GemCraft Chapter 0 Walkthrough

The Wizard wants one thing, the Eternal Gem, a powerful gem with the ability to open gates to other worlds, grant eternal life, and generally has infinite potential and power. Exiled by the council for reading forbidden books about the gem, he continued his studies.

GemCraft Chapter 0 is the same tried and tested gameplay of GemCraft and tower defense games in general. If you have played any tower defense for five minutes or GemCraft for two minutes, you will know exactly what to do, if not, read on.

GemCraft Chapter 0 is a tower defense game in which you protect yourself from colossal vermin by summoning towers and creating gemstones, which though useless on their own, turn into formidable defensive measures when combined. Creating gems is as simple as clicking the function and clicking on what tier of gem that you want to create. Higher grades of gems cost higher amounts of mana, and what color you get is completely random, so it's more effective to create low-grade gems and combine them to your desired grade, leaving the others as gem bombs.

Gems of multiple colors can be combined, but this reduces their specials and overall stats significantly depending on the impurity. There is a limit to how many colors can be on a gem, and once this limit is reached, the least potent power is completely ignored by the game, rendering it useless unless you flood more gems of that color into your weapon.

You can also contruct towers to place gems in, and trenches to slow down your enemies. The cost of these greatly increases quite quickly, so don't think you can plaster the entire area with a slew of trenches and still have mana for gems and towers. A new function in the game is Traps. Traps do far less damage than towers and their range is much smaller, but the special ability of the gem placed into them is much higher, making Slow and Poison gems ideal for them.

Another new element in Gemcraft Chapter 0 is Shrines. Shrines charge up over time and when a gem is dropped on them, the gem is sacrificed and a powerful attack is released depending on the Shrine's type and the Gem's grade. Don't be stingy. Another element on the side of the monsters is Beacons. Beacons grant bonuses to the monsters or limit your conjuration powers to make making traps and towers impossible, but dropping a Grade 3 gem bomb directly on top of one instantly destroys it.

As you kill monsters and as time passes, you accumulate mana which allows for the creation of gems, towers, trenches, increasing your maximum mana, and gem bombs, all of which are needed to win, especially in the later stages.

When you clear a stage, all stages next to it are unlocked, giving you some freedom in how to do them. As with the previous GemCraft, Chapter 0 shows on mouseover the details of the stage, including what gems are available and how many monsters there are. When you reach certain levels however, you can replay the previous ones under certain conditions, such as only having swarm monsters. The conditions increase the EXP multiplier for the stage, allowing you to level quickly once you get the trick down.

As with the previous entry, accomplishing certain goals unlocks amulets, which give an EXP boost for the battle