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Sutek's Tomb: Puzzle of the Gebmid


by __questions__

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According to legend, Sutek was a mighty Geb who lived long ago in the Lost Desert. He was greater and more intelligent than most Gebs, and they praised him. But on one unfortunate day, Sutek died. The Gebs decided to construct a tomb in the same shape as him. This tomb was to forever protect Sutek and his valuable possessions. How? The Gebs placed a lock on the tomb that contained odd symbols, which made the door impassible. To this day, the puzzle of the strange symbols on the entrance to Sutek’s tomb has not been broken, and his unknown riches still lie untouched, further inside the tomb. Many Neopians today are willing to take a long journey to this tomb to have a shot at cracking the puzzle, and striking themselves ultimate riches and fame! Neopians that have already tried the puzzle have discovered that aligning 3 or more identical symbols vertically or horizontally makes them disappear.

This guide will help you to do just that. I will teach you some helpful tips that will assist you in getting a higher score, and possibly even solving the seemingly never-ending puzzle.

How to Play

In order to score points, you must line up 3 or more of the same symbols vertically or horizontally. You can swap tiles by clicking a tile, then clicking another tile that is adjacent to it (to the top, bottom, left, or right). If the tiles you swapped don’t create a pattern of the same 3 symbols, then they will return back to their original positions. On the other hand, if the tiles you swap DO make a pattern of the same 3 symbols (or more), then the tiles involved in the pattern will disappear, and then make all of the tiles above it fall down in its place, which in turn could produce another pattern, and make a chain reaction.

The amount of points a combination gives you depends on the difficulty mode you are playing. In easy difficulty, lining up 3 tiles adds 3 points to your score, and in hard difficulty, 3 tiles adds 10 points. Of course, if you line up more than 3 tiles, (4 tiles or 5 tiles), it will give you even more points. Zen mode gives you 1 point per combo, no matter how many tiles you use.

Difficulties

There are a few differences between easy and hard mode. The main difference is that hard mode gives you many more points than easy mode or Zen mode do.

Also, you are given an 8x8 grid (8 tiles in width and 8 tiles in length) in easy mode, which means 64 tiles in total. In hard mode, it is a 10x10 grid, which means there are 100 tiles on the board. On easy mode, there are 5 different types of tiles; in hard mode there are 7.

In my opinion, you should always play in hard mode. It’s not that much harder than easy mode, and your score is more than tripled in hard mode. You also get a larger amount of tiles, which means there will be more of those long chain-reactions, which will score you a lot of points. The only thing you should be worrying about in this difficulty is the time, which I will explain further into the guide.

And let’s not forget about Zen mode! In Zen, you will have a 10x10 grid and 7 different types of tiles, just like hard mode. Also, there is no time limit, so you do not need to stress out about finding combinations quickly. But like I said before, you only get 1 point per combination no matter the size of it. Only use Zen mode if you need some practice, or you just simply want to play the game for fun.

Types of Tiles

There are 6 different types of tiles, each of them having their own unique effect on your game.

Regular tile: This is the most common tile you will be seeing. A regular tile can have 1 of 7 different symbols on it: a Geb, an Anubis head, a sun, a gem, a palm tree, a shrine, and a Scarab. The shrine and scarab tiles can only be found in hard and Zen mode.

Lucky coin: A lucky coin tile is like a wildcard, and can substitute for any type of regular tile to form a pattern. For example, you could do sun – sun – lucky coin as a combination, or a geb – lucky coin – geb combination.

Bomb: If a bomb drops 2 (or more) spaces in 1 turn, then it will explode and destroy all of the tiles above of it in the column it is in.

Painted Scarab: Get this tile to the bottom of the board and it will destroy all of the tiles in its own column. Very much like the bomb except you need to get it to the bottom.

Ankh: If you get an Ankh to the bottom of the board, it will destroy the column it is in, and the bottom row.

TPOSG: This tile is very rare, but very helpful if you do see it. Try your best to get this tile to the bottom of the screen, because if it does, then it will destroy ALL of the tiles on the board, giving you a large amount of points.

Time

See the hourglass at the side of the screen? That’s how much time you have left. You start out with 60 seconds and when your hourglass empties out, then game over! This is the only way you can lose the game, so you need to pay careful attention to it. You can, however, add some time to your hourglass by doing 1 of 2 things:

A single move won’t give you any time, but making a chain will. Just make a match, and if you create another match of 3 or more, then that will automatically be destroyed without you clicking it, and in turn give you more time.

Typing out plzsutekcanihavemoretime during the game also gives you more time, an extra 30 seconds to be exact. Only type this code when you have less than 30 seconds left in the hourglass, because the maximum time you can have is 60 seconds, so if you type that code in when you have 40 seconds left, it only gives you 20 seconds and not the full 30.

Spend your time wisely! When you see a combo that you can make, then make it immediately. If you see a special tile, don’t spend 20 seconds finding out how to get it to the bottom. Wasting even 3 seconds is A LOT of time, considering that you have less than 60 second in your hourglass at any given time. If you honestly CANNOT find a move, then you can type in pyramibread to reveal possible combination. If you ever need to leave, you can press the hourglass to pause the game, but you can only pause the game 3 times per game.

Conclusion

Just two more things: sometimes you will run out of moves on the board. In this case, the time stops and the board will automatically be shuffled. A message will also appear asking you to click to continue. Luckily, the background of this message is transparent, so take advantage of the stopped time and look for a few possible moves before you click to resume your game.

Also, you can get a pretty little avatar for your collection if you score enough points, which should be easy with this guide... right?

Maybe you’ve read this guide because you want to be the one that cracks the puzzle and wins the treasure. Or maybe you just want the avatar. Whatever the reason, thank you for reading my guide! I hope it has helped you!

 
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