GemCraft

June 14, 2008 8:39 PM

GemCraftFlash Tower Defense goodness. Neat little rpg/upgrading touches in between maps. Lots of maps with some epic bosses thrown in every once in a while.

Protips: your mana/gold is also your life/health. Mana pool thingy trades a chunk of mana for a higher income rate/greater max. capacity so is best used early. Meet "glowing frame" score thresholds to unlock seekrit levels.

posted by juv3nal (32 comments total)

Wow, I *just* played my first game of GemCraft and rushed over here to post it to the blue. It's a really fun game. Everyone give it a try!
posted by WolfDaddy at 9:00 PM on June 14, 2008

I wish I could say no to tower defense games, but they always suck me in.
posted by stavrogin at 9:29 PM on June 14, 2008

Okay, this looks fun, but I'm stuck. After the first level (which I won easily), the subsequent levels don't give me any gems to put in the towers and no mana carried over from the first level. What am I supposed to do?
posted by bicyclefish at 9:32 PM on June 14, 2008

You should have enough mana to make some gems of your own, bicyclefish. Mana does generate a bit over time even if you don't kill anything.
posted by juv3nal at 9:55 PM on June 14, 2008

I just got to the end, like an hour ago. Neener neener. Only took me two days, too.

Two days I will never get back.

Now I am sad.

(I wish the game mechanics worked better than they do, because it really is an entertaining twist on the genre... but once you get some of the higher-level skills, especially the "start each round with lots of really powerful gems" one, it becomes basically impossible to lose -- you can dump all the monsters on the playfield at once and still make mana faster than they can burn it up.)
posted by ook at 10:55 PM on June 14, 2008

I've been playing this for a couple of days and have become addicted. But I agree with ook it does start to get really easier near the end. But now I am trying to get all of the medals and get perfect scores on each for the bonus levels. Yes I have no life and plenty of free time.
posted by lilkeith07 at 11:04 PM on June 14, 2008

Where did the last two hours go?
posted by lumensimus at 11:49 PM on June 14, 2008

Holy crap, this worse than crack and heroin times a million.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:16 AM on June 15, 2008

Reminds me of Gem Tower Defense, which is a really fantastic tower defense game. This one seems a bit too easy so far, but I'll keep playing...
posted by the other side at 12:48 AM on June 15, 2008

The one thing that would *completely* improve this for me would be the ability to just drag and drop a gem onto the damn battlefield instead of having to smack "B" first.

Perhaps my migraine has left me uncoordinated.
posted by fairytale of los angeles at 1:18 AM on June 15, 2008

Hey, wasn't I planning on doing something last night, like sleeping? Guess not.
posted by sebastienbailard at 2:03 AM on June 15, 2008

Hey, I just noticed - the game says to hit shift, but it's the control key that works..
posted by unmake at 4:50 AM on June 15, 2008

If you want a good score you have to dump waves of monsters onto the field early by clicking on the top box on the left. It won't tell you this for a while.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 5:36 AM on June 15, 2008

Something amusing: ctrl-click to create loads of level 1 gems, then throw the lot at the monsters for shiny amulets at the end of the level.

And yeah, the game says shift, but it's really the control key. Odd..
posted by Xany at 5:43 AM on June 15, 2008

I have no idea why I like tower defense games, they're silly, mostly repetitive, and generally unoriginal, but I still like 'em. Weird. This one is pretty fun, despite getting insanely easy towards the end.
posted by sotonohito at 9:04 AM on June 15, 2008

An interesting game and a goddamn time sink. Best of the web indeed.
posted by never used baby shoes at 12:38 PM on June 15, 2008

How dare they do such good sounds. I hate this game so much, I'm getting a box of donuts and some Sudafed to finish it and finish it good.
posted by gorgor_balabala at 2:04 PM on June 15, 2008

I hate it as well. I'll see your donuts and Sudafed and raise you a gin & tonic and a two-pound bag of Jelly Belly factory rejects. I'm gonna play this game so hard.
posted by sleevener at 6:58 PM on June 15, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Anyone found a key shortcut to send in the next round? The only way I can get glowing frame is to come back when I'm über, and then its on like whack-a-mole.
posted by thandal at 7:34 PM on June 15, 2008

I can't get past the first epic boss stage :-( Anyone have any clues?
posted by WolfDaddy at 8:39 PM on June 15, 2008

I can't get past the first epic boss stage :-( Anyone have any clues?

If it's the end boss himself who's causing you problems:
When you know he's coming, don't cast anything. Instead, stock up your mana so you can take the hit for leaking him once. If you've successfully reached him, then two passes should be sufficient to kill him off. You may have to invest in mana pool a few times earlier on to raise your mana capacity to a high enough level.

On the second pass, as soon as he's out of range of a gem (unless you have an empty tower further down to relocate), chuck the gem at him for extra damage.

In general, though:
If you aren't already doing this, focus your fire on one area of the path. This makes the water trenches more effect as force multipliers.

Also, don't combine gems too much. A single level n+1 gem doesn't do as much damage as 2, level n gems. There's a balance to be struck because there are only so many prime locations for towers (and more towers cost more mana).
posted by juv3nal at 9:10 PM on June 15, 2008

I would like to thanks juv3nal for contributing to me losing half of Sunday. Seriously, I started playing this at 5pm and then it was suddenly 10pm.

You owe me 5 hours.
posted by Merik at 11:03 PM on June 15, 2008

The interface could use a little work, but it's a very addictive game.

I'm completely and totally stuck on the first epic boss. I've replayed previous levels to get as much experience as I can; I've gotten the glowing frame score on three or four levels (what does this actually do?); I've read the strategy guide; I've tried a whole slew of tactics. I can barely make a dent in the guy.
posted by greenie2600 at 9:05 AM on June 17, 2008

For epic bosses you need to do some strategic combining - yellows, greens, cyans and purples, in that order of priority. Damage doesn't scale with cost, it's true, but specials (chance for triple damage, poison duration, chance for shock, chance for armour reduction respectively) does. Don't bother with blue - use trenches for slowing, and save any blues you get to build bombs.

Focus on bends in the path, where one gem will get the longest time to fire at the creeps. Combining red gems and powered up lime gems along a hooked path, lined with trenches, with cyan and green gems at the entrance and exit, tends to be pretty effective.

Other than that, use mana pool as often as you can as early as you can, but lay off it at around wave 15 or 16. And don't be afraid to use bombs. That's another reason to combine - a Hue 5 gem used as a last resort bomb can be devastating, while 5 Hue 1 bombs won't do a thing to a boss. Once the boss makes it past your towers (which it will), lob all your gems at it.
posted by regicide is good for you at 10:52 AM on June 17, 2008

For epic bosses you need to do some strategic combining - yellows, greens, cyans and purples, in that order of priority.
...
Combining red gems and powered up lime gems along a hooked path, lined with trenches, with cyan and green gems at the entrance and exit, tends to be pretty effective.

I don't remember it being as fiddly as all that. As far as I can recall, the extent to which I concerned myself with colors was just in trying to go for mono color combining (for the bonuses) when possible. I certainly never thought "oh that's an x color one, that goes there." Maybe I've just been lucky with the random ones it gives me. *shrug*
posted by juv3nal at 1:50 PM on June 17, 2008

Anyone found a key shortcut to send in the next round?
There are some boxes on the left with numbers that slowly crawl upwards - click the topmost one and it will trigger the next wave of monsters.
posted by unmake at 1:55 PM on June 17, 2008

This first epic fight is a little aggravating...I keep getting very close, but I never seem to have the type of gems on hand to upgrade that I want - I want those cyans and greens, but I keep getting orange and blue when I create gems.
posted by never used baby shoes at 3:28 PM on June 17, 2008

I had a lot of trouble with the first epic fight until I started going back to old fights, killing them, and leveling up. Once I hit 22 or so, I was able to get past it pretty easily.
posted by prefpara at 10:19 AM on June 20, 2008

Hmmm...well, then, I suck pretty bad at this game. I'm level 22 and not getting anywhere.

Powers of mediocrity - activate!
posted by never used baby shoes at 9:09 PM on June 20, 2008

I just finished this damn game with all glowing borders, however in the amulet page there is a missing amulet for the "secret" map.

Anyone know how to get to this map?
posted by Bonzai at 9:21 PM on June 20, 2008

Secret map? I don't see a blank amulet spot for it.
I see 5 epic battles and then below that 8 amulets for the hidden maps corresponding to the gem colors and that's it. Whereabouts is the secret map amulet spot in relation to everything else?
posted by juv3nal at 10:11 PM on June 20, 2008

I must have been tired. I went back to look and I had somehow forgotten to play one of the hidden maps.

Got it. Glowyed it.
posted by Bonzai at 6:12 AM on June 21, 2008