using them. If you're mixing yellow and purple, you'll have extremely weak special effects of both. If you're mixing lime and green (chain hit + poison ftw! :P), the hue of the combined gem will be so close to the colors that make it up, it'll have both of it's abilities at near max potential.

Don't worry about monsters getting to your base from time to time, just make sure you have enough mana to banish them ^_^

How do u banish monsters?

The Banish number is the amount of mana you will lose if a creep makes it to the end point. They take that amount of mana from your pool then re-spawn at the beginning. However, their stats do not get reset.

Ah, nvm i got it.

Well, finished it up today, ended up on level 90, all amulets achieved... Last level wasn't bad except I kept forgetting to save up mana to banish the Boss. Only had to send him around a second time since I was able to reduce his armor to zero first time around...

Fun game!

Fun is making a lvl 11 gem on the hidden orange level :P

How do I get to the hidden orange level?

I am missing a couple amulets after all, the ones that just require killing a load of monsters... Is that what I need?

Level 11...damn, that's a lot of combinations! Sixteen level 7s? I've gotten to 12 when I'm not waiting for a boss or saving mana to glow...

...or is this all just a joke? *smile*

Hidden levels are purely from glowing frames.

Don't worry about glowing scores until after the first epic level. Once you can get dual gem mastery, reset your skills, max dual gem and starting mana. You should be able to get a glowing frame on every level up to the first epic now, probably most the game.

Once you unlock pure gem mastery, reset, max that out, ignore dual gem mastery until you're out of useful skills. With pure gem mastery maxed, you should be able to glowing frame every single level your first try, including the hidden levels.

I have everything glowed, that's why I asked about Hatch's "orange" level... Is that a joke or something you get from all amulets?

as far as making a lvl 12, holy hell... I guess the battles get pretty long after awhile... I barely managed the lvl 11, and was only able to do that with 3 towers holding gems lvl 7 or higher with 11 towers holding lvl 3 oranges (so as to hit and drain mana, but not kill so that multiple hits could be landed ^_^) the base mana steal for pure orange maxes out at 12 at lvl 8 though... =/

But there's no challenge...I've already cleared the game, yes? I'll finish the amulets tomorrow to make sure. *smile*