FAQs: Please read before posting.

Please post if you have questions, answers, or other useful resources! There are all things I have seen asked multiple times. If your question is not answered here (especially level-specific questions), you can ask it here.

FULL List of game shortcuts:
T – Build tower
R – Build trap
A – Build amplifier
L – Build lightning shrine
C – Build charged bolts shrine
W – Build wall
G – Combine gems
B – Throw gem bomb
M – Extend mana pool
Q – 1x/3x game speed
Space – Freeze/unfreeze time
N – Send next wave instantly
X – Refund mana from gem
D – Duplicate gem
U – Upgrade gem (duplicate & combine)
I – Enable/disable info panels
1,2,3,4,6,7,8,9 – Create gem
P or Esc – Go to the Options screen

To do anything more than once, hit and hold shift then press the shortcut key. Hitting shift and combining gems will combine all the gems of the same grade in your tray. So, if you’re trying to make a high-grade gem, but all you can afford to duplicate is a grade 12, make a tray full of grade 12 gems by hovering over the one you’re duplicating and holding D. Once your tray is full, hit shift + G and click. Repeat a few times. From grade n gems, you’ll end up with a grade n+2 gem and a grade n+5 gem.

1) What’s the magic orb at the bottom left hand corner?
When you mouse over it, it displays two things. One: Shaded maps are those with challenge amulets on them. The shading does not go away after you complete a challenge. Two: The best multiplier you’ve achieved for each level. There are also white bars, which are just recognition for doing well:
0-4.9x: 0 bars
5-9.9x: 1 bar
10-14.9x: 2 bars
15-19.9x: 3 bars
20x+: 4 bars

2) Why aren’t I gaining experience when I redo a level?
You have to do BETTER than you did previously in order to gain additional experience after completing a level once. So, if I did G13 and got a 2x overall multiplier, I would get 796 XP. Then, if I redid G13 and earned a 1.5x overall multiplier, I would get no XP. If I did it again and got 3x overall, I would earn 398 XP, which is the difference between what I earned and what I had previously earned.

3) How do I change gem priority?
Mouse over a gem. Shift and click to change priority. For “Structures,” if there are no structures in range, the gem will target nearest to orb.

4) Why do demolitions only work at the beginning of the level?
You are allotted 3 demolitions per level. There is a premium skill that can increase the number of demolitions you get per level, up to 13 total. If you’ve got a gem bomb in hand, hovering with that gem bomb over a structure will tell you how many demolitions you have left.

5) What’s an apparition? How are they different from shadows?
Apparitions appear randomly. They’re basically little ghosties that you can kill to get extra skill points. You get 3 skill points if you kill it, then successfully complete the level. Their HP increases each time after you kill them, so each subsequent apparition is more difficult to kill.

Shadows look like this when they first appear. While they are alive, they change form several times. The 900 HP shield regenerates very quickly while it is “resting;” that is, while it is not being attacked. As mentioned in its description, it steals mana with projectiles, though your gems can shoot the projectiles to eliminate them before they reach your orb and they take mana. It also spawns monsters. While it is spawning monsters, it looks like this and can do so from anywhere on the path- so it could spawn monsters very close to your orb. The first shadow appears at the end of the fourth pylon level. If you are not premium, this is the only time you see a shadow. If you are premium, after you beat G7 “shadow clash” mode is available. This causes you to encounter a shadow around wave 20.

6) How is the summoning multiplier calculated?
The formula for summoning is:
(K/(K-S))^.53 where K is the total number of monsters killed, and S is the number of monsters summoned. It is capped at 50 for pylon levels only, and bottom capped at 1 for all levels.

7) How do I get a 50x summoning multiplier?
This is only done on pylon levels. PAUSE right before the pylon is charged. Scroll over your stats (at the top of the screen) and look at the number of monsters killed. Now, create lots of G1 gems and summon until your number summoned is as close as possible to the number of monsters killed WITHOUT going over or matching it. This will maximise your multiplier. However, to get 50x you need at least 1606 monsters killed.

8) How do I unlock new maps? What about the corners?
Anywhere the monsters enter the current map is an entrance on an adjacent map. So, after completing G13, you unlock H13 and F13. Then, after beating F13, you unlock F12 and E13.
A1 : L9 Challenge Amulet (Kill 7000 monsters)
A13: Kill 12 Apparitions Amulet
M1 : Kill 200,000 monsters Amulet
M13: K9 Challenge Amulet

9) What is the shortest possible path to G7?
See Lurlock’s posts below!

10) How does wild gem work? What colors are in each wild gem?
It works precisely as it says it does. It starts as a G1 and as you invest skill points, the value of the wild gem increases. Generally, wild gem is best used for its mana at the beginning of the match. Most people sell it then use the mana for other things. See Lurlock’s post below for the key to the wild gem colors.

11) How do I sell a gem?
Hover over the gem you want to sell and press X. Alternatively, you can bomb it into the anvil (the icon in the center of the colors in the bottom right) and see if you’ll waste any mana (and if so, how much) when you sell it. To avoid wasting mana, extend your mana pool. This is often necessary for selling your wild gem at the beginning of a level.

12) How do I duplicate a gem?
Hover over it and press D. Or, drop it onto the anvil.

13) Is there a faster way to upgrade a gem than duplicating and combining?
Yes! Press U. It costs exactly the same and works exactly the same as duplicating and combining.

14) Do all the skills have maximum levels?
No. Focus, Replenish, and Resonance are unlimited. All the others have caps.

15) How do I unlock the corner maps?
Earn these amulets:
A1 : L9 Challenge Amulet (Kill 7000 monsters)
A13: Kill 12 Apparitions Amulet
M1 : Kill 200,000 monsters Amulet
M13: K9 Challenge Amulet (complete 100 waves)
Note that K9 challenge is not achievable with non-premium, and thus M13 is not unlockable.

16) Is premium transferable from armorgames? How can I transfer a savefile from computer to computer or from site to site?
No, but your savefile is transferable- so you can finish the game over on armorgames (or whatever site it is that you own premium on) and then transfer the savefile to get the badges. Look for a file called “giabgclsavedata.sol” on your computer, in the appropriate folder for the site you’re working on, then copy that file to the chat.kongregate.com folder. To transfer to a different computer, save the file to a flash drive (or similar) and paste it in the chat.kongregate.com folder in the computer you want to transfer it to.

17) What are tombs and what happens when you open them?
Tombs look like flat, gray squares with some rune on them (or no rune at all) that are the same size as a monster nest. You can break them open by putting a gem near them and setting its priority to structures. You can also gembomb them to open them. When you break it open, monsters stream out- runners, regular, armored, and giants, but no swarms iirc. You get a +.1 summon multiplier for breaking it open. As you get further and further into the game, the tombs will have more armor and higher HPs and thus be more difficult to break open.

18) How can I complete the “Complete 100 waves” challenges without premium?
You can’t. Those six challenges can only be completed if you have purchased premium.

19) What can I do with the cross shaped thing on A12?
Nothing. You can’t build anything there, and there is nothing you can do to destroy it. You’ll learn more about it after you finish the third pylon level.

20) Where the heck did my spell and gem info panels go?!
You probably accidentally hit “I” when you were upgrading a gem. “I” is the info panel shortcut key- just press I again to turn them back on.

21) I see people saying “WGTF” in many threads. What does this mean?
WGTF stands for Waves Get Tougher Faster. Sometimes people say MGTF, which refers to the same battle setting (but erroneously substitutes monsters for waves).

22) My save game keeps disappearing. What’s wrong?
First: Make sure that when you play, you’ve connected to Kong. There should be a green plug next to your name in the top right (above the chat/achievements panel), not a red one. Turn off private browsing/incognito mode. Make sure you have programs like CCleaner turned off, as well as any program that clears cookies upon closing. Set local storage for chat.kongregate.com to unlimited. Keep your flash player up to date. If you run Google Chrome, flash automatically updates whenever you restart your browser. That should do it!

23) How can I save a backup file or transfer my savefile between computers?
1) Play.
2) Look in your chat.kongregate.com folder for “giabGCLSaveData.sol”. The folder’s location varies by your OS:
For XP, it’s C:\Documents and Settings\(username)\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player\#SharedObjects\(random string)\chat.kongregate.com
For Vista and 7, it’s C:\Users\(username)\AppData\Roaming\Macromedia\Flash Player\#SharedObjects\(random string)\chat.kongregate.com
Thanks for the info Chimto! I do not know where exactly the chat.kongregate.com folder is on a mac.
3) Copy that file to your backup drive (eg flash drive, or another safe folder on your hard drive). Backup is created and safe!
4) If you want to transfer that savefile (or reupload your old savefile if it got wiped), load the game once.
5) Copy the giabGCLSaveData.sol file to the chat.kongregate.com folder, overwriting the old one. Done!

24) How can I reduce lag when I have hundreds of monsters on screen?
1) Turn off all your vfx. Hit P, then slide allll those sliders all the way to the left.
2) Turn off the info panels (press I).
3) If your gems are strong enough, switch to a different tab. The game moves much faster when it isn’t generating the art.
4) If you’re ready, switch from a trap to a tower: towers will hit monsters before they’re on screen, which also reduces lag greatly.
5) Decreasing the lime component in traps also helps.

Originally posted by superxchloe:

9) What is the shortest possible path to G7?
Lurlock? A link to that image you created would be lovely. Also the mana shards image, and wild gem?

New and improved version:

The red, orange, yellow, and green are the same as before, but I changed the hidden levels to purple, and added a new color, blue, which represents all dead-end levels. These levels don’t reveal any new levels when finished, but they’re generally the best for doing long endurance runs since they generally just have one entrance. (There may be more than one on the same side in some of them.) Also I changed the line colors/thickness so you can see the 5 regions of the map more clearly.

I didn’t make the mana shards image, that was someone else, though I could easily reproduce it. I’m working on a better wild gem map, as well as several others – monster count, base experience, waves, etc.

I’ve uploaded all my other maps, so they can be easily referenced in this thread:

Experience:

Monster Count:

Mana Shards:

Gem Colors:

Wild Gem:

(The color on top represents the main color of the gem.)

What do the other colours (orange, yellow, green) stand for Lurlock?

You mean on the experience, monster count and mana shard charts? They’re just a color gradient so you can see which have the highest numbers. For experience and monster count, green means the lowest while red means the highest, and it gradually mixes for the middle values. For mana shards, it’s the other way around, I made green be highest and red lowest. The pale green colors behind them are just used to distinguish the zones (between pylon levels).

Oh, wait, did you mean the first one with the path? Oops. I guess I should’ve qualified that. (It was a repost from another thread, which come to think of it wasn’t even in this forum, it was on the GC0 forum.)

Red is for the special levels, pylon levels and the starting level.
Orange is for required levels, which you must do no matter what.
Yellow represents a choice, you must do one or the other in each case, but not necessarily both.
Green are levels you don’t need to do at all, but may reveal other new levels. Not required to get to G7 though.
Blue levels are dead ends that don’t reveal anything new.
Purple levels are the hidden levels in the corners.

Oh, and the numbers represents the minimum number of levels you must complete to reach that level.

Sorry for the confusion.

this is very helpful
i was just wondering which way i should focus on
thank you

i like how i make a topic that everyone links to =D

Originally posted by superxchloe:6) How is the summoning multiplier calculated?
The formula for summoning is:
(K/(K-S))^.53 where K is the total number of monsters killed, and S is the number of monsters summoned. It is capped at 50 and bottom capped at 1.

(K/(K-S)+1)^.53
Capped only on Pylon levels. getting <1 on average field impossible, but possible >50.

Originally posted by Lurlock:

Oh, wait, did you mean the first one with the path? Oops. I guess I should’ve qualified that. (It was a repost from another thread, which come to think of it wasn’t even in this forum, it was on the GC0 forum.)

Red is for the special levels, pylon levels and the starting level.
Orange is for required levels, which you must do no matter what.
Yellow represents a choice, you must do one or the other in each case, but not necessarily both.
Green are levels you don’t need to do at all, but may reveal other new levels. Not required to get to G7 though.
Blue levels are dead ends that don’t reveal anything new.
Purple levels are the hidden levels in the corners.

Oh, and the numbers represents the minimum number of levels you must complete to reach that level.

Sorry for the confusion.

Thanks for this Lurlock. Yeah, I did indeed mean the first one as you stated what 3 of the colours were, and I could sort of guess what the red ones were, heh.
It’s nice to know that the orange path is the shortest possible and yellow is like a fork in a road that doesn’t take you to a different location (^_^)

have you done it gremlion? also, every data point I have is accurate with the formula I provided (without the +1).

Yes, I’m pretty sure there is no +1 in the formula – otherwise, to get the 50X summon multiplier, you’d need to kill 3212 monsters, instead of 1606 (adding that one halves the number if K-S is 1, which it should be).
EDIT: I messed that math up, disconsider what I said :P
Nice job on this FAQ. This will probably cut down the amount of new threads by at least half (in a good way).
A general tip regarding images: they’re often easier to understand, so you could incorporate Lurlock’s maps into the OP, and if you’d like, I’d be up for getting some screenshots for anything relevant, just ask me (though I can’t do anything premium – I’m level 416, though, so anything else I can probably do).
Though I’m not sure about the limitations for the post sizes, so… might not be possible.

When you have 0 summons, multiplier still 1. Also, we have data without cap and 200+ summon multiplier. Without 1 it very inaccurate.
Also, learn math. 50^(1/0.53)-1=1604.47~1605 must be killed. Usually i talk “1606” because i don’t know rounding formula.
Also, i could try to do summoning >50. (but i hear that waves with more than 70k monsters could ruin game)

The only time I know of that people had more than 50x for their summoning multiplier was before the fix in v1.12. When you have zero summons, multiplier is still 1, even without the +1. G13 for example on normal settings: (106/106)^.53=1. 1606 is accurate for a 50x multiplier WITHOUT the +1. Everywhere else I have seen the multiplier discussed (like in the numbercraft thread on the GC0 forums) it has been reported as (K/(K-S))^.53.

I don’t know anything about the formula for the summon multiplier, but according to Peter’s changelog for v. 1.12 of the game (which dropped before it reached Kong): epic stages now have a summon multiplier limit of 50 (to avoid the infinity glitch or making astronomical multipliers with monsters summoned, but not killed)
From: http://gameinabottle.com/blog/2011/04/gcl-update-v-1-12/

The wording of that post has made me operate under the assumption that 50x is only coded as a hard cap for Pylon stages, whereas there is no cap for regular stages—excepting, of course, for the fact that your computer can only handle so many monsters, making numbers 10x and up unrealistic even at higher levels.

Originally posted by Gremlion:

When you have 0 summons, multiplier still 1. Also, we have data without cap and 200+ summon multiplier. Without 1 it very inaccurate.
Also, learn math. 50^(1/0.53)-1=1604.47~1605 must be killed. Usually i talk “1606” because i don’t know rounding formula.
Also, i could try to do summoning >50. (but i hear that waves with more than 70k monsters could ruin game)

Sorry, I messed it up by adding the 1 before dividing. :P
Forget what I said. I’ve got no idea if there is in fact that +1, or if there is just a hard lower limit of 1 as the multiplier (just like 50 is the hard upper limit for pylons).

by the way- On G13, you “only” need to do 10.8k monsters/wave to get a 50x summon multiplier. I’m not a high enough level to attempt this.

Originally posted by superxchloe:

by the way- On G13, you “only” need to do 10.8k monsters/wave to get a 50x summon multiplier. I’m not a high enough level to attempt this.

“Only”. Lolz.

Hi all, Im’ve just hit my first pylon lvl (Ty to Lurlock fastest way) and I have the PREMIUM EDITION, but my question. Which skill should I invest more points? I’m using my points to cap the lvl of the initial gem and then I then I try to go 50/50 between focus and replenish, but Which is the useful/smartest way to spend the skill points?

As soon as I could, I would make sure I saved enough points to max out the masteries for whatever gems were available on the map. I maxed forge, then construction, dual gem. If I recall correctly, I would have about 20 for focus and 10 in replenish, or something like that. Anyway, I just picked my favourite skills and worked on maxing those out. It probably is not worth it to invest anything in the premium skills quite yet. As soon as you unlock wild gem, start maxing that out as much as you can.

Originally posted by superxchloe:

The only time I know of that people had more than 50x for their summoning multiplier was before the fix in v1.12. When you have zero summons, multiplier is still 1, even without the +1. G13 for example on normal settings: (106/106)^.53=1. 1606 is accurate for a 50x multiplier WITHOUT the +1. Everywhere else I have seen the multiplier discussed (like in the numbercraft thread on the GC0 forums) it has been reported as (K/(K-S))^.53.

Remind fact, that was possible to get multiplier between 0 and 1. When you oversummon and s/(k-s) became less than 0. It means that + 1 exist in formula.
Ah, and formula: (S/(K-S)+1)^0.53 – when summoned 0; you get 1. Game reward us for summoning, not for killing.

OK, ty, Im now running a 30 on forge, NO DUAL MASTERY GEM since Y/L/O is way better, max the thing that reduce the cost on the mana poll and for unlocking new gems tipes, maximaxing the Yllw and Lime skills, raise focus to 30 and 10 pints on replenish, is working out for me ^^, im lvl 27 with premium edition

in order to get a multiplier <1 you would have to summon less than one monster. it WAS possible to get a summon multiplier between 0 and 1. is it possible now? if you can do it I’ll concede.
(K/(K-S))^.53 works with every data point I have, with a bottom cap of 1.

Originally posted by superxchloe:

in order to get a multiplier <1 you would have to summon less than one monster. it WAS possible to get a summon multiplier between 0 and 1. is it possible now? if you can do it I’ll concede.
(K/(K-S))^.53 works with every data point I have, with a bottom cap of 1.

It’s work, because your data only for pylons?
Try formula S/(k-s) + 1 on average field. On pylons s/(k-s) + 1=k/(k-s) in case you got k-s=1.
Again, S in up! Not K! S!

Again, (K/(K-S))^.53 works for every data point I have- pylon and non-pylon.

(151/(151-45))^.53=1.206 (rounded to the nearest hundredth, of course, since that’s what is displayed – 1.21)
For your formula: (S/(K-S)+ 1)^0.53
((45/106)+1)^.53 is the same number- 1.206.
The numbers are identical down to the 100 millionth place. Funny how you changed your formula from 18 hours ago though.
Further proof: