| GemCraft | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Game in a Bottle |
| Publisher(s) | Armor Games(Flash) NTT Resonant Inc.(iOS)[1] |
| Platform(s) | Mac, Windows, Linux, anything that supports Adobe Flash, iOS |
| Release date(s) | June 26, 2008(original), April 16, 2009(prequel), 17th February 2011(sequel)[2] 14 April 2011(iOS)[3] |
| Genre(s) | Tower defense, Real-time strategy |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
GemCraft is a tower defense flash game created by Game In A Bottle. Originally released June 26, 2008, a prequel, GemCraft Chapter 0: Gem of Eternity, was released April 16, 2009, and a sequel, GemCraft lost chapter: Labyrinth, was released February 17, 2011. The original was released for iOS on April 14, 2011 by NTT Resonant.[1]
In GemCraft , players are given gems and may combine them to put in towers. Different combinations of gems produce different effects, such as splash damage, Damage over time and triple damage. The player's life bar and magic energy are represented by the same statistic - mana. With mana, the player can purchase towers, gems, trenches, traps, and combine gems. A key aspect of strategy in GemCraft is to increase the player's mana gain to high levels, enabling creation of the strongest gems. Combining two gems creates a single gem of higher power, or 'level'. The gems change with level. In GemCraft Chapter Zero, level 1 gems are represented by a triangle, Level 2 are squares, and so on until level 6; all gems after that also become circular cut gems.
Contents |
GemCraft: The Forgotten[2] original game was a very simple game, with 8 different gems, each with a different ability. The gems' colors and abilities are:
| Gem Color | Effect - Explanation |
|---|---|
| Red | Splash - Damage Splashes a certain radius from the explosion (other effects do not splash). |
| Orange | Mana Gain - The player gains a certain amount of mana per hit, depending on certain factors. |
| Yellow | Triple Damage - There is a chance that each hit will deal x3 damage |
| Lime | Chain Hit - There is up to a 40% chance that each hit (including chained hits) will hit another monster. |
| Green | Poison - Deals a certain amount of damage over 5 seconds. Poison effects are stackable. |
| Cyan | Shock - The object is paralyzed for up to 1 second. This has up to a 14% chance of occurring. |
| Blue | Slow - The enemy monsters slow down a certain amount depending on the level. |
| Purple | Armor Reduce - there is up to a 70% chance that the monsters armor level will be reduced by 1. |
Grade 1 gems are triangle, Grade 2 gems are square, Grade 3 gems are diamond shaped, Grade 4 gems are pentagons Grade 5 gems are hexagon, Grade 6+ gems are circle.
Along with using them in either given or built towers, players can combine gems to create either pure gems with very strong specials, dual gems with weakened specials but higher damage, range, and speed values, or even more, although the benefits past dual gems are negligible. Another possibility with gems is to use them as gem bombs, which are free to cast, and vary in power depending on the level of the gem. The player can drop them on monsters to damage and kill them instead of using them in towers. This is useful if the player does not have enough mana to banish (survive the assault) the monster.
Trenches are used like slow gems, except they are placed on the path, usually around the player's towers, and cannot fire at enemies. They slow down all enemies that pass though them, giving the player's towers more time to shoot at them. These are very useful against Epic Bosses, (what is traditionally referred to as simply bosses, but since there are boss monsters throughout the levels, this is the name for the larger variations.) which have masses of HP (some over 50,000), and are hard to take down without much help.
There were also 12 skills a player could invest in. The player earns 4 skill points upon leveling up, and these may be used to obtain unlocked skills. These skills ranged from lowering the amount of mana paid to purchase things, to increasing the potency of gems, giving the player random gems to start levels out with, etc. Some skills cost more points than others, but were more powerful and worth the extra cost.
There were also hidden levels that the player can unlock by getting a glowing rank, which was obtained by earning a set score on each level, on 6 linked levels, including epic boss battles (the last two levels do not count toward hidden levels). There were 8 of these levels, each allowing the player use of only 1 type of gem, as opposed to other levels which allowed use of 2 to 8 gems. These levels unlocked an amulet, GemCraft's version of an achievement, and counted toward the total score and gave XP. Other than that, however, these levels were just a challenge.
GemCraft Chapter Zero: Gem of Eternity[2] was released on April 16, 2009. The game was redesigned: Trenches were cut, and replaced with traps, in which the player placed a gem of any level and color, and the gem dealt 1/5 of the damage it would have in a tower, but fired twice as quickly and its specials were doubled as well. The skill sets were redesigned for a more customizable experience, with each gem color having a skill, in addition to dual and pure gem mastery. The game also introduced the prismatic gem, which is made up of all 8 colors. It has a mastery. All skills were returned in some shape or form, with trap skills replacing the trench ones. Many skills were expanded into multiple skills. Monster beacons, which block the player or aid the monsters, and spell shrines, which aid the player when a gem is dropped on them, were also added.
The basics returned. The game remained a tower defense game, and the goal was still to protect the player's wizard tower (the game's equivalent of a base) from waves of monsters. The colors and effects remained the same, and the only skill to be completely overhauled was build a trench, which was replaced with build a trap.
All levels except for the arcane boss battles (which replaced epic battles), not to be confused with arcane battles, had 10 ways to play them. Each could be played in each mode to gain XP, and each level had 3 of the 8 eligible modes (the default was ineligible, and the hidden 10th mode was also ineligible) gave triple XP. Amulet XP was tripled on those as well (except for Victory and Journey amulets) These were the 9 modes given:
| Game Mode | Specifications |
|---|---|
| Normal | Survive the level by killing monsters without complete loss of life. |
| Sudden Death | Kill all the monsters without one reaching the wizard tower. |
| Endurance | Survive for as long as you can. |
| Heroic | 2 extra waves than normal, with 20% more monsters, having 40% more HP. No giant monsters. |
| Swarm | Only swarm monsters with 60% more monsters. |
| Time Siege | Complete in a specified amount of time. |
| Bleeding Edge | 60% more monsters, with 80% more HP. No Giant monster. 4 additional waves. |
| Carapace | Armored monsters only, with twice as many monsters, and each with more armor but decreased speed, plus 6 additional waves. |
| Arcane | 80% more monsters, with twice as much HP, plus an arcane guardian and 8 additional waves. No giants. |
| Beyond Corruption | 6 grade 5 gems (hexagons) given at start. 2x monsters, with 150% HP. 10 additional waves, and 2 more added each time completed. No giant monsters. |
GemCraft lost chapter: Labyrinth,[2] has basic game mechanics that are roughly the same as in the original GemCraft, though many new features have been added. The Labyrinth chapter in the series is the largest yet, with 169 separate maps available for play in a mazelike 13x13 grid with the player starting at one of the edges and moving through the maze to eventually "complete" the game at the center. When a player first completes any one map, zero to three adjoining maps will be made available to play. There are many changes to the game's structure although the basic tower-defense premise remains the same. Some changes are described below.
On August 1, 2011 Game In A Bottle announced the beginning of the development on the next part of GemCraft.[4] which will be named "GemCraft Chapter Two: Chasing Shadows". As for now the release date is unknown, likely because of the short time since the announcement.
Gamezebo gave the original GemCraft game a rating of 3.5/5.[5] Slide to Play rated the game 2/4, stating that it doesn't have a unique twist to set it apart from other flash games.[6]
As demonstrated by fan reactions to initial delays in the release of GemCraft Labyrinth, it was a much anticipated sequel to the series.[7] As of June 2011, Labyrinth garnered a rating of 4.8/5.0 from 156 votes cast at Casual Gameplay.[8]