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[0[]==="="==!="="="==="=!v!="="="="="=vv00[][] .. ** ** **.. .. .. ** ** ** .. .. XX X ** .. XXOO XXXX ** .. XXOOXX XX XXXX * ....O XXXX XX .. .. .. ** **..****....****....**************.... ...... .. .... ........ ......******..****..**** ** .. .. .. XX OO ..O ... ** **..**..****..**.. ..****.... ...... XX XX XX XX XX XX XX ..**....****..**..**..** ** .. XX XXX . X O O .. ..........**....**..****....****.. .... ......****.... ..**....**..****..**...... .. XX .. .. .... ..******..****..****..** ** .. XX XXXX .. ..****....**..********....** ** . A guide by Zoë "spinnylights" Sparks ..**....****..**..**..** ** . v2, 11/16/22 .. ......****.... ..**....**..****..**...... .. ** ... ......****....****....**..**..** ** .. Lily thinks she still might write her own manual but she said it .. ..******..****..****..** ** .. probably won't be anything like this, so I guess this is kind of .. ***********......****..****..**............ .. turning into the "official unofficial" GameFAQs-type guide to use ** ......******..****..**** ** .. .. .. a phrase I think she said offhand. To be honest though I don't ** *********......****....**....** ** .. .. really care much about what is "official" and if you want to .. .........******....**....**...... .. .. publish your own guide and arbitrarily call it "official" like .. *********....****....**** **...... .. those platform-specific gaming magazines from the 80s that would XX call themselves like "Official Spectrum" or something or like the bootleg-type strategy guides you might have seen at Half Price Books or something back in the day I totally encourage you to do that. We have ten different official guides for this game or whatnot, wouldn't that be fun? Anyway since the initial "primordial edition" release Lily made some tweaks and fixed some bugs. She told me that actually that version was harder than she really meant for it to be due to some last-minute oversights (especially in terms of like comfort/ energy) and that the current "MORE FIXES" version matches her intent better. If you want an extra challenge though you can still download the primordial edition and play that. This guide is written more towards the MORE FIXES version now, but they're not that different so you can still use it with the primordial edition to give yourself an edge there too. --- how to use this guide: there's a "quickstart" section a bit below here that will give you a tour of all the basics and put you in a good stable position to go dungeoneering from of course, there's a lot of fun to be had in this game when you just start out in figuring out all the different things you can do, if you're more in the mood for that kind of play; if you go that route, you may find situations where you have specific questions you'd kinda rather just have answered straight-out, and for that you can look in one of the topic-based sections here to get just the info you want at the time (hopefully) if you want some ideas for alternate playstyles, there's also an "alternate ways to play" section below the quickstart guide with a few different approaches that i think are all pretty fun also, if you experience any particularly nasty bugs, i'll put any workarounds i know of in the "troubleshooting" section at the end; right now there's only one since mostly lily has been patch- ing bugs as i find them but the one down there is particularly vexing and mysterious --- controls: w/a/s/d, arrow keys, numpad 2/4/6/8 * cardinal movement q/r * third person: swivel camera left/right * first person: strafe left/right pgup/pgdn * swivel camera up/down x, esc, ins * open menu space * in the world at large: interact with object in front of you (sometimes) * in the menu: use/equip ctrl/alt * use ranged weapon shift * dash f keys * various dev things * be aware that if you press f5 the game will immediately "reboot" to the title screen and you'll lose unsaved progress --- quickstart: my first piece of advice is SAVE OFTEN. the game is rather unstable and there's no autosave, so if you're worried about losing progress it's best to save frequently. all you have to do is open the menu and pick "save," wherever you are. anyway, i think the easiest character to start with is probably "knight"; they're the all-rounder so you can easily experiment with every class, and they also start out in a convenient loc- ation, near to vendors and pieces of equipment and things that you'll probably find yourself returning to frequently if you end up feeling too squishy as the knight, you could also try "cavewoman" who is more tanky, but she's kind of biased towards melee combat specifically so that's something to keep in mind (see "characters" below for more on all this) for class, i would pick "criminal," because the criminal's level 2 "jump" skill is a good "get out of jail free card" if you're cornered by a large group of enemies (it's also just extremely useful generally, maybe the most useful of all the skills perhaps, or at least i would say so) criminal also has good stats for both melee and ranged combat which will make it easier to stay alive (see "classes" for more on all this) for your starting weapon, i would actually pick "bow" (menu -> equip -> equip -> sword -> bow); bow damage scales with agility and criminals have the best agility ranged combat is also safer than melee in general which is good when you're starting out you can shoot arrows with ctrl or alt; firing consumes one arrow from your inventory but you start with 50 and you'll get more as you play anyway, presuming you're the knight, leave the castle and go down and to the right where there are some crates you can press "space" in front of the crates to open them or just bump into them; go through them all since it will help to have items at the beginning you can also search trash cans and medical containers this way these sorts of things replenish daily (at midnight) so you can return to them periodically for more items, which will help keep you alive anyway, while you're over here, also bump into those two buckets and pick them up, because you'll need them shortly (buckets are an important item in this game and you can never really have enough) for now, it's probably best to try to stay out of the way of the npcs roving around; if you want to try fighting them you can use arrows from a distance, or you can bump into them to perform a melee attack, although you'll do less damage that way with your current build; if you're going the bump route you'll fare best if you hit them from the sides or back (see "combat/interaction" for more details) anyway, now go down and to the left where you'll find some fields of crops; rove around and pick any plants you see growing, such as stalks of wheat, pumpkins, or sunflowers you may start getting mobbed by enemies while you're doing this; dash away and then pelt them with arrows if your hp gets low, you can open your inventory and eat a bread (open menu -> item -> item -> bread); you start with 5 but we're about to make more anyway, once you've picked crops to your liking, walk down to the south a bit where you see that guy in red standing in the south- ernmost field; he's "rob beaucroix a.k.a. max serf" and he will plant things for you as part of a kind of historical reenactor routine he has going on (you can read his sign for the whole schpiel) initiate dialogue with him by bumping into him and then when he asks you what to plant pick "wheat seeds" (you almost certainly picked up a few but go search for some if not) and have him plant all of them he'll start roving around planting the seeds while he's doing that, walk down further to the south where there's a well and buckets; pick up all the buckets then bump into the well and pick "fill buckets" if you haven't eaten a bread yet, go ahead and eat a bread and then collect the fertilizer (:P) rob should be about done planting now, so walk over the planted wheat and it should grow instantly; if you walk over a planted seed with both a filled bucket and a unit of fertilizer in your inventory it will consume both the water and fertilizer and the plant will grow right away (if you don't have any fertilizer you can also just walk over it with a filled bucket and it will grow the next day) if you run out of water or fertilizer just go back to the well or eat bread until you harvest all the wheat go ahead and save your game if you haven't yet anyway by now it's probably getting dark, and also you may have reached level 2 and gotten "jump"; if not, grind for a bit until you get it now go north to the inn (you'll see the sign) walk towards the locked door but don't actually bump into it; instead, use "jump" (menu -> skill -> character -> skill -> jump) and pick a number of tiles that will get you past the door now you're in the inn room :P pick up the bread and fish around in the trash can, then go down the hall and bomp the tub to restore your hygiene if you used any sodas or energy drinks, you can bomp the toilet to pee and relieve your bladder now go back to the bedroom and bomp the torch on the wall to pick it up, then run into the bed and sleep for 9 hours when you get up, use "jump" again to leave it will be early morning outside; depending on the time there may still be night enemies so take care if you need light, you can use the torch you took from the inn (menu -> item -> item -> torch) anyway, go to the north and back into the castle and bomp the npcs there once each (trying not to kill them; face-to-face will work better) until your social meter refills; use a bread again if you need more hp now leave the castle and go southeast, opening the medical containers and boxes as you pass by; look for the door with the knife and fork sign above it once you find it, go inside and take all the buckets, breads, and tankards, then go to the barrel at the back and fill your empty tankards with beer then leave and go to the southwest to fill your buckets at the well now return to the "bakery" you were just in before approach the mill, then mill all your wheat seeds but 1; this will consume the seeds and produce wheat flour now stand in one of the corners next to the door and place all your filled buckets (menu -> item -> item -> filled bucket, rep- eatedly), then take one step back, bomp into the bucket pile, and do "mix -> wheat flour" for every bucket once you're done, leave the buckets in the corner and go outside again; look for a football or soccer ball and kick it around for a bit by repeated bomping to get your fun up again you can also grind a bit if you're in the mood for that when you're done, go back to the inn and go through the same rou- tine again (jump past the door, use the tub and maybe toilet, search the trashcan and take the torch, sleep in the bed 9 hours, then jump past the door again to leave) once it's morning and you're outside, return to the bakery bomp your dough bucket pile in the corner and do "check -> remove dough" for each, then "pick up" for each empty bucket afterwards turn around and bomp into one of the ovens near the beer barrel go down to one of the "(x) sourdough" items and select it; bake as many units of it as you can, then repeat this process with the other ovens until you've baked all the soured dough now go into your inventory and eat all the "(x) bread" you've made except for any "miracle bread" which you should save; al- though it's a bit icky ;^^ it's not a bad idea to eat one bread, then walk three steps, then pick up the fertilizer before eating the next one, because you'll want all you can get this early in the game now you've got lots of fertilizer and stronger stats ^^ this will make the game much easier when you're just starting out and exp- erimenting with things it'll probably be getting dark at this point so go outside and return to the inn (don't worry, you won't need to come back here all game or anything, just at first); your hygiene will probably have dropped to nothing so be cautious about getting into combat or you might get a disease (use meds or a miracle bread to cure it if you need, although they'll go away on their own eventually if you don't die) once you're at the inn, go through the inn routine again; you may want to equip the "social etiquette and you" accessory (menu -> equip -> character -> accessory -> social etiquette and you) so you don't rapidly destroy the tub or toilet with your stronger attack; if you didn't get enough use out of either note that they'll respawn while you sleep (i.e. at midnight) now of course, this whole thing with destroying items you're trying to use is a bit dicey even with that accessory...so after you leave the inn, open the menu and spec into "artist" (menu -> class -> character -> class -> artist) and change your weapon to "cane" (menu -> equip -> character -> equip -> weapon -> cane); the cane also gives you a ranged attack but it consumes mp instead of arrows and deals damage based on your matk instead of your agility anyway, your hygiene might still be kinda far from max; if you have any garlic cloves in your inventory, you can go back to rob the max serf and grow a bunch and then mill them in the bakery to make garlic powder, which restores hygiene; however garlic is seasonal so you may or may not be able to find any if not, to the northeast of the inn next to the castle there's a doctor vendor who sells "bar of soap x10" and to the immediate east of the inn a named-cheryl vendor who sells "bar of soap x5"; one bar of soap restores 25 points of hygiene when used; compare their prices for the best deal on soap, then bop the vendor of your choice until you accumulate enough soap for your liking or you run out of gold or they die (don't worry if they die, they'll respawn) you're getting into a pretty good position now your hunger might be getting a bit low; one more thing we can do is to go back to the well and fill buckets, then go back to the bakery; on the way, grind up to level 2 so you get "trace" once you've got trace and you're in the bakery, bop the stand mixers to make wheat dough until you run out of filled buckets or wheat flour; if you run out of stand mixers, use trace (menu -> skill -> character -> magic -> trace) to spawn a new one now return to the ovens and bake all the wheat dough to make a large stack of bread in your inventory there's lots of other things you can bake with; see "baking" for more on that anyway now you have plenty of food, between the large stack of bread and whatever rations and chips etc. you have on hand, so you'll be well taken care of for a while in terms of hunger one last thing i'd recommend—save your game if you haven't in a bit, then go back to rob have him start planting sunflower seeds, then kill him while he's planting, then use "trace" and spawn a couple copies of him, then you can have one start planting the sunflower seeds and they'll all do it together for maximum rob efficiency :D if it starts getting dark, you can kill a dingbat for a lantern if you don't already have one, then put the lantern on the ground near rob to make light; you'll need to sleep eventually when your energy or comfort start getting too low but if you have a mat- tress in your inventory you can just lay that down next to rob and sleep outside repeat until you have like 100 or more sunflower seeds, then go to the bakery and mill them to make oil; you can use that to pow- er a held lantern for a source of light in the dark if you run out of mp at some point and you don't want to rest in a bed yet, you can use energy drink, soda, miracle bread, etc. to restore it also if you die at some point, you're pretty safe by now to try different characters and see what they're like; with your sour- doughed-up stats and current stock of items there's nothing that can really go seriously wrong i'd say, as even if you die you don't have much need for gold at this point in the game on that note, at some point in here you may pick up some garlic, and if you do it's worth growing a lot of it and making garlic powder if you didn't earlier; it's more powerful than soap over- all and it's free; if you only have like 1–10 or so garlic also you may want to plant it yourself until you have like 20 or so and then go to rob, especially if you've duped him repeatedly; he'll stand on top of crops which can be a bit of a bother if there's a lot of him and you have few to plant anyway, if you do end up dying and you've been liking the current magic-focused build, you might consider giving "alien" a try—they get 4 times the matk and 1.5 times the mp over the knight, and their weapon is a free (0 mp) matk-based tentacle projectile also, if you end up switching to a melee build, remember to unequip the "social etiquette and you" accessory if you're going into combat in any case, at this point you could tend to any of your unsatisfied needs and then journey to the west to find the tower and attempt your first dungeon :D have fun ^^ --- some alternate ways to play: the quickstart guide above lays out what i'd call the "sourdough starter" ;D which gives you extra-strong stats from the beg- inning; this kind of accelerates the game and tends to turn interactions in your favor overall, sort of a "demigod mode" :P, which i think is nice the first time you play another approach is to pursue the "fragrant" breads from the start, which plays out almost the same way, but instead allows you to pad out the rundown time of all your gauges (see "baking"); if you're taking this path i recommend using the skill trainers in the apartment building over sourdough to boost your stats, which really does start to feel almost like a god mode; great fun your second time through the game after you've done things both of those ways, another fun way to play is to do neither the fragrant nor the sourdough breads, for more of a technical challenge; you can experiment with character/ class combinations through multiple playthroughs with this ap- proach and come up with different "build trajectories" you could follow over a playthrough in a kind of ff8-esque mode of play --- combat/interaction: this game has the classic "real-time bump combat" found in venerable action rpgs such as hydlide etc. basically, you bump into npcs to initiate melee combat and inter- act socially at the same time; some attack you when they bump into you as well generally you'll do more damage and be less vulnerable if you can attack them from the side or back you can equip items like the backpack filled with cinder blocks or social etiquette guide to reduce the amount of damage you deal when bopping things (open menu -> equip -> select character -> equip -> accessory) there's also several modes of ranged combat, such as agility- based with the bow, magic-attack-based with the cane or when playing as the alien, and physical-attack-based using the farmer's "spit" skill (see "stats," "classes") ranged combat tends to be safer because many enemies only deal damage at melee range --- gauges/needs: hp * when this goes to 0, you die (see "death") * many common items restore your hp * you lose hp mainly from being hit by attacks, but also from things like low hunger and disease mp * used when casting spells (see "classes") * doesn't refresh automatically; you can restore mp by resting in a bed, using certain items like energy drink, soda, miracle bread, etc., or by drinking water from a well or filled bucket although you risk disease in that case tp * used for non-magic skills (see "classes") * recovered by bopping things hunger * if your hunger gets low, you start losing hp * you can restore hunger (and typically hp) by using items such as bread or potion bladder * starts at 0 and goes up when you consume certain items such as drinks * you can use a toilet to relieve bladder; you can find them in the world (such as at the inn) or you can build one if you find three toilet parts * you can also pee in a bucket, which is arguably more industrious as a piss disposal method (see "baking") * if your bladder would go past maximum you piss yourself and your hygiene drops dramatically fun * you can restore fun by various things such as kicking a ball or interacting with a clown * not quite sure what it's for comfort * restored by e.g. resting in a bed * gradually damages your health if it gets too low (this is a game where you can die from being too uncomfortable) * causes all your other bars to go down faster if it's low also i think * basically the reason why you can't just stay up 24/7 with energy drinks hygiene * the lower your hygiene is, the more likely you are to get diseases * restored by using a tub, or various items such as garlic powder or soap energy * you can restore energy with items like soda and energy drinks, and also by resting in a bed * if your energy gets low it becomes hard to hit anything social * you can restore this by letting npcs hit you, by bopping npcs of the same "civ" as you or clowns, or by buying things from vendors * you lose social from e.g. killing some npcs or robbing graves * if your social drops too low, vendors etc. will call the guards on you immediately if you talk to them environment * as far as i can tell this doesn't do anything yet --- stats: these are determined based off of your class; your character then applies multiplicative modifiers you get stronger stats depending on the level of your current class you can permanently boost your stats across classes by using sourdough breads (see "baking") or via the skill trainers in the apartment building builds kinda separate into "tank" which uses mhp/atk/def, "rogue" which uses agi/luk, and "mage" which uses mmp/matk/mdef max hp * the maximum amount of hp you can have at a time * more makes you less likely to die * highest with cavewoman/farmer max mp * the maximum amount of mp you can have at a time * limits which spells you can cast as some won't be available with max mp too low * highest with alien/artist attack * how much damage you do in melee combat and with the farmer's "spit" projectile * in some situations you might want it to be low, like when buying from vendors or trying to restore social; you can equip the cinder block backpack or social etiquette and you accessories, spec into artist, and equip a weapon that doesn't boost attack to facilitate this * highest with cavewoman/farmer defense * how much damage you take when something hits you * higher means less damage to you per incoming attack that hits * highest with cavewoman/farmer m. attack * how much damage you do with the cane or the alien's projectile * highest with alien/artist * if not playing as alien, you can equip the cane for an additional boost m. defense * how much damage you take when spells hit you * higher means less damage to you per incoming spell * highest with artist (character doesn't make a difference) * if not playing as alien, you can equip the cane for an additional boost agility * how accurate you are in melee combat, how many times you hit in melee combat, how hard you are to hit in melee combat, how much damage you do with bows, and how likely you are to catch arrows * also gives a bonus to breaking locked doors i think * highest with bug/criminal and the dagger as weapon luck * affects how much gold you get from drops and your chance to lockpick a door * highest with lion/criminal --- death: you die when your hp drops past 0 this can happen due to damage from attacks, or due to physical needs like hunger which starts to reduce your hp past a certain point when you die, you can pick a new character to play as; your new character starts where your last character died a gravestone appears marking the spot where your last character died and listing the amount of gold they collected you lose all your on-hand gold when you die; you can recover half of it by robbing the grave of your predecessor, although this will damage your social and destroy the gravestone you can preserve gold past your death using piggy banks (see "gold") death is not as big a deal as it could be even if you lose all your gold, because you can cover your item needs quite well through a combination of random drops and agriculture (see "gold" for more on the uses of gold, "gardening" for more on agriculture) --- gold: you can see how much gold you have by opening the menu (x/esc/ ins) and looking in the bottom-left corner, where the purple "gold bars" icon is gold is mainly (entirely?) used for buying things at vendors (if you consider trainers as vendors of stat increases) - uses - in many ways, gold represents more of a convenience than a necessity; you can completely ignore it and play successfully, but unless you're deliberately trying to do that there will probably be times when you want to use it vendors allow you to buy items you would otherwise get in random drops, but at-will and in larger quantities than would drop nor- mally; often this becomes useful at various times there are also skill trainers that allow you to swap gold for permanent stat increases; you can also do this with sourdough, but the trainers make it easier to focus on certain parts of your build, and make a nice gold sink besides - acquisition - you can acquire gold in a variety of ways; you'll tend to accum- ulate a lot just as you play so you may not ever find yourself needing to go out of your way to get some that said, the most efficient way i've found to get gold quickly is a way i would almost call an exploit if i didn't feel like this game encouraged that sort of behavior :P basically, provided you have the criminal's level 4 "fence" skill (see "classes"): 1. kill a few things to get bones 2. make bone bread (see "baking") 3. destroy an item crate (the medical one is maybe more convenient because of the smaller drop table but the regular kind is fine too and gives a wider array of useful items) 4. find a nice safe place where you want to fill three tiles with crates; i like to do it near the ovens in the knight town because opening crates passes the time during bread baking 5. use a bone bread 6. take three steps in a line you want to lay the duped crates in 7. use another bone bread 8. walk through the crates you just laid to open them and lay another overlapping row of crates 9. repeat until you run out of bone bread 10. all of these crates will respawn daily 11. use "fence" and sell anything you don't want 12. if you need more gold, come back the next day and open the new crates, or go make more bone bread and lay more crates down on your three crate tiles you can make thousands of gold rapidly this way. if you don't have fence yet, this method is less useful (although it's still a great way to get items); other ways of acquiring gold include killing npcs for gold drops and graverobbing as far as graverobbing goes, every time you kill a citizen of the knight town their gravestone appears in the graveyard and you can rob it to get their gold; there's also a gravestone nearby to gilgamesh I (the original gilgamesh) which has as much gold as you do, which you can rob once when you die, you lose your gold, and you can get half of it back by robbing your last character's gravestone if you have piggy banks, you can place those on the map and keep your gold in them up to a certain amount to preserve it pas death; the gold will even accrue daily interest while in the piggy bank (presumably from the pig god of finance who must connect to our world via the piggy banks i'd wager) once you get criminal up to level 6, you can also use their skill "pickpocket" to greatly increase the gold you get from melee combat, although by then you may already have a lot of gold on hand playing as lion/criminal will maximize the amount of gold enemies drop, also --- inn: you can get some bread, use the phone, sleep in a bed (energy/hp/mp), and wash yourself in a tub (hygiene) if you have enough gold when you talk to the innkeeper, they'll give you a key; you can equip the key as a weapon (open menu -> equip -> select character -> equip -> weapon) and then when you hit the inn door it will open if you don't have enough gold, you can try to get into the inn anyway by breaking down the door, but the guard is liable to appear (see "stealth") if you have the criminal's level 2 "jump" skill you can also just teleport through the locked door basically --- characters: - knight - 100% hp 100% mp 100% attack 100% magic attack 100% defense 100% agility 100% luck the standard by which all other characters are measured; decent in every direction starts out in a convenient location, near the "bakery" and apartment building - lion - 100% hp 50% mp 110% attack 100% magic attack 10% defense 125% agility 125% luck being an ambush predator, the lion specializes in hitting first plays sort of like the bug but not as extreme; if you feel sort of tantalized by the min/maxing opportunities the bug suggests you might actually be able to get to where you want faster with the lion since they still get an agility bonus but it won't take as much time to mitigate their low defense as with the bug's order of magnitude lower attack/defense the only character that gets a bonus to luck…they are a cat after all - cavewoman - 200% hp 10% mp 133% attack 50% magic attack 110% defense 50% agility 100% luck the most tankish character 50% agility is a major downside but the extra hp helps make up for it if you're having a hard time figuring out how to leave the cave, it's through a crack in the wall near the floor when you're cornered by a ton of enemies such that you keep dying over and over, respawning as the cavewoman can make it easier to get out - alien - 50% hp 150% mp 33% attack 400% magic attack 100% defense 110% agility 100% luck aliens are biased towards magic, not only by their stats but also because they can't equip a weapon; they get a free tentacle-based ranged attack in its place which deals damage based on matk if you can stay alive and find ways to drive up your matk, you can plow through just about everything with this attack great fun if you like the magic side of things and/or walking tentacles that come out of UFOs etc.…you can march through the knight town mowing everyone down with your tentacle attack and play out a "kill all earthlings"-type 50s b movie scenario if you want…you could also attack the cavewoman cave and have it be more like "evil aliens attack the prehistoric earth" which i don't know if any 50s b movies are actually about that but you would think at least /some/ would be - bug - 1% hp 100% mp 10% attack 100% magic attack 1% defense 250% agility 100% luck if you get hit once as the bug, you're probably dead, but having 250% agility makes you pretty hard to hit and means you can usu- ally get several multi-hits even in the early game however the very low attack of the bug on top of the low defense and hp means that overall they aren't very useful in hand-to-hand combat (not very surprising considering they they are a bug) where the bug really shines is the places where agility is used outside of hand-to-hand combat—they're great with a bow esp- ecially since they easily catch arrows, but perhaps even moreso they're good if you just want to zip through areas avoiding the enemies since they move fast and can clear locked doors with ease etc. on top of dodging everything - skeleton - same stats as the knight (i.e. perfectly average), but twice as halloween gets a free "raise skeleton" ability which summons skeleton esc- orts, in case you want to get a bit of a lichy thing goin' on you only get access to the skeleton once you die; at that point i'm not sure if there's much reason to play a knight in purely mechanical terms if you want a middle-of-the-road character (you could still have rp reasons oc) --- classes: you can change class at any time (menu -> class -> character -> class) your class determines your base stats (which character you play as basically applies a set of multiplicative buffs/debuffs on top) each class gains xp separately, and each gains a skill at even levels up to 8 (except the farmer i think which goes up to 6); you can develop fun strategies where you get like one class to level 2, then another to 2, then the first to 4, or w/e and plan out a spread of items to patch up holes in the build at various points and so on skills are split into "magic" skills, which cost mp, and "skill" skills, which cost tp mp is restored by resting in a bed, drinking soda or energy drinks, eating miracle bread, etc. tp is restored through bopping - criminal - the best class for bow combat due to its high agility, and also pretty good for melee for the same reason, but has no access to magic as a main class, goes well with the lion or bug as a supplementary class, "jump" (level 2) and "fence" (level 4) are useful and accessible no matter what your class, and "pickpocket" (level 6) and "backstab" (level 8) go well with the farmer skills: * "jump" (level 2, free) lets you move forward up to 9 tiles with no regard to height or other boundaries, sort of like the old gameshark cheat for pokemon that gave you an item you could use to jump over fences and things if you've ever tried that; great fun for exploration, lets you take wacky shortcuts, allows you to escape when cornered, and also renders any locked door that isn't a portal moot because you can just jump over it * "fence" (level 4, 50 tp) lets you summon a fence whom you can sell most items to (only way i know to sell items and one of the most lucrative sources of gold) and also buy lockpicks from which you can equip as a weapon to open locked doors rapidly * "pickpocket" (level 6, 25 tp) causes you to collect as much gold as held by an npc every time you hit them for ten steps; can yield huge amounts of gold from high-value enemies * "backstab" (level 8, 75 tp) causes crits from behind to deal 8x damage for 100 steps, allowing you to deal outrageous burst damage …psst…check out the vendor in the knight castle jail if you're playing a criminal - artist - focused on magic for attack (e.g. the cane or alien); has rather poor stats aside from high matk and mdef, but actually that's kind of an asset because you can use magic for explicit offense and also get along well in peaceful society (i guess because the artist is well-bred or something :P so it can make sense to "pose" at the artist while in town if you're playing another class) also gives access to one of the handiest ways of duping things, "trace" as a main class, goes well with the alien as a supplementary class, "trace" (level 2) is useful enough that you'll find yourself speccing into artist just to use it if you're not playing a caster, and "magic weapon" (level 4) is maybe most useful to maximize dps as the farmer; "reference" (level 8) can help any class get out of a jam skills: * "trace" (level 2, 20 mp) is basically an instant bone; it summons a copy of the last thing you killed/destroyed * "magic weapon" (level 4, 25 mp) augments your atk by half your matk, making your character more formidable in melee combat; can be handy to use while you're mainly focused on another class, as the buff persists if you spec into artist, use it, and then spec out again * "scribble" (level 6, 25 mp) summons 4 imaginary friend escorts which shoot magic projectiles and move with you; fun to use outdoors * "reference" (level 8, 50 mp) is like an on-command roadblock; enemies stand still for 100 steps - doctor - kind of a convenience-focused class; their first three skills take the place of various items and their last one just gives you temporary invincibility kinda middle-of-the-road statswise as a main class, your character doesn't really matter much when playing a doctor but i suppose you could go knight or skeleton to get into the "middle-of-the-road spirit" as a supplementary class, all the skills are useful for anyone, but they're more convenient to use if you're playing artist since you'll always have access to them skills: * "check-up" (level 2, 15 mp) is kinda like a bar of soap but better, in that it not only restores 25 hygiene but also removes poison and boosts your max hp 115% temporarily * "injection" (level 4, 15 mp) is a healing spell; restores 250 hp plus more based on your matk * "eyedrops" (level 6, 25 mp) is like a better carrot; strong dark vision for 250 steps, very nice lantern alternative * "life extension" (level 8, 50 mp) makes you invincible for 50 steps, good for getting out of a jam - farmer - perhaps the wackiest class; they're sort of the tank/melee class in that they have high hp and attack/defense, but their level 6 skill gives you a kind of machine gun as a main class, goes well with the cavewoman as a supplementary class, "build" (level 2) can be kinda handy if you use a ranged attack as it can provide instant cover, and is useful for anyone in specific cases skills: * "build" (level 2, 10 tp) spawns 8 fence blocks around you that provide an immoveable barrier for enemies and which you can push around; particularly useful in certain dungeon scenarios * "sweat" (level 4, 25 tp) boosts your attack by 133% but halves your defense, and stays on until you take 10% of your hp or more in damage; kind of an "on-command berserker" feature of the class * "spit" (level 6, 50 tp) causes you to constantly emit atk-based projectiles in front of you for 150 steps; very entertaining and formidable, and can be paired with "sweat" for extra oomph and "build" for extra cover --- gardening: - growing crops - you can grow a variety of plants; these generally yield seeds/ bulbs/etc., which you can either mill to make items with or plant to produce more to pick plants, walk over grown ones on the ground (the icon will change when they're ready) to plant crops, you can use a seed/etc. from the item menu (open menu -> item -> item -> whichever seed) but you can also use "rob beaucroix a.k.a. max serf" in the knight town, who will plant seeds for you as far as i can tell, anything with a little-seedling-in-a-pot icon is plantable/growable once you've got seeds in the ground, they need water; you can water them by walking over them with a filled bucket in your inventory, which will consume the water in the bucket and water the seeds (fill buckets at the well) if you have fertilizer (i.e. manure :P) in your inventory when you walk over the seeds, it will use a unit of fertilizer in addition to the water to make the plant grow instantly, which is very convenient otherwise you have to wait a day for the plant to grow rob can "plant" other things for you in addition to seeds, which basically consists of him putting them on the ground; this is nice if you would need to place a ton of items all on the ground one after another and don't want to have to do it all from the menus - milling - once you have seeds, generally you need to mill them (bump into mill, select "mill," whichever seed); this goes for other seed-esque items such as bulbs too each type of seed yields a different item when milled you can also mill a variety of other things here's a chart: +===============================================================+ | type | when milled | +===============================================================+ | wheat seeds | wheat flour, which can be used to make | | | bread (see "baking") | +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | sunflower seeds | oil, which powers held lanterns | +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | bread | crumbs, which leave a one-day-persistent | | | trail for 50 tiles | +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | rancid bread, | glowing bread crumbs, which leave a glow- | | bone bread | in-the-dark one-day trail for 100 tiles; | | | this is probably the best use for rancid | | | bread if you end up with any | +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | bones | bone flour, which can be used to make | | | bone bread (see "baking") | +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | pumpkin seeds | pumpkin seed powder, a decent food that | | | boosts your max HP for a bit | +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | garlic cloves | garlic powder, a decent food that also | | | restores a quarter hygiene and has a | | | chance to treat a disease; excellent soap | | | alternative | +===============================================================+ --- baking: - "regular" bread - the most basic way to bake is to make the item called "bread," which is a good candidate for "workhorse" healing item; it refills your hp, restores half your hunger, and boosts your stomach stat a bit "bread" is made by combining water and wheat flour to make dough, then baking the dough in an oven to get wheat flour, pick grown wheat plants to get wheat seeds (see "gardening"), then mill the seeds in a mill to get water, bump into a well with unfilled buckets in your inventory to make filled buckets in order to make dough from these, you can bump into a stand mixer, or you can put the filled bucket on the ground (open menu -> item -> item -> filled bucket) then bump into the filled bucket, select "mix," then select wheat flour, and then bump into the bucket again and select "remove dough" once you have wheat dough, you can bump into an oven and select "bake"; this will take an hour or so in-game and then you'll be able to bump into the oven again and remove the bread (you'll see the finished bread appear in the oven) - sourdough bread - you can also make sourdough bread through a similar, but somewhat more complex process; sourdough breads are some of the most use- ful consumables in the game as most permanently boost your stats, with the exception of one which works as a kind of elixir (full hp/mp restore) to make sourdough bread, mix wheat flour and water in a bucket as described above, but then instead of taking the dough out, leave it to sit for one day (if you leave it for two or more days it goes rancid) once the clock passes midnight, you'll be able to bump into the bucket and "check" the dough; it'll say "it smells like dough" if it's not ready, "this dough has gone rancid" if it's been too long, or a variety of other different descriptors depending on what sort of dough it's become, such as "bubbles violently" or "is depressing" once it gets to the "sourdough stage," you can remove the dough and bake it in an oven like normal bread to make sourdough bread if you find a type of sourdough you want more of, you can "feed" (from the dough-filled bucket menu) existing soured dough to a dough-filled bucket and the bucket will develop into that type of sourdough; it has a chance to produce more than one unit of dough so you can gradually build up a supply of one type this way if you really want to boost a specific stat though you may find it more convenient to use the skill trainers in the apartment building - bone bread - you can make bone bread by milling bones to make bone flour, then making bread from the bone flour like you would with wheat flour bone bread is kind of an improved version of a bone; it has the effects of normal bread (half restore hunger, full hp, boost to stomach) but also instantly spawns 3 copies of the last thing you killed/destroyed as you walk and is thus extremely useful (see "duping") - piss-based breads (fragrant, yellow, and radiant) - if you use your pee instead of water to make bread, you can produce an alternate family of breads, which are focused on increasing the length of time it takes your gauges to go down more-or-less if you just use the dough immediately after mixing, you get fragrant bread, which is similar to normal bread (restores half hunger and fills hp), but also fills your bladder by 25 points if you use bone flour in place of wheat flour, you get fragrant bone bread, which is bone bread that also fills your bladder if you use wheat flour and let it sit for a day, you can make yellow bread (3/5 chance) and radiant bread (2/5 chance) yellow bread is like fragrant bread, but also increases your max bladder size by ten points radiant bread is like normal bread (half hunger, full hp) but increases the size of all your gauges by 5, and fills your bladder by 10 points --- seeing in the dark: there's a variety of different ways to produce light in dark areas - lantern - the lantern is probably the most "fundamental" light-generating item; you can find them around in the world if you put one on the ground (open menu -> item -> item -> lantern -> place) it will illuminate the surrounding area indefinitely if you have oil from milling sunflower seeds (see "gardening") you can also use the lantern from the menu and choose to turn it on to illuminate the area around you as you walk; it will grad- ually consume the oil in your inventory as long as you have it on (you have to remember to turn it off when you e.g. leave a dungeon) - carrot - eating a carrot gives you improved dark vision for 200 steps; you can get them from e.g. attacking snowmen during winter - torch - using a torch from the item menu produces low light around your character for 125 steps; you can find them around in the world in buildings and such - glowing bread crumbs - these don't actually light up the surroundings, but if you use them from the item menu, they will leave a trail that can be seen even in the dark, so you can use them to avoid getting lost in dark areas if you don't have a light source (see "milling" under "gardening") --- duping items: gilgamesh ii has much in the way of item duplication features which is another thing that i feel like gives it a nice gamesharky vibe (along with the criminal's "jump" skill) the basic rule is that anything you interact with through combat can be duplicated; this includes things like vendors, item crates, in-world equipment, and furniture it helps to keep an open mind about what you can duplicate one of the easiest and most convenient ways of duping items is using the artist's level 2 "trace" skill, which just trades 20 mp for a copy of the last thing killed/destroyed (see "classes") another handy way is by making bone bread, which both gives you something to do with all the bones you accumulate and is a very efficient item duplication strategy as it spawns 3 copies (see "baking") you can also just use the bones directly, but they take a day to "grow" and only produce one clone --- stealth: i feel sort of silly calling this part "stealth" because there's not really sneaking or anything, but there are locked doors and guards can appear while you're trying to get through them; maybe "thievery" or "rogueishness" or something would make more sense, but like, w/e i guess - opening locked doors - the most straightforward way is just to bop the door repeatedly; this goes faster if you have high attack or agility the guard can appear while you're doing this unless you're the alien, you can also use a key you buy from the innkeeper (menu -> equip -> character -> equip -> weapon -> key) or a lockpick you buy from the criminal's fence or the jail vend- or (menu -> equip -> character -> equip -> weapon -> lockpick) (see "classes") to get through a locked door quickly if the door isn't a portal but is just a barrier in space, you can also use the criminal's level 2 "jump" skill to just bypass the door - dealing with the guard - the guard is "oblivion-style" and so will give you the tradition- al fine/jail/fight choice triad if you choose to fight them, running away a bit and then hitting them with ranged attacks is highly effective going to jail transports you to the basement of the knight castle, gives you a lantern and access to a couch, and puts you nearby to a handy vendor for criminals --- troubleshooting: if it suddenly becomes that you can't spawn anything or put any items on the ground etc., and it persists through all your saves, what i've found works is to start a new game, get to the point where you can put something on the ground, do so, save, then return to the title screen and load your previous game ---