Escape to Kreludor Guide

So what is the game about?

Gorix and Cylara have just escaped from the Virtupets Space Station on their spaceship and they are headed to Kreludor. But Dr. Sloth noticed their escape and sent his own spaceships to try and stop them. Your goal is to kill all the enemy ships sent by Sloth in each level, so you can advance to the next.

Game Mechanics

This is you:

The game board is a 11x11 square. You start each level on the center of the board, and there will be a set number of enemies, rocks and one power up randomly distributed around the board. You move your spaceship by pressing any square around the one you're standing in, as long as there is no rock or enemy occupying it – immediately after you do this, all the enemies will move one square too, following you. If you click on the spaceship itself (or press the spacebar), it will shoot a weapon from both the left and the right side of your spaceship, which will kill the first enemy ship it encounters, leaving a pile of debris, and has a 3 square range. You start the game with 3 lives and you lose a life if you let an enemy get to the same square you're on. There are also 4 portals, one in each corner of the board – entering these will teleport you to a random square.

Game Board Items and Enemies

Rock: there a few of these in every level. They don't move or hurt you at all, but you can't move to a space occupied by a rock. You can use them to your advantage to either kill basic spaceships or change the path of other objects (see Advanced Strategies below).

Basic spaceships (grey): these are the first enemies you will encounter, and the ones that are easier to defeat. They are worth 10 points and can be killed either by your weapons or by crashing with anything else in the game board (another basic spaceship, a rock or a comet). You can and should use the game board layout for your advantage and make them destroy themselves. This is especially important in more advanced levels with many enemies.

Advanced spaceships (red): after a few levels with increasing amounts of grey spaceships, you'll see the first red one. These enemies are harder to kill, because they are only vulnerable to your weapons. They will avoid other enemies and go around rocks. Worth 15 points.

Comet: after a few more levels, the first comet appears. They can't be destroyed by anything; which means you'll have to avoid them while you kill all the other enemies in the board. The only good thing about them is that you'll only get one per level.

Cloud of debris: this is what is left after an enemy spaceship is destroyed either by you, a comet or another spaceship. They are equivalent to rocks in every way except the way they look.

Portal: there are four of these in every level, and they are located in all four corners of the game board. When you enter a portal, you will be teleported to a random free space on the board.

Power-Ups

There will be exactly one power up on every level, on a random square. If you don't catch it, it will disappear when you advance to the next level. It can also disappear at a random point before you catch it – this is probably a glitch. Enemies can occupy the space of a power up – so if you kill them while they are there, there will be a pile of debris in that square, and you can't get the power up anymore. The list of power-ups is as follows:

White: gives an extra life. The rarest and best power up in the game

Purple: worth 50 points. This is equivalent to 5 grey enemies – so catch it every chance you get!

Green: gives you an invisibility cloak, which stops the enemies from knowing your location. This means they will move at random, but be careful – moving at random means they can still move to the same square you're on, and if they do this you lose a life. So keep your distance from the enemies at all times while still focusing in catching them.

Blue: Downgrades enemies – comets turn into rock and all red spaceships will turn into grey. Grey spaceships remain the same. This power up can be really useful in more advanced levels, where you have 5 or 6 red spaceships to defeat, but keep in mind you will also receive less points from them if you get this power up. It's useless if there are only grey enemies left.

Red: creates an energy pulse that will destroy all spaceships around you and has a two-square range. The destroyed spaceships won't leave a cloud of debris, but rather free space. It doesn't have any effect in comets.

Gameplay and Basic Strategy

Now that you know your enemies and power-ups, let's talk about how to play the game. Your goal is to kill all the enemy spaceships without getting killed.

First, let's discuss power-ups. In the first level, you only have to defeat two greys; this is easy enough even if it's your first time playing, so you should focus on getting a good starting power up. I recommend you restart the game until you get either a purple one (50 points) or a white one (extra life).

After you get it, let's move on to our next goal:

Destroying Spaceships

As discussed earlier, these are the easier enemies to kill. Here I will describe a few common situations that you should learn to identify. In earlier levels, you can usually choose almost any way to kill them, but soon you will have to do it a certain way – when there is a higher number of enemies in a level, you should still look for these patterns and carefully plan your next move based on how the spaceships will move and which ones will get destroyed.

1) Shoot them (grey + red)

As long as the spaceship is within 3 spaces of your spaceship, just press the spacebar and you will shoot and kill it. The 3 spaces can be horizontal, vertical or diagonal. You will have to use all the possible orientations if you want to be good at this game, so always pay attention to the position of the enemies relative to you and shoot if you can kill anything (possible exceptions will be discussed further down).

2) Make them crash into a rock (grey only)

Greys will always take the shortest path towards you. This means that, if there is a rock in the way, they will attempt to move there and will be destroyed. You can take advantage of this by changing the position of your spaceship to crash as many enemies as possible, and even making greys crash into the debris of a previous spaceship.

3) Make them crash into another grey (grey only)

If you already understood how the greys move, it should be clear what is going to happen here. All the greys will try to move to the same space, destroying both of them (or the three of them). This will leave a cloud of debris on the square they moved to. If the “crash” square is already occupied by a rock, you will get a cloud of debris on top of the rock – it's equal to a regular cloud of debris/rock, except for the fact that it looks really cool.

4) Make them crash into a comet (grey only)

When you get the situation above, the behaviour will be similar to #3, except that only the grey spaceship will be destroyed, and the comet will be intact (remember that comets can't be killed except by a blue power up). Red spaceships will not crash into comets.

A note about debris and power-ups: it's possible for a cloud of debris to appear in a square that already has a power up. If this happens, you won't be able to get the power up, so you should try to avoid it (but not at the cost of a life, obviously).

Using Portals

After about 3 or 4 levels, you will notice you don't have enough time to kill every enemy spaceship before dying. From now on, your objective will not be to kill everything as soon as possible, but rather to aim for the portal while killing as many as possible. As the number of enemies increases, your goal will be simply to clear a way to the closest portal (sometimes failing), and worrying about everything else later. The portal will teleport you to a random free space on the board – this means that you can be teleported away from the enemies, or right next to one of them, killing you in the next turn – it's just random. Sometimes you will have an unlucky game and die every time you teleport; it happens to all of us sometimes, don't worry. The key to being lucky here is to try and try again, until you are lucky. The only trick you can use to possibly increase your luck is to “wait” as long as possible if you reach the portals with some leeway on your enemies – you can do this by just shooting once or twice to bring them as close to you as possible. This means the enemies will be concentrated on that corner, leaving more free space on the rest of the board where you will hopefully land after entering the portal.

Levels

The position of the enemies will be random in each level, but their number is always the same. At level 5, you will see your first red spaceship. At level 7, the comet appears (but you will never get more than one per level).

Advanced Strategy

Now you know the basics, and that is enough for you to play decently. In the next section I will give some more tips and tricks that I discovered on my years of playing. Some of these refer to the way the enemies move relative to each other. These situations usually have two possible outcomes, with the chosen one being random, and knowing the way they act might be the key to win or lose the level. This section will be more useful if you have already played a few games and are familiar with the general mechanics of the game.

1) Using a rock to move a red spaceship where you want it

In the situation above, if you move to space #2, the red spaceship will move to either #1 or #3. It seems to be completely random which one it will choose, so you might have to go back and forth a few times until you have the red spaceship exactly where you want it. You should only do this in early levels where there are no comets, and only when this red spaceship is the last enemy. I usually use it to grab a power up without having to use a portal – because portals are random and sometimes end badly.

2) Using a rock to delay a red spaceship/comet

In this situation the outcome is also random, so don't rely on it. It may however be a life saver if you have no other way out and you get lucky. If you move according to the yellow arrow, sometimes the enemy will move behind the rock while attempting to be on the same row/column as you. This will delay them for a turn, because they will only move past the rock on the next turn. If you only have a red spaceship left but it's right next to you, you can try using this strategy to create a space between both spaceships so you can adjust your position and shoot it.

3) Don't finish the level if you have a purple or white power up left

Unless you are going to die if you don't, obviously. Sometimes I use the portals 3 or 4 times (which is risky, I know that) so I can grab the power up before killing the rest of the enemies. If your last enemy is a grey spaceship, you need to very careful so it doesn't hit anything by accident (thus ending the level). If you are going to try this and you have two greys left, kill one of them before you enter the portal. It's very difficult to manage two greys without accidentally making them crash into each other. If you have a red one left, you can use #1 to avoid portals if you have rocks that allow this.

4) Go for the extra life power up

Unless you know for sure that you can finish the level without dying, it might be a good idea to reach the white power up even if you die after you get it. You will still have the same number of lives left (because you got an extra one before you lose one), but you will have a few more points from the ships you killed or the ones that crashed while you went for the power up. You also get the bonus of resetting the board for that level, possibly having an easier combination.

5) If you're next to a comet, be careful

This one took me a while to pick up. If you're in the situation #1 (the spaceship can be either red or grey) and this is your last spaceship, you can shoot safely and you will move on to the next level. But if you're in situation #2, the comet will start to move before your shot hits the spaceship, and you will die, restarting the level. Don't ask why it works like this: it just does. Always be careful to check for this situation when you are next to a comet.

6) You can use a pulse to finish the level

Similar to the situation above, but in this case the enemies will only move after the pulse is over, which means you will win if the pulse manages to kill every enemy left, even if you're next to a comet. This also means that you can move to grab a red power up, even if it's next to an enemy.

7) Keep your surroundings clean while using the cloak (green power up)

If you have played enough games, you have probably lost a life while using the cloak. This happens because the cloak doesn't grant you immortality, only invisibility. This means that the enemies will move randomly to any space around them (since they don't know where you are), and if that space contains you, you are dead. To avoid this, always keep all squares directly around you clean. If they aren't clean, it's a priority to clear them for the next turn, and not to shoot. You have all the time in the world to clear the level, there is no need to risk yourself (and no need to use the portals, unless you get trapped against a wall, which you should avoid too). After you make sure you are clean, it's time to clear some enemies. If it's too crowded, aim at everything you can. If you only have 4-5 enemies left, try to go for the red ones first, as the grey ones usually destroy themselves soon enough by moving into a rock or portal square.

8) A red spaceship and a comet

Usually in later levels you will at some point end up with only a red spaceship and a comet. It might be useful to understand how they move relative to each other to avoid nasty surprises.

Situation one: comet and red spaceship side by side

In this situation, the red spaceship will eventually end up one space behind the comet if you stay on the same row/column as the comet. If you try to switch to be aligned to the red spaceship, they will instead “switch” places, leaving you in the same situation as before, which is bad. However, even if you stay aligned with the comet, the change is random, which means you can go from one end of the board to the other and they are still like this, although that is rare. They will usually align in 3-4 turns at most.

Situation two: a comet behind a red spaceship

Comets try to take priority over red spaceships, so the comet will move to the side and then go back to the right column/row, so there will be a space between the spaceship and the comet. This is ok if it's your last spaceship, but if there are more and you have to enter a portal and end up on the other side of this combination (closer to the comet than the red spaceship), keep #5 in mind. If you have a rock in the way, you can use it to “delay” the comet (see #2) and this will allow the red to catch up.

Final Comments

If you're planning on going for a trophy, you will need a lot of luck in addition to knowing very well the mechanics of this game - which I hope this guide contributed to. If you have any suggestions or comments, please Neomail me and let me know. I'd love to hear from you! :)