Beating The Game

While you might have problems with beating the game, here are a few handy tips and tricks to keep you alive:

Opening Doors
One of the most important things to remember is that you don't necessarily have to open every single door. When opening doors you should focus on making the longest path possible, since the monsters will follow your path regardless of there being a shorter (closed) path to the crystal. Once you choose a path, open the doors until you reach a dead end. After that begin to open the side doors from the dead end until you have no more possible paths.

Building Modules & Defenses
Don't build modules in all rooms that you can. If you're able to make a long path, you can then make a defensive room which you can squeeze enemies through, full of turrets to sweep up your enemies. Then keep side rooms that are properly defended, without need to rebuild every time you fail to defend a wave.

Don't be scared to use the Space Bar to pause the game if you don't think you can multitask very well. You can issue commands, move around as well as heal and build while paused. This is very useful when opening doors in lower levels. A typical strategy is to pause once you open the door to figure out where the waves are and plan the best strategy for your heroes.

Only build modules where you can defend them, and along your primary path. Only build Defensive Modules in your kill rooms along the main path. Don't waste too much of your Industry on Tesla Coil or Mortars as the odd difference isn't quite yet worth it. However the Slow Module and the Healing Module are pretty powerful when set up in a large room.

Recruiting & Your Heroes
Do your best to keep your heroes alive. They're your main resource and losing them could result in actual tears being produced. Without them you fail. Don't stress about recruiting new heroes unless you can spare the food, which should be a big focus from the start.

However, you'll have to balance between building different modules, as well as your hero level ups, finding and spending on new recruits and, lastly, keeping your heroes Healed. Keep enough food in reserve to heal once or twice for the next door. It takes 5 food to heal your hero a bit and, depending on number of waves, you may have to heal a few times.

Un-recruited Heroes will fight mobs for you, so if you don't have the food yet to recruit the hero, make sure that you fall back to their location to defend them.

Lastly, and most importantly, keep your heroes (aside from the one you're using to open the door) on the modules & busy. You gain additional bonuses depending on your heroes' Wit, the higher the heroes wit, the more bonus resources you get. For example, if you have three heroes make sure two of them are on an Industry Module or a Food Module every single time you open a door with your third hero. Finding a balance between having heroes assigned to defense, modules, and running is a key element when building a winning team. Do not get greedy when leaving heroes to operate. It is not worth an extra 4 industry for one turn by leaving a character in a room if you need them to save another hero or protect your crystal from losing dust.

Room Power & Mob Spawning
Choosing which rooms to power is highly important. Monsters will not spawn in a room that is powered. Sometimes rooms should be powered just to prevent monsters from spawning, especially while finding the exit. Maximize your dust consumption to the fullest, as to keep waves from spawning. In a pinch you can put a hero in an unpowered room to prevent spawning, and move them once the door is fully open.

When making for the exit focus power along the path to the exit, since once the crystal is lifted mobs will spawn in all unpowered rooms.

There is no penalty changing the power to rooms. This can be used to a great advantage, so experiment and find what works best. Any Modules and Turrets will not be destroyed if you run out of dust, just powered down.

In Pause mode (space bar), you can power down and power up your rooms in order to scan the rooms to check what kind of enemies are approaching.

Items & The Merchant
Items are highly important to your survival in the game. Make sure you equip items appropriately on your heroes. Focus your tank on higher survivability and speed, as a key tactic to winning is to open doors and then run back to your squeeze room if you find enemies or waves. Equip higher Wit items on heroes which are assigned to the Modules to gain higher resource return from opening doors.

Not every item is needed so be careful when buying items from the merchant. Dust is highly important to being able to light rooms which in turn stop mobs from spawning. You may wish to sell unused or unwanted items to The Merchant for additional Dust. You can also get Dust for most every room you clear and most monsters you kill.

Once you're ready to exit the level (and if there's a Merchant still alive) use the extra dust from the de-powered rooms to buy items, as it will go to waste since you will start the next level with 20 dust regardless of how much you had at the current level.

Exiting The Level
Once you've found the exit, it's time to plan the escape. From the very moment you pick up your crystal enemy waves will start to spawn. They won't stop until you reach the exit, and if you don't make your way fast enough they WILL overwhelm you. Monsters will focus on the hero who is carrying the crystal, so pick your fastest moving hero to carry the crystal to the exit.

Not all of your heroes need to reach the exit, just the hero with the crystal. However you will lose any heros that don't make it. Avoid covering too much with the other heroes, just focus on getting them to the exit or out of the way of the mobs. Make sure to choose the shortest distance between the crystal and the exit, lighting as many rooms as possible with the available dust.