When you rank up, guests tend to want the latest rooms rather quickly which can force you to take out a loan. To be able to advance without taking a hit in your ratings or finances, build one room less than the mandatory number to gain a star, perfect your hotel until you have no complaints, set the speed to x4, then just sit and pick your nose for a couple minutes.
If you're adequately leveled (100+) and still having trouble in survival, the trick is to stop thinking about strategy and simply spam all your abilities.
For the final boss, I used bash, poison stab, poison, lightning, fire, poison, lightning, fire, poison, lightning, fire, poison, bash, fire, and then the combo attack (yet my atk is very very high). Hope this helps with the hard badge.
I wouldn't know because I totally got the badge legitimately, but I would guess that completing a level with 13 kills, exiting to main menu at the upgrade screen, clicking gladiator mode, right clicking and selecting "forward", then clicking continue, selecting a level and dying, might do something. But I could be wrong because I would never attempt something like that. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Dear Diary:
Today was like any other. Customers in, customers out. The usual. All mixers were filled, and I was ready to refill them. I quickly jumped over to finish an order for a customer, and all that was needed was a cherry on top. I picked it up, yet was filled with an inability to set it down. I shook it about and carried it, but I could not for the life of me set it down. Customers got angry, awaiting their orders, yet I was not emotionally prepared to let this cherry go. Eventually closing time came about, and I was only able to fulfill about a tenth of my orders but I don't care. This cherry makes it all worth it. I'm typing this diary with the cherry still in my hands, but it's nearly entirely mashed into the keyboard. Regardless, I will take the cherry with me tomorrow and every day.
Really though, this bug is infuriating.
It irritates me when people confuse simplistic yet challenging design for a poorly made game. This is the former, and while on several occasions I have found myself yelling at my laptop, it is due to my lack of understanding rather than poor mechanics. This game and the others like it are an odd delight.
I'd recommend to attempt the badges only on the first movement pattern. With the in & out pattern, it is easy to get shapes that are "hidden" behind reds, and as the shapes usually don't go out terribly far, it gives you a nice safe place once you're in 100+ combo size. Whatever you do, don't use the shape movement style wherein they just spontaneously appear (the second one unlocked), as they will tend to pop your bubble rather quickly.
Following these, I played each track once and got all 4 achievements. Good luck!
Aiming Priorities:
1. Explosives. they deal damage to everyone around them and might even kill some weaker enemies.
2. Projectiles. The ninjas will be a pain and wreck your hotel if you let them group up.
3. Tanks. They're slower and may be ignored until past the halfway point if you have a strong enough gun.
4. Flyers. They will generally do negligible damage and get in the line of fire when you're shooting other things anyway.
I want to enjoy this. I love launch games. I love upgrades. I love kongregate. This game just kinda makes me sad because I remember collecting cards fo' days and I preferred them to kongpanions.