How to backup flash savegames

Flash games store their save data in ".SOL files". Their location is strictly determined and platform-dependent:

1. On MS Windows, the root folder for .SOL files is
%APPDATA%\Macromedia\Flash Player\#SharedObjects\(...)\

2. On Mac OS X, the root folder for .SOL files is
~/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/Flash Player/#SharedObjects////
and
~/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/Flash Player/macromedia.com/support/flashplayer/sys/

3. On Linux and UNIX, the root folder for .SOL files is
~/.macromedia/Flash_Player/#SharedObjects////.swf/


Example folder structure

For example, the game "Elona Shooter" played on kongregate will store its data in the following folder under Windows:

C:\Documents and Settings\811072\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player\#SharedObjects\ABZFMR4J\chat.kongregate.com\gamez\0006\1112\live\shootem.swf
Please note that the name of the web site is listed as "chat.kongregate.com" as that is the context of the site where the Flash object is included.

On Mac OS X, the same game stores its save data under the following folder:
Library/Preferences/Macromedia/Flash Player/#SharedObjects/AJB5SPXU/chat.kongregate.com/gamez/0006/1112/live/shootem.swf


What to do to back up a save game

If the game just stores all its data into one file (i.e. one save game slot), then you just need to copy that file to a different folder and keep for later recovery.

If, on the other hand, the game supports multiple slots, then there is usually one index file (.idx) and several .sol files which need to be copied.

The following screenshot illustrates this once again for Elona Shooter on Windows:



Here, you need to copy both the .idx file and the .sol files to a different folder for later retrieval. I assume that you know how to copy files and folders to a different location on the file system. If not, then please leave me comment here and I will add this info.

Elona Shooter: Party skills

The following is an overview about the party skills capability of each character class. Please note that the Guardian can not be chosen as a player class.

Rogue:
Quick eye (Increased chance of good events while searching town)
Active (Chance of gaining bonus AP every day). Maxes at 10, +1 – 10 extra AP per day when it fires.
Negotiator (Better reward for completing a day)
Threat (Enemies move more slowly). Maxes at 10, 21% slower.

Guardian: (computer only)
Insurance (Receive GP every time an enemy hits the castle). Maxes at 10, 11 GP per hit.
Supplier (Recharge time of usable items reduced). Maxes at 10, 200%
Love (You gain gold when one of your sisters explodes). Maxes at 10, 55gc/sister.
Accountant (Cheaper wages). Maxes at 10, 43%.
Leadership (Faster aiming). Maxes at 10, 52%.
Defender (Chance of fully blocking damage to a wall on any given hit). Maxes at 10, 23%
Threat (Enemies move more slowly). Maxes at 10, 21% slower.

Noble:
Accountant (Cheaper wages). Maxes at 10, 43%
Active (Chance of gaining bonus AP every day). Maxes at 10, +1 – 10 extra AP per day when it fires.
Cook (Extra bonus exp when you Dine)
Taunt (Spend 2 AP to raise enemy HP and reward). Maxes at 5, +60% reward (Bonus hp unaffected by rank)
Insurance (Receive GP every time an enemy hits the castle). Maxes at 10, 11 GP per hit.

Duelist:
Engineer (Mods are stronger if applied when you have this). Maxes at 10, 52%.

Ranger:
Breeder (Increased income from chickens). Maxes at 10, +63%.
Active (Chance of gaining bonus AP every day). Maxes at 10, +1 – 10 extra AP per day when it fires.
Supplier (Recharge time of usable items reduced). Maxes at 10, 200%
Scavenger (Increase chance of items dropping)
Leadership (Faster aiming). Maxes at 10, 52%.

Hunter:
Cook (Extra bonus exp when you Dine)
Engineer (Mods are stronger if applied when you have this). Maxes at 10, 52%.
Scavenger (Increase chance of items dropping)
Breeder (Increased income from chickens). Maxes at 10, +63%.

Sheriff:
Quick eye (Increased chance of good events while searching town)
Leadership (Faster aiming). Maxes at 10, 52%.
Defender (Chance of fully blocking damage to a wall on any given hit). Maxes at 10, 23%
Taunt (Spend 2 AP to raise enemy HP and reward). Maxes at 5, +60% reward (Bonus hp unaffected by rank)
Insurance (Receive GP every time an enemy hits the castle). Maxes at 10, 11 GP per hit.

Militia:
Taunt (Spend 2 AP to raise enemy HP and reward). Maxes at 5, +60% reward (Bonus hp unaffected by rank)
Love (You gain gold when one of your sisters explodes). Maxes at 10, 55gc/sister.

Sniper:
(CANNOT GAIN PARTY SKILLS)

Walkthrough: Elona Shooter (Hard Mode)

This guide will show how to (rather easily) reach day 150+ in Elona Shooter. It also works in Hard mode, although you might want to make sure to back up your save games from time to time. This is explained in another blog entry.

First, make sure you are familiar with the game and good at aiming. Check out the general section about Elona Shooter; there is a lot of info about what to do in between battles.

Class selection and team members

This guide is based on using the Rapid Bowgun. In my opinion, it is simply the best weapon there is in the game. And since Bowmaster is essential with all bows, there are only two choices regarding class selection: Hunter or Noble. Personally, I prefer the Hunter, because I like having Cripple Shot available and the Noble cannot learn that skill. With it you can slow most enemies to a stop later in the game.

The Noble, on the other hand, has by far the best class skill in the game and can level incredibly fast with this experience bonus. He eventually gets Accountant, Taunt, Active, Cook, and Insurance. I often take one NPC Noble as he can learn a lot of skills and pick up the party skills you don’t have or focus on. In any case, you will need one Hunter in the party for Breeder and Engineering; Scavenger is another nice skill to have.

So, one NPC slot is taken for the Noble. As for the second team member, I recommend Ranger. The Ranger comes with a Big Gun and can learn Da Bomb and Anti Armor. Give him a Gravity Gun and he will wipe the floor with the enemies in no time. Plus, his class skill gives Rampage bonus to the whole party! Some people prefer Milita with Gravity Gun, but that is just a matter of personal taste. I like the Rampage bonus more than the Grenade skill.

That leaves one other teammate. I usually choose the Guardian because of his incredible amount of party skills (Insurance, Supplier, Love, Accountant, Leadership, Defender, Threat). Aside from that, the Guardians class skill helps prevent damage to the castle and, most of all, he is awesome with the Laser Pistol.

In fact, if you choose Hunter as your player class, you will even get a Guardian for free: the Little Girl. Altough it starts out with poor skills (Aiming and Teamwork lvl.1) and the worst weapon ever - the Long Bow. But that little girl will become angel of doom when equipped with a Laser Pistol with 5+ modification slots. Also, I found that she usually improves her aiming and teamwork skills pretty fast. So just keep her in your party, but make sure to exchange her Long Bow for any other Small Gun weapon soon, like Pistol, or preferably a Machine Pistol.

Skill selection

Your Hunter needs to learn Bowmaster and Cripple Shot as soon as possible. Focus on these two skills in the beginning. Your might need to throw in some levelling for Rifle in case you find a nice weapon - maybe even a Rapid Bowgun. But because they are somewhat hard to come by, you will probably have to use a Hunter's Rifle in the meantime.

A Hunter's Rifle is in any case good to take along because you can take out airborne enemies somewhat fast, especially when compared to the bow weapons. But in the long run, the Bowgun is the one to go for.

Once Bowmaster and Cripple Shot are well progressed, switch over to Engineering. Together with Active, it is the most important party skill. Max out Engineering as soon as you can because it will give you a bonus whenever you put a mod into a weapon. Other party skills you should get and ramp up next include Leadership and Breeder.

Once your NPCs cannot improve any more decent other skills, and have a sufficiently high gun skill, I recommend levelling only Reloading from that time on. This will give a nice number of Gravity Gun rounds on the screen and make your life a lot easier.

Item selection

Try to get hold of a Rapid Bowgun with 5 or 6 mod slots as soon as you can. This can take dozens of days, but in the end it will be worth it. In the meantime, use a good Hunter's Rifle or a lesser Bowgun.

Give both your Ranger and your Noble a Gravity Gun as soon as you find some. Until then, let them train Big Gun with a Cheap Worn HMG. Your Guardian should use a Machine Pistol until you can get hold of a Laser Pistol.

Generally, weapons with a high number of mod slots (ideally 5 or 6) are the best you can get because they will become insanely powerful once properly modified. You will need to upgrade them from time to time though. Whenever you upgrade a weapon, the most recently added mod will be destroyed. That's why you need to put some lesser mod into the last slot before upgrading. An never ever put a rare mod into the last slot, because then you cannot upgrade the weapon without losing that mod!

So, since you are a Hunter, you need a 5+ slot Rapid Bowgun. Let's just assume that you have already even found one with six slots. In that case, I recommend the following mod selection:
- 2x Damage lvl3
- 2x Rapid Fire lv3
- 1x Anti Armor lvl3
- 1x Impact

Let me explain that a bit. Impact is an absolute MUST. You should have one installed at all times, even if it is just a lvl1 mod. It makes things so much easier being able to push back enemies who are already attacking the castle. Also, it will keep Archers and Dragons from Shooting!
Because the Impact level doesn't matter as much as with the other mods, and because Impact is not that hard to find, I recommend that you should always install Impact as the last of all mods. That is because during upgrading, the most recently installed mod will be destroyed (as mentioned already).

Anti Armor really helps with the Tanks and Ballistae. Install and watch your Arrows slice through those annoying contraptions.

Damage is an essential mod to any weapon. Particularly in combination with Rapid Fire, this rocks. Some people prefer having more Rapid Fire mods, but for me, having two of both worked out great.

The above applies also to your NPCs weapons, except that their weapons usually don't benefit from Rapid Fire, so you might not want to keep those for yourself.

How to find good items and mods

Whether or not you find good weapons over time all omes down to probabilities. And there are several things that you can do to improve the odds:

First, make sure to max the shop's inventory size out soon: The more slots there are, the more likely it gets that there is an item you actually need.

Second, spend all APs you don't really require on refreshing the shop's selection. It increases the chances to find good stuff.

Third, if you are into that kind of stuff, you can utilize the Reload procedure. Whenever you are about to reach a boss day, and the loot/prize is not satisfactory, just reload and replay the day. Just make sure to do this before the game autosaves, i.e. do it before leaving the summary screen that displays money and skill gains.

How to survive the later days

Once you have survived the first two waves (day 80+), you probably have played with the right strategy. Now you just need to upgrade your weapons and your villa from time to time and perhaps be on the lookout for better weapons and mods.

Usually, around day 100, your villa should be at level 10. With a good bowgun and teammates though, you probably don't even need that.

I hope you can manage to do so. Please let me know if I missed anything!

Elona Shooter: Medals

The following is a list of all medals a player can earn in Elona Shooter.

Erm, please excuse the bad formatting. You have to scroll down to see the table. I'm working on it.

Newcomer	-	Free medal
Experienced	+100 GP Starting Money	Survive for 10 days
Survivor	+200 GP Starting Money	Survive for 20 days
Veteran	+300 GP Starting Money	Survive for 35 days
Elite	+500 GP Starting Money	Survive for 50 days
Savior	+750 GP Starting Money	Survive for 80 days
Chosen one	+1000 GP Starting Money	Survive for 150 days
Chicken Lover	+5% Egg Revenue	Own 30 chickens
Chicken Prince	+15% Egg Revenue	Own 60 chickens
Chicken King	+30% Egg Revenue	Own 120 chickens
Sister Lover	+10% Bomb Damage	Own 10 sisters
Sister Mania	+20% Bomb Damage	Own 20 sisters
Sister Master	+30% Bomb Damage	Own 30 sisters
Novice Defender	+1% Wall Absorption	Score 1 perfect game
Skilled Defender	+1% Wall Absorption	Score 3 perfect games
Adept Defender	+1% Wall Absorption	Score 7 perfect games
Master Defender	+1% Wall Absorption	Score 10 perfect games
Hunter's Award	Unlocks Ranger Class	Create a lvl 10 Hunter
Rogue's Award	Unlocks Duelist Class	Create a lvl 10 Rogue
Sheriffs's Award	Unlocks Noble Class	Create a lvl 10 Sheriff
Militia's Award	Unlocks Sniper Class	Create a lvl 10 Militia
Killer	Start with Luck+1	Score 10 critical kills in one battle
Assassin	Start with Sense+1	Score 30 critical kills in one battle
Killer	Start with Accuracy+2	Score 50 critical kills in one battle
Prayer	+1AP chance	Pray 15 times
Provoker	+1AP chance	Taunt 10 times
Boomer	+1AP chance	Hold 10 parties
Gun Mania	+15% modding bonus	Recycle a gun 10 times
Robber	Start with Robber+2	Rob the museum 20 times
Hard Badge	Start with +1 inventory slot	Get the Hard badge on Kongregate
Impossible Badge	Start with Fame+20	Get the Impossible badge on Kongregate
Kongregate	3% Wage discount	Click on the Kongregate banner
Ragnarok Survivor	Start with Luck+1	Survive Ragnarok. Surprise!
Ha-na-bi	+25 Fireworks	Watch the fireworks for a while
Elonian	Allows importing to Elona	Beat the first round (i.e. 50 days)
Hardcore	Start with Sense +1	Survive 20 days in hardcore mode
Ultimate Hardcore	Start with Gravity Gun	Survive 40 days in hardcore mode
RNG Award	Start with Luck+3	Survive 80 days in hardcore mode

Elona Shooter: General issues and strategy

Rarely can you find a flash shooter with such a deep and captivating atmosphere as this. It is a truely amazing castle defender shooter, which involves many RPG aspects giving it a deep and fascinating atmosphere and great playability. I find it highly addictive (which is good).
Elona Shooter is based on the rogue-like RPG Elona and can be played e.g. on Kongregate.

For a list of skills in Elona shooter, see the Skills section. There is also an overview about which class can learn which party skills here.

And finally, my guide to day 150+ is finished!! Please find it here.

The following are some basic observations and tips. It is a long list, I know. But if you have any progress issues in the game, this should help you. And please let me know if you have any corrections/comments etc.

What to do if you screwed up
As the game is mostly based on randomness, you will have to restart very often - especially as a beginner. Check out the article about how to back up flash game savegames if you are tired of being punished for having bad luck again.

How to buy chickens and sisters
Yes, there is a page two on the tower menu. Yes, a lot of people don't know that, and I also noticed only after a while. In it, you can buy e.g. chickens (which you should!), upgrade the Smith so that there are more weapon slots, or buy a Villa so that you can hold parties to increase damage for the next day.

Manual Reload
With many non-automatic weapons (e.g. Hunter's Rifle, Shotguns) it is a MUST to reload after every shot. The delay will be barely noticable, but avoids the incredibly long timeout for a full reload when the weapon is empty.

Some skills cannot be levelled up
For example, the Assassin medal gives every character a starting skill of Sense+1. The Hunter class, for example, cannot gain this skill under normal circumstances. So, the Hunter cannot level up that skill, which makes the situation rather confusing because it is there, and you can focus on Sense as long as you want, it will never go up. In a way, that skill slot is blocked. On the other hand, a Hunter can not learn so many skills anyway.

Party skills
It does NOT give any benefit to have one Party Skill learned by multiple characters in a party. It clearly says so in the games' documentation. Some people claimed e.g. that having several characters learn "Active" would give more AP. That is not true.

Aiming issues

1. If you have trouble aiming because the game screen is too small, just zoom in with your browser (press CTRL and +) until the flash window almost fills all of your screen. I have tested that with Firefox only, might not work with IE, Opera, etc. On the other hand, some people might like the smaller flash size because they will not have to move their mouse so far for aiming...
2. The size of the crosshairs in combat varies. The bigger they are, the less your accuracy will be. A very small crosshair, on the other hand, indicates that you will hit almost exactly where you aim at.
   

The Ragnarok Sword
Once in a while you will find the Ragnarok Sword. If you use it in combat, all hell will break loose upon you. You need to have some very good equipment (e.g. Rapid Bowguns, Gravity Guns and/or Rocket Launchers and/or Grails) in your party to beat the wave.
The chicken way out of this is to use the sword at the end of the day, right before the finishing screen appears. That is a good way to get the medal in the first place, like when you find the sword on day 1 or 2, which happens suprisingly often. Takes the fun out of it, though. Defeat the Dragons you must, young Skywalker!
One note after having reached day 150+: Once you have come this far, you will laugh at Ragnarok. My noble with his Rapid Bowgun Mk-15 slices them in half before they can even think of firing.

Perfect Games
It is usually a good idea to go for perfect games, as you gain a lot more money out of it. A game is marked perfect, if the castle health is full at the BEGINNING OF ALL WAVES. Hence, having the repairman on level 1 or 2 makes this a lot easier, because they repair the castle automatically BEFORE each wave. E.g., if your health is 51/54 because three chickens hit you, and repairman is on level 1, they will heal 4 HP before each wave, giving it full health again.

Titles and Fame
Promotions (i.e. the ability to "Claim Title") occur on certain days. For example, on day 100, you can claim the title "King". It seems that there is no connection to fame, as some people say. Actually, I have no idea what fame does. Perhaps, fame will get a meaning in a future update of the game.

Also, there is the Impossible Badge medal that gives +20 to starting fame. Since the medal is fairly hard to achieve, perhaps even the hardest there is, one might expect that fame plays an important role. But again, I did not find any evidence for that.

Inn Activities

1. Don't spend too much money on the museum. The gain is not really high, especially when there are not many medals.
2. The two empty slots in the bottom row of the Inn menu are probably reserved for future updates.
3. Taunting multiple times in the same day has a great effect on your reward, but not as much on the enemy health! I taunted 5 times on day 23 and got 5000+ gold on day 24.
4. After day 100 or so, you will get a major portion of your money by taunting. The big advantage of taunting over most of the other income sources is its good scalability with the costs (Upkeep, Wages, etc.). That is in contrast with e.g. the museum, which provides almost constant revenue every day.
5. The Villa becomes essential after day 50 or so. You should spend all spare money there. There is no maximum level for it, but having it upgraded to level 10 around day 100 along with some neat equipment will make things a lot easier. Party on!

Team mates
When hiring team mates, they should have level 10+ in both Aiming and Teamwork, except if you hire them before day 10. In any case, make sure they improve in both skills, because sometimes there are NPCs that do not level up there anymore.

Tower Updates

1. Little sisters are nice to have, especially with the Love skill which gives an amount of gold per sister shot. But you should not buy more than 30. First, they get way too expensive after Lvl 20-30. Second, they tend to roll off the visible screen area if you have more than around 40, making those useless.
2. Buy lots of chicken. They really pay off later in the game. But no more than 120, as they become somewhat expensive around that.
3. From my experience, the looter and trainer updates don't give many benefits. Don't spend money there unless you can really afford it.
   
4. Similarly, you should not update the museum until day 30+. With all medals, it gives less than 300 gold per day on update lvl 1.

Walkthrough: Dungeon Defender, level 9 (Wizard/Hard)

Skill allocation: Three points into the manticore tree, and everything else into the avatar tree (abilities and treasure skills only).

Finally. The best of the best the humans have got. And it is not even THAT difficult. Assuming that you manage to get a solid defense up in time.

To do so, dig out the areas where the demons and elementals are placed first (see the screenshot below). Move your avatar as shown to a place near the left spawning point and keep him around, unless the enemies threaten to overrun the other path.

Try to place a demon to right soon, because your melee units will be outnumbered vastly in the beginning. Also get at least some manticore lairs up fast to be able to stop the enemy valkyries.

On the left, you can hold out with two minotaurs and one manticore lair for quite a while, so focus on building up defenses on the right.

Place lairs as shown and throw in some traps in between. If you have some money to spare, buy some depots, but usually you need most of the money for the lairs and traps.

If everything goes well, you should not have much trouble. Watch out for the boss enemy, though. If it breaks through, the game is lost.

Congratulations, you've made it! Let's all hope there will be a Dungeon Defender 2 soon!

Walkthrough: Dungeon Defender, level 8 (Wizard/Hard)

Skill allocation: Three points into the centaur tree, all other available points go to the avatar tree.

With this skill settings and some nice lair placement, this level is a lot of fun!

Keep your avatar near the left spawning point most of the time, and move it away only in case you need to help out elsewhere and the enemies are threatening to overrun one of the other paths.

Immediately issue dig orders for the more important spots. Start with some of the minotaurs and centaurs, as they are the cheapest. For the left spawning point, you will need only one minotaur and your avatar for a while.

Make sure to place those lairs first which will have the most contact with the humans. For example, the Centaurs on the bottom lefternmost corner (where the enemies turn around the corner) will be active almost constantly. Another example is the demon lair immediately to the right of the bottom spawning point.

Try to conserve money: Build only as much as necessary to survive. If you have about 500 to 1000 gold coins of trease, buy one or more depots, as they will greatly increase your income.

Enjoy and stay tuned for the final level!

Walkthrough: Dungeon Defender, level 7 (Wizard/Hard)

Skill allocation: Three points into the manticore tree, everything else goes to the avatar.

Pause the game, and issue dig orders covering most of the treasure squares. Also, dig out the altars and temples as fast as possible.

Keep your avatar near the left spawning point, as seen on the screenshot. Start out with only a minotaur lair and your avatar on the left, and with an elemental and some minotaurs on the right.

Build the lairs as depicted below and focus on the demons (because the really hit hard) and the lairs around the bonus-providing squares (altars, temples).

Good luck!

Walkthrough: Dungeon Defender, level 6 (Wizard/Hard)

Skill allocation: Three points into the Centaur tree and all other points into the avatar tree.

I found it easiest to complete this level relying mostly on Centaurs and a couple of minotaurs to engage the enemies who make it through the rain of arrows your centaurs let loose. Also, one or two liches on the exit of the long paths on each side are somewhat mandatory, since the enemies will pool up there and make a great target for the liches area attack.

Just check out the screenshot below for the lair placements... Enjoy it, and let me know if you need additional advice.

Walkthrough: Dungeon Defender, level 4 (Wizard/Hard)

Skill deployment: Put three points into the manticore tree and the rest (1 point) into your avatar tree. By the way, the screenshots can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Timing is very critical in this level, because you will want to get the treasures as soon as possible. On Hard mode, it is near impossible to make the level without digging out at least some of the treasure chests. Whenever you are not attacking treasure guardians, help out your troops at the bottom of the stone walls.


Start out with five Minotaur lairs and place them as seen on the above screenshot. Immediately place dig orders for the two squares next to your home tile and the door and treasure behind the goblin cave to the right. Head for the goblin cave and stop over your minotaur lair, triggering the goblins and centaurs attack while letting your Minotaur take the on the Goblins and catch the Centaurs' arrows.

As soon as the goblins are dead, position yourself over the goblin lair, protecting the peon and at the same time attacking the centaurs. With the 100 gold coins from the treasure, buy three manticore lairs and place them centered below the stone pillars as seen on the next screenshot.

Buy two more manticore lairs when you can afford it and place them left and right of the other three you already have. Next, go for the minotaurs guarding the second treasure lair: Place a minotaur lair as shown in the next screenshot and lure the enemy minotaur out with your avatar. It will be engaged by your creatures as well as your avatar and should not last long.



The enemy manticores will (or already have been) taken care of by your troops, because they have a big patrol radius and will move out on your rightmost manticores usually. The liches are quite weak so you can just kill them with your avatar without much risk.



When you can afford it, place elementals and manticores as shown above to destroy the guardian demons, hydras and dragons. The elemental guardians can be opposed best with your own elementals, or a couple of minotaurs if elementals are not yet available.



Repeat the above for the guardians on the left side of the screen and you should finish the level with lots of gold.

That's it for level 4. Stay tuned for level 5, and please let me know if there is anything missing here.

Strategy and tips: Dungeon Defender

One of my all-time favourite flash games, Dungeon Defender, is a unique Tower Defense game with some RPG elements. It was created by Greyhoundgames.com.

In this chapter, I will explain basic tips and strategies which apply to all levels. I am also going to post walkthroughs for levels 4 and 6 to 9 (but not for levels 1-3, since they hardly require any serious thinking). Here is a quick overview linked to the walkthroughs:

Level IV

Level VI
Level VII
Level VIII
Level IX


Skill deployment
During the first three levels, I recommend putting everything into avatar development (i.e. attributes). It gives you a lot more damage output and lets you survive better.
From level 4 on, it really depends on the level what to choose. The right skill allocation can make the difference in winning a level. Usually, you want to have three points in either the manticore or the centaur tree, and the rest in the avatar tree. I will point out the optimal skill deployment for each of the levels in the corresponding walkthrough.

Lair Placement
Two rules make for maximum effect when placing lairs:

1. Place lairs first where there will be the most contact with enemies:
Ranged created should be placed close to the spawning points so that they can engage the enemies immediately. But keep at least one and a half sqaures distance because otherwise the "explosion of good" that occurs when your creature is too close to a spawning enemy will wipe out all your troops inside its radius.
Melee fighters can be placed a long distance away, as long as their patrol radius covers the enemy path. Generally, it is best to always set the patrol radius to maximum. Althought this means that your troops will die more frequently, they will gain much more experience that way and kill the enemies earlier.

2. Avoid placing lairs in the path of enemies:
Doing so implies the risk of the enemies running over and destroying your lair.

Save money!
Try to conserve money: Build only as much as necessary to survive. If you have about 500 to 1000 gold coins of trease, buy one or more depots, as they will greatly increase your income.


Check your inventory frequently
Usually, it is a good idea to change the inventory control from auto to manual. That is because the AI just prefers the newer items, even if the currently equipped item is superior. For the Wizard, e.g., you will want to have as much Haste and Magic bonusses as possible.


Lairs
Goblins: They are the basic creatures. I am not a big fan, although they might be of some use when you place them in large numbers. Usually, after level 2 I do not buy goblins at all.

Minotaurs are very useful melee fighters, especially with their first upgrade which gives them a 30 percent speed increase. Even in the later levels where elementals are available, it is good to have some minotaurs for the sake of numbers.

I am going to finish this chapter soon. In the meantime, enjoy this truly great game!

Walkthrough: Sonny 2, Zone 7 (Biological/Heroic)

Make sure that you have a speed build of the Biological, i.e. have all points put to speed. Train until you have reached lvl 28 and buy the Velocious equipment. It will give insane amounts of speed and decent vitality. Nice.

With a lvl 28 Bio, the Velocious gear and some good weapons will yield 600+ speed. Using the combo Toxicant Form - Shadow Blend - Agile Exposure - Withdrawal, you should be able to hit for 30k damage with one shot.

1. Doctor Klima:
   He has unbelievable 2 million HP, but fortunately, he will cast a powerful healing spell after being stunned twice. Use Break, then Crystallize and wait. Just when Crystallize has worn off, cast Subversion, making him damage himself for 500k to 800k. Repeat several times until he's gone.
2. North Guardian, South Guardian (aka Twin Guardians):
   As soon as one of the two dies, the other one becomes enraged, meaning he completely freaks out and does an always-hit-16k-damage attack. Needless to say that you want to avoid this.
   I tried several approaches here until I found the tactic described below, which still can sometimes fail if they use their cosmic attack with the 6k damage on you in between.
   Start by using Corrosion on the top guardian, then Crystallize the south one. Next, use the combo on the North guardian, but leave out Toxicant form to avoid killing him. What you want to do is to bring him to as little HP as possible without killing him. By the way, the guardians will regenerate their shields after being crystallized, so watch out!
   Then, use Break on the south one and then crystallize him once more to give the Withdrawal time to regenerate. In the meantime, use Agile Exposure on the top one to keep him at low health with the help of your teammates. Then Break again but this time crystallize the north guardian - the one with the low HP - and do the full combo on the south one, which should kill him off with one hit.
   Now that only the North guardian is left, make absolutely sure that he does not get to attack, because it means certain death for one of you. Break and then crystallize him twice to get Withdrawal available again. Even though he will have regained 10k+ HP, doing the full combo on him will finish him off.
   Usually, the north guardian will get one enraged attack through, meaning that you will lose one team member. If it is you, just restart and start over. I have tried this several times and it works!!
3. Yosuke:
   Yawn. Crystallize, Toxicant Form, Shadow Blend, Agile Exposure, Withdrawal. Done that.
4. The Corruptor, Orb (2x):
   Ignore the orbs. Use the combo on the Corruptor twice, Break and Crystallize in between. Much too easy, if not disappointing. Just make sure to kill the orbs last,
   

Congrats on getting the Over the Ashes badge! You've made it, and if you've been playing on Kongregate, another Impossible Badge is yours! :)

Walkthrough: Sonny 2, Zone 6 (Biological/Heroic)

Another chapter in the run for the Ashes of Ashes achievement. In case you have gotten the Legend achievement now (which you should have), you can train as much as you want here. It will NOT matter because zone 7 is already unlocked with the Legend badge.

1. Metal Warden:
   Watch out for his Death Sentence spell. It is the same that The Warden from zone 1 already used and will kill the affected team member. Whether you have a strength-based Poison build or a speed-based shadow build, this fight should be easy.
   
2. The Bomb:
   Wow, this took me long to figure out. Here's what I did:
   Put ALL available points into speed (Respec if necessary), put equipment on that boosts your speed and bring the following abilites: Withdrawal (max), Agile Exposure (max), Shadow Blend (max), Toxicant Form, Leading Strike.
   Use this sequence to inflict damage: Corrosion - Toxicant Form - Shadow Blend - Agile Exposure - Withdrawal. My Bio inflicts about 29,000 damage (31k) with that combo (!), depending on your stats it might be more if you have good equipment. Mine was average because I threw away some high speed-bonus stuff.
   Fill in with Agile Exposure and Leading Strike, then repeat the whole sequence (7 turns per cycle due to the cooldown of withdrawal) until finished.
   Your teammates will also benefit from the Agile Exposure and Corrosion, making them inflict more than double damage.
3. Nostalgia:
   With the above sequence and event half decent gear, you will knock him down in no time. Bring Disrupt along, by the way, to counter his buffs.
4. The Judge:
   Same as above. Piece of cake for a good speed build Bio. Funny attack buffs has, though.
   

Having been able to kick the bombs butt after all really made my day. Yay! :)
Enjoy your victory, and move on to zone 7, which won't be so easy.

Walkthrough: Sonny 2, Zone 5 (Biological/Heroic)

Zone 5 brings the most powerful enemies so far, make sure to boost vitality as much as possible.

1. Riot Police:
   As usual, this zone starts out very weak with and opponent you will see again quite a lot in the later encounters.
   
2. Riot Police, Blood Hound:
   It is a good idea to bring Crystallize along to keep the dog out of the fight for later. By this time, you should build up your poison skills and also keep Reform at lvl 2 to help the team.
   
3. Secret Police (2x):
   Again, keep one of them out of the fight with Crystallize and you should have no trouble here.
   
4. Police Colonel:
   Whenever he is reloading (i.e. flashing orange) hit him with everything you have. As soon as he puts on the grey glow (i.e. guns blazing) just crystallize him and wait until he is vulnerable again. Usually, he will immediately switch to reloading mode.
   Sometimes he doesn't, but by this time you and your team should have a lot of vitality, so you can take some hits from him, especially if you keep Veradux on defensive mode.
   You will need some patience here, but if you exploit his Reloading phase and stun him occasionally to heal the team, he should be toast.
   
5. Felicity:
   That should be a quick one.
   
6. Care Taker, Bloodhound (2x):
   It start to get interesting. You will have to use Crystallize constantly to reduce the number of active opponents to a minimun at all times. Concentrate your attacks on the topmost dog first, and keep the others stunned. Use Leading Strike a lot to regain focus and Reform if necessary. Keep Veradux on defensive.
   As soon as you take down the first dog, it should become a lot easier.
   
7. Riot Police (2x), Android Guard:
   Now we're talking. You will again need mostly Crystallize, Leading Strike, Reform and some supporting spells (I chose Anaesthetic to make them deal less damage and Corrosion to make them take more). Also equip Disrupt, you will need it.
   Crystallize everyone except the topmost Riot Police as often as possible. Use Disrupt on the Riot Police when it uses Perfect Aim. Put Veradux to healing unless you are really healthy. Use Reform if any of your teammates gets below 2k health.
   Btw, you did put most of your points to vitality, right? And hopefully you chose your and your teammates gear according to highest vitality bonusses.
   Another way to ease this fight is to use Disrupt on the Android guard if you can spare it. Whenever it gets low on focus it uses this neat Re-Focusing buff which stuns it for five rounds.
   It could take you one or two attempts, but eventually you will take down the top Riot Guard, making this fight piece of cake.
   
8. Specialist, Android Guard (2x):
   Equip Disrupt at least two or three times. It will help you neutralizing the Android Guards a lot. Crystallize the Specialist at all times, he is quite dangerous. Put Veradux to defensive mode and help healing the team with Reform if necessary.
   
9. Mayor, ZPCI Ambassador:
   Good old nice conversation.
10. City Council (2x):
    Obviously, you need keep one of them crystallized at all times. It takes a lot of patience to bring them to low health. Equip Envenom several times, it helps delivering damage, especially if you use it multiple times.
    Concentrate your attacks on the top council. Use Break and Envenom, and let your teammates do most of the punching. Once you have killed him, things turn out a little ugly.
    Because once a council member has been killed, the other one gets a very nasty focus regeneration buff, that will allow it to cast deadly one-hit-kill spells, making the fight really difficult to win. The easiest solution is to keep him crystallized until his energy shield runs out and then stun-lock it. Stun-locking means to constantly use a combination of Crystallize and Break. In the meantime, envenom him to speed things up.
    
11. Secret Police, Android Guard, Specialist:
    Put your team to Relentless mode. The Specialist is clearly the most dangerous opponent here, so keep him crystallized all the time until nobody else is left. Cast Disrupt on the Android Guard twice to make him knock himself out whenever he is awake and otherwise focus on the Secret Police.
    If you throw in Reform occasionally in case your team requires healing, you should not even need to switch Vera to healing mode at all.
    
12. Specialist, Blood Hound (2x):
    Wow, I hadn't expected such a tough fight. The hounds are incredibly fierce attackers and you need all the vitality you can get here. I managed to take them down with a lot of crystallizing. Most of all the Specialist needs to be kept out of the battle due to his dangerous support spells. It is basically the same tactics as with all fights in zone 5, but it is a lot tougher. Neither the Specialist, nor the Blood Hounds possess any weaknesses and they all have a lot of HP.
    It took me five or six tries and in the end only Sonny survived, but what the heck.
    
13. Secret Police, Android Guard (2x):
    Compared to the previous and following encounter this one is ridiculous. You need Disrupt 3x, Crystallize 2x, Reform 1x and something with a punch.
    Immediately crystallize the Secret Police and keep him that way. Use Disrupt on the Android Guards whenever possible and they will knock themselves out nicely for you. Use Reform if any of your teammates gets below 2.5 or 3k HP.
    
14. The Mayor, Security Cannon:
    Keep the Mayor crystallized until you have taken out the Security Cannon.
    Bring Disrupt two or three times so that you can destroy the Cannons focus whenever it gets above 30. Because then it will fire a very powerful ice spell that does around 5k damage. In the meantime, make sure that you deal more than 300HP damage to it per turn, because that is as much as it regenerates.
    Once only the Mayor is left, he will most likely put on a buff that makes him do 400% damage. Well, sometimes this goes away after a while, much before the 99 turns are over. But if it doesn't, it is a good idea to crystallize him every now and then to help your spells to cool down and heal the team.
    Additionally, I found it quite effective to destroy his focus often, making him rather harmless. After seemingly ages, you will bring him down eventually, finishing the regular part of the game. And, even better, if you have been playing on Heroic difficulty, you will have finally won that Legend badge. Man, that took some time!
    

Woo hoo, congratulations on your Legend achievement! I think I am going for the Corruptor now, but it may take a day or two. There is some ugly stuff in zones 6 and 7. But stay tuned, I will post it as soon as I can!

EDIT: And here you go...

In the meantime, please post your comments on my strategy if you like.

Walkthrough: Sonny 2, Zone 4 (Biological/Heroic)

Zone 4 is one of the easiest areas of the game. There are some quite powerful enemies, but by the time you get here, they should not pose a serious obstacle.

One of them took me really long to beat, though: Gregor. This annoying little bitch of a roach had me completely off the tracks, because I had read some strategy advises on the net, suggesting to stun him to keep him from healing. Well, I found that quite hard to do, and he always had me. At least I found out myself what to do instead. Arrrr.

1. Tunnel Beast:
   Using a defensive build, I defeated it with a combination of Destroy, Leading Strike and Break. I had to crystallize it once to get the team healed, helping with Reform.
   
2. Vivian Vixen:
   Likewise, use Destroy, Leading Strike and Break. You might have to crystallize it occasionally and heal you team and help the spells to cool down.
   
3. Gregor (the Roach):
   Equip Disrupt four times on the Abilities Wheel. Use Disrupt on him in every turn and let your teammates do the damage. This way, you will bring him down very slowly, and also, most importantly, keep him from using his healing spell. Even with 14 Focus, he can cast it, so make sure to keep him at 0 Focus all the time.
   If one of your teammates' health gets dangerously low, use Crystallize on Gregor and set everyone to defensive mode to heal yourselves. When Crystallize has timed out, switch back to attack mode. That's it, Gregor. Got you.
   
4. Shunny:
   Apparently a somewhat twisted mirror image of Sonny, he is quite dangerous and has some powerful attacks. You will need Reform and Crystallize quite a lot. In the meantime, bring down his health by having your team attack most of the time and help out with Break and Leading Strike if possible.
   Whenever his health drops to one third or less, he will cast Withdrawal. Use disrupt immediately when he does to keep him from healing.
   
5. The Magical Monkey:
   It comes with a lightning attack that does 2k damage. Equip Reform and Crystallize several times and heal your team if necessary. If you have no more Reform available, crystallize it. It takes a while, but you will bring it down eventually.
   
6. Mokoshotar:
   This wulf features a nice attack that does one point of damage but transforms the affected team member into a wulf for three turns. While this effect lasts, this unit will do 6k of damage with any attack.
   Consequently all you need to do is keep your team alive and on attack mode or attack yourself if your character is the wulf. Nice and easy.
7. Bunny:
   I find it best to stun/crystallize it a lot, because it has a very powerful attack, and on Heroic, you and your teammates do not have that much health, so that two or three hits will kill you. Just be patient and attack as much as possible before stunning it again.
   Also, it uses the "Holy Handgrenade" spell a lot. If this happens, put everyone to attack mode, because then it will take much more damage. Man, good old Monty Python's!!
   
8. Flower Zombie:
   It uses a lot of funny spells. Dude, this guy needs a break, so why don't you help him to one. He uses a regeneration spell that you need to dispel on sight, but otherwise it just takes some time and some stunning to bring it down.
9. The Hydra, Fire Claw (2x):
   The tentacles are highly suceptible to Infect, so I recommend equipping it at least twice. Crystallize the Hydra and finish off the tentacles with Infect. It usually takes two or three hits to take them down, depending on your Poison Piercing. Heal with Reform when necessary.
   The Hydra itself is somewhat impervious to poison attacks and that's why you will want to bring some physical attack along, like Leading Strike or Destroy, that you can use for continuous damage.
   IMO, this fight is one of the easier ones with the above tactic.
10. Tunnel Worker (3x):
    The fight will end after dialog is over and you will receive some nice equipment that helps a lot in the next zone.

Congrats, you just made it through zone 4. Zone 5 is available now as well. Legend, here I come!

Walkthrough: Sonny 2, Zone 3 (Biological/Heroic)

Zone 3 is a lot easier than the first two. If you managed to come this far, this should be a cakewalk for you.

1. Spectre:
   A lot of Spectres will be encountered in zone 3. They pack some punch, but are harmless when alone.
   
2. ZPCI Elite (2x):
   Use crystallize to keep one of them out of the fight at all times, then they will be no match for you.
3. Spectre (2x):
   Funny enough, I had to leave my computer right after the fight started. When I returned, all I saw was the victory screen. Neat.
   If you do not share this experience, try crystallizing one of the two and focus on the other.
   
4. Antagonist (2x), Beast:
   I don't regard this as a difficult encounter. Keep the Beast out of the fight with crystallize, and finish the other two one by one.
5. The Hobo:
   He does not do a lot of direct damage, but instead he spams you with damage-over-time spells, which will eat away at you increasingly. The key to winning is to throw all you have at him. Still, a pretty lame fight, even if you do not have a build capable of dealing much damage.
6. The Real Hobo:
   Funny, he does not seem capable of hurting you much, but instead has a number of effects which damage him. So, enjoy the show! :)
   
7. The Host:
   Be wary of his Dark Rage spell! If he hits you while having it you're dead! So, whenever he casts Dark Rage, stun oder crystallize him. Apart from that, he does nothing special, except for a rather powerful, but occasional attack.
8. Spectre (3x):
   Use Crystallize constantly to keep out one or preferably two of them. Use Reform if somebody requires healing and Break when available. With this strategy, the fight is piece of cake.
   
9. Clemons the Deceiver:
   The unknown buff that he frequently uses in the beginning is similar to Subversion, so avoid healing the affected team members. Instead, crystallize Clemons, wait for the condition to go away and then apply healing.
   After a while (as soon as the "The Nightmare is over" buff expires on him) he will cast full heal and then switch to his true form, having a buff on him which takes double damage. The fight will be over soon, I found it quite easy.
   To make it even quicker, you can watch out for the Nightmare buff to expire on him and cast subversion in the right moment, killing him instantly.
   

You have finished zone 3, move on to zone 4!

Walkthrough: Sonny 2, Zone 2 (Biological/Heroic)

Walkthrough for zone 2 of Sonny 2, played as Biological and on Heroic difficulty. I am running for the Legend achievement and thus avoid training fights.

1. Frost Zombie:
   No big deal. Make yourselves familiar with ice effects. There will be more of that in this zone.
   
2. Roald, Insurgent:
   The fight will end after the first round, no matter what you do.
   
3. Frost Guard, Frost Zombie (2x):
   On Heroic this fight can take some attempts. The timing is difficult because you will have to switch a lot between healing and attacking for you and your teammates.
   As usual, best approach is to concentrate on one unit at a time, starting with the Zombies. Use stun whenever possible, make sure focus is always sufficient for healing and disrupting and be on guard for their healing spells, which should be dispelled at once.
   
4. Knight:
   The Knight is a rather weak unit, so you shouldn't have any difficulties here.
5. Priest, Knight:
   Slightly more trouble. Drain the Priests focus whenever possible. Then he will cast a focus-regaining buff which has the very nice advantage of him being stunned and free for you whack away at him.
   
6. Frost Lord:
   This guy is really disappointing, considering his designation. Watch out for his regeneration spell and neutralize it when it appears.
   
7. Mage, Priest, Knight:
   Nice crowd, and definitely more of a challenge. Keep on disrupting the Priest, so he will knock himself out to regain focus. In the meantime, use Break on the mage as often as possible, but take out the Priest first. Try to keep the Priests HP lowest, so that your teammates will attack him when set on Relentless.
   When the Priest is gone, take out the mage next. When his health runs low, he will cast a full heal. I think the threshold for that is around 400 or 500 HP. That's why you should stun him at that time to keep him from doing that, or use Subversion. Either way, it should not be too difficult now.
   
8. Mage (2x), Knight:
   One of the toughest encounters of the game, in my opinion. Luckily, the Knight doesn't seem to like the lower mage somehow, because he tends to protect the upper mage, not the lower one.
   Knock the mage out as often as possible, and use Disrupt from time to time to prevent them from casting Doom too often. If any of your team members gets two Doom effects at once, you will most likely have to restart.
   Again, when a mage's health approache 400-500, they will cast a full healing spell. And you don't want them to do that. Use Subversion or stun to keep them from healing or just punch them hard enough.
   
9. Cult Leader:
   Nothing special here. He is a guy with a lot of health who casts a Subversion-like spell from time to time. Either dispel the Subversion or use this as a healing break. When his health gets low, a dialog will appear.
10. The Baron (Baron Brixius):
    Well, I defeated him rather easily on Challenging, and on Heroic it is exactly as easy. I have no idea how there can be so many people complaining that they can't kill the Baron.
    All you need to do is put your team to defensive mode and drain his focus from time to time. He will cast a Focus-regeneration that lasts for three turns and drains 5k health every time. If his health drops to around half, he will get the "Holy Scars" modifier which exponentiates the damage, so that one Focus-regeneration hit will finish him. Enjoy!
11. Mage, Knight, Priest:
    Hmmm, looks familiar. But see for yourselves.
12. ZPCI Elite, Wolf (2x):
    By the time you get here, you should be able to put 2 points into Crystallize. Do that and use it to keep the ZPCI all the time until the wolves are dead. Use Crystallize, then Break on one of the Wolves, Leading Strike, Healing or Leading Strike again, then Crystallize. Have your team attack the wolves and help them from time to time. I beat them in the first try with this tactic.
13. Captain Hunt, ZPCI Sniper, ZPCI Medic:
    This fight is quite managable with the right tactic: Immediately, crystallize the Medic. Keep him out of the fight at all times, because otherwise he will heal the others. Now keep on punching the Sniper and set the team to Relentless. Heal Veradux if necessary, because he will get most of the beating usually, as he is the one with the least health.
    The Sniper is very dangerous unless you dispel/disrupt his Crouching and most of all the Lock and Load buffs. Also, use Break on him whenever possible.
    When the Sniper is finished, keep on crystallizing Captain Hunt now and finish off the Medic. The fight is rather easy now, it just might take some time to get the Captain's Health down. That's because you will most likely have no real damage-dealing abilities in the wheel.
    The wheel setup I used for this battle was: Leading Strike, Break, Reform (lvl 2, 2x), Disrupt (lvl 2, 2x), Crystallize (lvl 2, 2x). Good Luck!

Congratulations on finishing zone 2. Zone 3 is here!

Walkthrough: Sonny 2, Zone 1 (Biological/Heroic)

I am playing Biological on Heroic mode. For general tips on strategy and character setup, see here.

The skill distribution I used: Start with Vicious Strike, Break (2x), Integrity (2x), then Disrupt (2x), Adrenaline and Reform (2x).

1. Prison Guard:
   Hit him with Destroy, replenish Focus with Leading Strike, then Destroy again. Repeat until dead.
   
2. 2x Prison Guard:
   Repeat the above, but also use Break whenever possible to disrupt their attacks. If your health runs low, put Veradux to Defensive mode to get some healing.
   
3. Brutal Convict, Agile Convict:
   Not too difficult either.
   
4. Brutal Convict, Agile Convict, Cunning Convict:
   Same as above. Just make sure to watch your health and switch Veradux to Defensive when in danger.
5. Doctor Leath, 2x Prison Guard:
   Watch out for the doctors ability to transform the Prison Guards. Best to take him out before he is able to do that. Otherwise it is quit doable.
6. Twisted Experiment:
   The first difficult fight if you're playing on Heroic, because you have not enough punch yet to kill him quickly and he has some powerful attacks. You need to equip Disrupt two times and make sure to always have enough focus to cast Disrupt once or twice, because you will have to dispel its nasty Shadow spells frequently.
7. The Warden:
   The Warden is much easier to kill if the Predator form is available, which requires the character to have at least level 6.
   On Heroic, though, only Level 5 abilities are available, so I usually counter his attacks with Adrenaline cast on Veradux and Reform when necessary. Make sure to have Reform and Adrenaline equipped twice.
   After a couple of hits, when his health is somewhat down, he will cast the Death Sentence spell on Veradux or you. I have found no countermeasure for this so far, and usually you can finish him off with one character, too. I found it useful to attack him with a combination of Break, Destroy, Leading Strike.
   
8. Doctor Hedger, Frankie:
   Overall, a pretty simple fight, even on Heroic. The doctor is not really dangerous, but casts some supporting spells on Frankie. Best to finish off the doctor first and then focus on Frankie with the good old combo Break - Destroy - Leading Strike. Put Veradux to Defensive if necessary.
9. ZPCI Elite:
   Watch out for his "Aim For The Heart" buff. It deals massive damage - always dispel immediately with Disrupt. Another effect you don't want him to get through with is "Auxiliary Power" which regenerates his health and focus.
   If you manage to dispel these two buffs immediately, the fight is rather harmless. Again, it helps to have Break and Disrupt at level 2 and Disrupt equipped two times.
10. Felicity:
    She is pretty tricky. Very annoying is her "Black Metal" spell that practically blocks healing. Buffs which you immediately need to dispel on her are "Blade Dance" and her healing spell. Keep hitting at her with Break, Destroy and Leading Strike. Also help Veradux with Adrenaline and Reform if needed.
    If you hold out for a while she will say "Don't start what you can't finish" and switch to a mode where she deals more and receives less damage, but at least wont't cast Black Metal or Blade Shield any more. If you have made it that far, you have practically won. Keep hitting at her and put Veradux to healing mode if you run low on health. And disrupt her Shadow Blend spell in case she uses it, because otherwise she can kill you right away.
    The fight will end if her health is very low.
    

End of Zone 1; Zone 2 walkthrough is here!

Game hints: Sonny 2

Sonny 2 is a fabulous flash game created by Armorgames. I already played the predecessor a while ago and liked it a lot. The sequel now is pretty similar. It contains more storyline, though, and luckily there are fewer bugs this time.

Here are couple of strategical hints that I found quit useful. I will continue to update and enhance these as I play the game.

If you have any additions or questions I am looking forward to your comments.

I am playing Biological on Heroic mode after having completed it on Challenging. Between the fights, put most points into vitality and some into strength and speed to deliver at least a little punch and have a good chance of hitting/crit/evasion. When buying or selecting items, keep those which add most to vitality and strength. Do NOT waste any points on Instinct, it is useless for the Biological.

Update for zone 6 and 7:
Starting with the second encounter in zone 6, you will need to be able to inflict lots and lots of damage. Usually, you have to respec there and put EVERY point into speed from there on. I will explain more in the walkthrough for zone 6.

Teammates
After a while you will get NPCs to join your party. In the inventory screen you can control which characters are part of your team by shift-clicking on their portrait.

When a fight starts, put Veradux to Relentless mode, to make sure that he attacks the same opponent in subsequent turns and to make it more predictable which one he attacks. On Relentless, he will attack the one with the lowest HP count. When the opponents have the same health, he usually picks the topmost enemy, so I usually engage that one too.

Roald kan be kept on Relentless most of the time. Only if you need his healing support effect it makes sense to temporarily switch him to Defensive.

Learn Crystallize as soon as possible and put all available points in it. It really helps making fights easier. If you encounter several opponents, you can keep some of them stunned with it. And for single opponents, use Crystallize to get a break to cooldown spells and heal your team.

Pause in Heroic??
A very useful "feature" I discovered accidentally when taking on the Mayor in zone 5. If you do a right-click on the game screen, there will be a context-dialog related to the browsers Flash plugin. Nothing special, but the good thing is: The game pauses while the dialog is displayed. Naturally, this is the case on Heroic difficulty as well, giving you endless time to think about your moves and effectively neutralizing that annoying timer... Enjoy!
EDIT: Apparently this does not work with all browser/OS combinations. It definitely works in Firefox under MacOS X.

Equipment
When I played the game, I went through two phases of equipment selection.

During the first five zones, I focussed on vitality-boosting equipment mostly. Afterwards, speed has absolutely highest priority, so you will want to put aside some nice clothes that increase your speed during the later zones.

You can (but most likely will not want to) respec to the speed build earlier than zone 6. That is because the Biologicals most destructive combo (Toxicant Form, Shadow Blend, Agile Exposure, Withdrawal) requires a lot of ability points. Additionally, some supporting spells like Crystallize, Disrupt, Reform and Integrity are mandatory.

Zone 1-5: Always prefer equipment with high vitality bonus, also for your teammates. Furthermore, I found it best to have Sonny have the lowest speed, but the highest HP.
The high HP count makes enemies attack you the least, and instead punch your teammates more, thus ensuring that you will be the Last Man Standing. That's especially nice because your NPCs completely fail at finishing off more than one enemy on their own.
Second, the low speed allows your teammates to carry out their moves before you do e.g. cast Crystallize, or Subversion. You will deliver a lot more damage especially if you need to stun-lock an enemy.

Zone 6-7: Select equipment first of all by its speed bonuses, and secondly by vitality. That helps in case you get hit a lot. Also, since you will have the lowest HP count of your team, most attackers will focus on you. Due to the high speed, they will miss most of the time, but you never know.

Here is a list of chapters of the walkthrough:

• Zone 1: New Alcatraz - The Iron Prison
• Zone 2: Oberursel - The Frozen Village
  
• Zone 3: Ivory Line - The Train
  
• Zone 4: Labyrinth - Tunnel Of Illusions
  
• Zone 5: Hew - The Dystopia
  
• Zone 6: Il Sanctus - The Supreme Court
  
• Zone 7:

Walkthrough: Gateway

Gateway is a point-and-click game created by Anders Gustafsson. I played it here, on gamingdelight.com.

Since I played the second part before this, I found that the sucessor has a richer atmosphere and more plot, but still, this one is nice to play.

1. Walk around the boxes, then click on switch to open door.

2. Pick up stairs, then use stairs on floor in front of step. Click on switch to open door.

3. Pick up remote and batteries, then use batteries on remote. Use remote on sensor above door.

4. Push first and fourth button, so that the way is clear. Click on switch to open door.

5. Walk over floor until the color pattern matches the one above the right door.

6. Click on telescope, then move around view and see what happens. Leave and enter combination 739339 in number panel beside the right door.

7. Click on plank to lower it. Walk to middle isle and make the two sensors into the same color (e.g. green twice). Walk back through the left door, then lower the right plank. Walk back through the right door, then make the panels in the center blank (i.e. background color) and walk through right gateway.

8. Pick up all pearls. Put them down into the boxes (from left to right): large, medium, huge, tiny, big, small. Click on switch to open door.

9. Pick up screwdriver, then use screwdriver on panel. Click on panel, then pick up extension cord. Pick up power cord, then use power cord with extension cord. Use power cord with power outlet. Click on TV. Watch the various images, then exit. Click on number panel, then enter combination 954271.

10. Walk over the ground until the following color pattern is set:
- top left: green
- topmedium: pink
- topright: yellow
- bottomleft: cyan
- bottommedium: purple
- bottomright: orange
Step on elevator.

Walkthrough: Johnny Rocketfingers 2

Johnny Rocketfingers 2 is a point-and-click adventure game created by Ryan Katham. It can be found e.g. on here on Kongregate.
You should make sure to have played the first part as well, even though the second one has much more plot and animations. Also, the user interface is more advanced and includes a permanent inventory and different options.

Pick up ashes from ashtray.
Pick up empty bottle.
Use empty bottle on countertop.
Use ashes on thug.
Pick up card.
Pick up stuff under couch (use hand on "under couch").
Pick up knife from left wall (above the couch).
Pick up chain.
Use key on window.
Pick up gum on wall (under the windowsill).
Use gum with chain.
Use hand on ladder.
Walk left and use hand on trash can.
Walk right and talk to shady looking character.
Ask about information and where to find Thug Inc. Agree to get him what he wants.
Use hand on shop door.
Pick up Forty (the liquor bottle in the foreground).
Use Forty on the crack in the wall, beside the arcade game.
Leave shop. Use hand on the crack in the wall.
Walk to the bum and give him the bottle.
Pick up his money.
Go back into the shop.
Pick up Seltzer from the counter.
Talk to clerk.
Use hand on ladder.
(There are apparently dozens of different cool animations for the next sequence)
Use Seltzer with bread.
Use bread on the pigeon.
Use hand on nest.
Climb down.
Use hairpin on parking meter.
Walk to the right and use knife on drain.
Use hand on open drain.
Climb back up and go to alley.
Use knife on trash bag.
Leave alley and go back down to sewer.
Use wrench on pipe.
Climb into the hole, use burger outside the hole and use pipe on the crocodile.
Use wrench on wheel.
Use hand on the wheel.
Use the single coin on panel.
Use knife on panel.
Click on the open panel and use scrabble piece on missing button.
Use hand on the new button.
Keep walking left to the gate.
Use the combined gum and chain on lighter on top of the treasure pile.
Go back up and talk to the shady character.
Talk about the lighter, confirm finding and ask about the location of Thug Inc.
Keep going left until you see bus.
Use the coin pile on the bus.
Walk to the hideout.
Enjoy the ending.

Walkthrough: Johnny Rocketfingers

Johnny Rocketfingers is a point-and-click adventure game created by Ryan Katham. It can be found e.g. on here on Kongregate.

It features a not too complicated plot, funny dialogues and pretty cool action. The animation is somewhat minimalistic, but nicely drawn. The sounds are cool, too. Overall, all you need for a short break.


Part I - The Case

Either accept directly or choose the first answer.
Check out the bar alley.
Click on the empty can.
Click on the trash bin.
Click on the fish.
Click on the dump.
Click on the cat.
Click on the fish.
Leave.
Go to the local thug hang out.
Click on the cat.

Part II - The Break In

Click on the box.
Click on the plank.
Click on the doll.
Click on the plank.
Click on the gun.
Click on the empty can.
Click on the gun.
Click on the gun.
Click on the door.
Click on the crowbar.
Activate Johnny Power.

Part III - The Rescue

Click on the nail in the wall to the right.
Click on the pile of dirt on the floor.
Use screwdriver on the hole at the bottom of the far wall.
Use screwdriver on the door window.
Use screwdriver on the hole at the bottom of the far wall.
Use screwdriver on window.

Part IV - The Conclusion

Enjoy the show.

How to make an HTTP connection in C++ on Windows (Mobile) using WinINet

Making a programmatical HTTP request from an application is a very common use case. However, I found that there are some obstacles, especially if it is not just a standard GET request.

for example, let's say there is an application that needs to upload a binary file to a web server with SSL. Obviously, this makes it slightly more complicated, since the file needs to be read, custom headers added, HTTPS used instead of HTTP, etc.

The below example, for starters, shows how utilize the WinINet library to send a GET request using either HTTP or HTTPS, depending on whether the flag m_bUseSSL is set. The difference between those two is the port setting in InternetConnect() and also the additional flag INTERNET_FLAG_SECURE in HttpOpenRequest.

One thing that kept me in the dark for a while is the accept type parameter in HttpOpenRequest. On Windows Mobile 5.0, if this parameter is NULL, the function will fail with error code 87 ("invalid parameter"), contrary to what the documentation says. Hence, you need to pass the array as documented and also shown below. this is especially a pain because in the emulator for Win Mobile 6.0, which I used for testing, it tolerates a NULL accept type parameter. I hope this saves you some time.

// Accept any text content
const TCHAR * c_szAcceptTypes[]        = { TEXT("text/*"), NULL };

HINTERNET hIntrn = InternetOpen(TEXT("HTTP_Connnect_Example"),
                     INTERNET_OPEN_TYPE_DIRECT,
                     NULL,    // no proxy
                     NULL,
                     0);    // make it synchronous


if (!hIntrn)
{    // error handling
}

INTERNET_PORT wPort = (m_bUseSSL ? INTERNET_DEFAULT_HTTPS_PORT
                        : INTERNET_DEFAULT_HTTP_PORT);
HINTERNET hConn = InternetConnect( hIntrn,
                                    m_szServerName,
                                    wPort,
                                    NULL,
                                    NULL,
                                    INTERNET_SERVICE_HTTP,
                                    0,
                                    NULL);
if (!hConn)
{    // error handling
}
else
{

    DWORD dwOpenRequestFlags = INTERNET_FLAG_NO_UI |
                                INTERNET_FLAG_NO_CACHE_WRITE;
                                // add more flags here as needed
    if (m_bUseSSL)
    {
        dwOpenRequestFlags = dwOpenRequestFlags |
                                INTERNET_FLAG_SECURE;
    }
   
    HINTERNET hReq = HttpOpenRequest(hConn,
                                TEXT("GET"),
                                TEXT("index.html"),   
                                TEXT("HTTP/1.1"),
                                NULL,    // no referer
                                c_szAcceptTypes,   
                                dwOpenRequestFlags,
                                NULL);    // no asynchronous context

    if (!hReq)
    {    // error handling
    }
    else
    {
        if (!HttpSendRequest(hReq, NULL, 0, NULL, 0))
        {    // error handling
        }
        else
        {
            // read server response
            char* pcBuffer = new char[READBUFFSIZE];
            DWORD dwBytesRead;

            do
            {   
                dwBytesRead=0;
                if(InternetReadFile(hReq, pcBuffer,
                    READBUFFSIZE-1, &dwBytesRead))
                {
                    pcBuffer[dwBytesRead]=0x00; // Null-terminate buffer
                    sprintf("%S", pcBuffer);
                }
                else
                {    // error handling
                }
            }
            while(dwBytesRead>0);

            delete[] pcBuffer;
            pcBuffer = NULL;
        }
        if (!InternetCloseHandle(hReq))
        {    // error handling
        }
    }
    if (!InternetCloseHandle(hConn))
    {    // error handling
    }
}
if (!InternetCloseHandle(hIntrn))
{    // error handling
}

Walkthrough: Gateway II

Gateway II is a great point-and-click escape adventure game. It features beautiful atmospheric 3D animations and an original plot. The puzzles have perfect difficulty and the interface makes it nice to play. I like this one very much; it is excellent to play when you need a break! :)

The game was created by Anders Gustafsson and can be found e.g. on Kongregate.

First gateway
-------------
Click on the left gateway
Click on the button next to the door, then on the door
Click on the hand mirror on the sink
Click on the large mirror, then on the warm water tap, wait until combination is visible, then leave mirror
Click on keypad and enter the combination seen in the previous step, click on videotape and click on door to leave
Walk towards gateway, then back underneath the lamp and use bathroom mirror with eye
Enter gateway.
Play all clips on videotape:
Click on TV, use videotape with slot and click on "Transfer"
Click on "1" and "Play", then "2" and "Play"
Click on "Eject" and then leave TV view by clicking to the left of TV

Second gateway
--------------
Click on right gateway
Walk over the transparent bridge. The door will only open if all fields have gone dark, so you will need to step on some fieds more than once
Click on right door
Click on poster, note down combination
Click on lighter and newspaper (on desk)
Click on drawer, then on screwdriver
Use newspaper on door, then use screwdriver on door
Click on newspaper, then use key on lock
Click on door then enter next room
Walk over invisible bridge (about the same distance as the red bridge), then click on videotape
Walk back to TV room. Again, the door behind the red bridge will only open when all fields are dark
Play all clips on videotape (see instructions under first gateway)

Third gateway
-------------
Click on third gateway
Click on lamp six times
Click on phone desk, then click on pen
Move mouse (pen) over the blank area of the paper with mouse button clicked, until number becomes visible
Put down pen (click on the area where you picked it up)
Click on receiver, then dial number shown on paper. Put down receiver, and leave phone view
Click on next door
Use lighter on sprinkler
Pick up videotape
Open fridge, then hide between door and fridge
Click on door to leave
Walk underneath the lamp, then use mirror on water
Memorize or write down color sequence, then click on alarm override
Set the above color sequence, then door should open (if it doesn't work, try it backwards)
Click on door to leave
Click on door to leave
Play all clips on videotape (see instructions under first gateway)

Fourth gateway
--------------
Click on fourth gateway
Note down the three numbers above the far door
Click on window
Let the robot calculate all three numbers (e.g. for the number "24" type "12" and "12")
Punish on wrong answers until the calculation is correct
Leave the robot
Click on door
Click on telescope, wait
Click on lamp six times
Click on telescope, wait
Click on phone desk
Click on receiver
Dial number on paper (11223311)
Click on door
Click on TV and enter combination from poster in 2nd gateway (786)
Click on videotape and go back to starting point

Final
-----
Click on robot
Click on TV and play all clips on videotape
Click on wire on the ground
Click on the robot with the wire in hand
Use the wire with hole
Enter number of the tapes' proper chronological order (264379851)
Follow the robot

Walkthrough: The Several Journeys Of Reemus, Chapter 1

The following is an instruction how to solve "The Several Journeys Of Reemus, Chapter 2" (I played it on Kongregate). It is a lovely point-and-click adventure with nice graphics and a funny plot.

I tried to keep to telling where to click and not give away any plot information.

Chapter One
-----------
click on the barrel to roll over to the shovel
click on the shovel
click on the mouse trap
click on the bucket
click on the feeding tray
click on the ladder
click on the bucket
click on the hay
click on the rake, then on the parasite

Chapter Two
-----------
click on bird
click on Reemus, then on the bag of the guardian
click on one of the darts
click on the vial to the left of Liam
click on Reemus
click on the dart to roll it in honey
click on the dart again

Chapter Three
-------------
click on the blue animal
click on a the peppermint plant
click on the pepper-plant (the one with the red leaves, not the one with the yellow leaves), then click on the coral-like hollow structure where the Yallerpede is hiding
click on the blue animal
click on the purple plant in the background, then on the air pump plant
click on the air pump plant's tail, then on the tip of the root where the Yallerpede is hiding
click on the air pump plant again

Chapter Four
------------
click on the electric beetle
click on the pink Daiquiri plant to pick one off
go left to the first screen (i.e. click on the arrow), then click on the eyeless beaver
click on the branch where the beaver was sitting, then go right to the second screen
click on the blue-yellow coral plant, then go left to the first screen
click on the bird, then on the bubble slug it is holding
go right to Liams screen, then back to the first screen
click on the big leg bone that was recently dropped, then go back to Liam
click on the purple butterfly nest above the zapper plant (just right from the bird), then immediately on the zapper plant to keep its mouth jammed open
click on the slug the bird is holding

Chapter Five
------------
(Reemus) go to the leftmost screen, click on the antennae of the big yellow flower on the tree, then click on the donut field in the foreground. Go one screen to the right.
(Liam) go one screen to the left. Click the pendulum plants until all of them are aligned at the top of the screen, on the same height as the bowl of cheese. Click on the bird. Walk on screen to the left.
(Liam) click on the twin parallel branches of the leftmost tree, right beneath the spider.
(Reemus) click on the puddle of mud beneath the spider net, then click on the big pile of grapes.
(Liam) should look like a giant bee now. Go to the rightmost screen, then click on the bee.

Chapter Six
-----------
(Liam) click on the hole leading to the honey.
(Reemus) click on the orange plant, then on the blue plant. Then align the six small round animals(?) until the sunlight is reflected onto the blue plant you just clicked on. This should make the weed inside begin to smoke.
(Liam) click on the handrail near the entrance, to get the hook-like pipe loose. Click on the root of the blue plant, then click on the blue bear. Click on the hole leadin to the honey, then on the root with the beak-like thorn.
(Reemus) click on the root in front of Reemus twice, then on the bag of the purple plant.
(Liam) click on the root again, twice.
(Reemus) click on the severed purple plant, then on the root.

Chapter Seven
-------------
There are three different ways to play Chapter Seven:

Chapter Seven - Double Hero

(Reemus) click on the plants in the foreground, then on the cave entrance. Click on the frog to hide inside. Click on the plant next to the frog, then on the evil creature.
(Liam) walk two screens to the right, then back to the entrance. Click on the sleeping hamster twice, then walk to the right. Click on the cactus in the background, then walk back to the left. Click on the burning animal in the foreground, which looks like a coral fish, then walk back to the right and click on the cyan scavenger. Walk to the right and click on the parasite.

Chapter Seven - Lucky Coward

(Reemus) Click on the mouth of the frog.
(Liam) Walk two screens to the right, then back to the cave entrance. Walk to right.

Chapter Seven - Double Coward

(Reemus) Click on the mouth of the frog.
(Liam) Walk two screens to the right, then back to the cave entrance. Walk to left.

How to query Windows Connection Manager in C++ for Internet connection parameters

Recently I had to create an HTTP connection from an application on Windows Mobile. After a while I figured out that the Connection Manager would be the way to go to determine connection parameters, like proxy settings etc.

You can then use e.g. WinInet functions for the actual data traffic. I will post an example for that later on. The following has been tested on Windows Mobile 5.0 and 6.0.

By the way, I will have to look for a way to get the formatting and syntax highlighting optimized.

int QueryConnMgr()
{
    HANDLE hConnMgr = NULL;
    BOOL bMgrAvailable = FALSE;
    hConnMgr = ConnMgrApiReadyEvent();

    if(!hConnMgr)
    {    // error handling
        return 0;
    }
    // wait for half a second to allow ConnMgr to get ready
    DWORD dwRC = WaitForSingleObject(hConnMgr, 500);
    if (WAIT_OBJECT_0 == dwRC)
    {
        bMgrAvailable = TRUE;
    }
    if(hConnMgr)
    {
        CloseHandle(hConnMgr);
    }
    if(!bMgrAvailable)
    {    // error handling
        return 0;
    }

    // create CONNMGR_CONNECTIONINFO structure required for URL mapping
    CONNMGR_CONNECTIONINFO ci = {0};
    PROXY_CONFIG pcProxy = {0};
    DWORD dwIndex = 0;
    DWORD dwStatus = 0;
    HRESULT hr = S_OK;
    HANDLE hOpen = NULL;
    HANDLE hConnection = NULL;
    ci.cbSize = sizeof(CONNMGR_CONNECTIONINFO);
    ci.dwParams = CONNMGR_PARAM_GUIDDESTNET;
    ci.dwFlags = CONNMGR_FLAG_PROXY_HTTP;
    ci.dwPriority = CONNMGR_PRIORITY_USERINTERACTIVE;
   
    // Attempt to map the URL to a target net
    hr = ConnMgrMapURL(TEXT("http://your.server.url"), &(ci.guidDestNet), &dwIndex);
    if (S_OK != hr)
    {    // error handling
        return 0;
    }
   
    // make synchronous connection attempt with timeout of 15 seconds
    hr = ConnMgrEstablishConnectionSync(&ci, &hConnection, 15000, &dwStatus);
    if (S_OK != hr)
    {    // error handling
        return 0;
    }
   
    if (dwStatus != CONNMGR_STATUS_CONNECTED)
    { // makes no sense to continue
        return 0;
    }
   
    // Get proxy information.
    hr = ConnMgrProviderMessage( hConnection, &IID_ConnPrv_IProxyExtension, NULL,
                                    0, 0, (PBYTE)&pcProxy, sizeof(pcProxy));
   
    if (S_OK == hr)
    {
        dwAccessType = INTERNET_OPEN_TYPE_PROXY;
        pszProxy = (LPTSTR) LocalAlloc(LPTR, ARRAYSIZE(pcProxy.szProxyServer));
        // Make sure pszProxy was allocated.
        hr = StringCchCopyN(pszProxy, ARRAYSIZE(pcProxy.szProxyServer),
                            pcProxy.szProxyServer, ARRAYSIZE(pcProxy.szProxyServer));
        if (S_OK != hr)
        {    // reset proxy info on error
            pszProxy = NULL;
        }
    }
    else if (E_NOINTERFACE == hr)
    {
        dwAccessType = INTERNET_OPEN_TYPE_DIRECT;
        pszProxy = NULL;
       
        // Reset hr, since it's not really an error here.
        hr = S_OK;
    }
    else
    {
        // unexpected hr code
        return 0;
    }
   
    ConnMgrReleaseConnection(hConnection, TRUE);
    return 1;
}