This is the ultimate walkthrough for our game 10th Corpse, written by our friend and guru Match 3 player Kathy Lew (SynthpopAddict).
Don’t be misled by the simple look and tiny M3 boards of this game. This whole game is actually a bunch of different games and it’s surprisingly complex despite the relatively simple graphics, so I will explain each one in the exact order they appear in the game throughout the walkthrough.
If windowed mode doesn’t fit on your monitor where the bottom of the game screen looks fuzzy because your computer’s taskbar is getting in the way and/or you can’t see the bottom border of the game window, either play in fullscreen or pick one of the other screen resolution options in the drop down menu. Otherwise the Continue button on the character dialogs won’t work and you’ll miss a lot of the storyline details, which are sort of hard to follow in the game anyway as it’s a mystery story which won’t become clear until near the end of the game, as is typical for mystery stories. You will also miss stuff like tutorials on the game mechanics and the skip button charging/being able to use it.
Other notes about the M3 game:
This entire game is in relaxed mode! There are no options for timed or limited moves but those who enjoy a challenge will still get plenty. The “award tracker” on the top of the screen has 2 numbers by it. The first one is the number of moves you’ve made in the level and the second is the cutoff for earning a star. If you can win the level in less than or equal to the cutoff you’ll earn a star.
If you don’t want any move hints flashed in the M3 levels, click on the Menu button at the bottom right and move the hint slider all the way to the left to turn off hints. You can also move the slider all the way to the right and always have move hints displayed in the M3 levels. This Menu button is also where the replay level button’s at if you know you’re going to miss a star or you get a puzzle level messed up.
There are 3 possible stars to win in every M3 level. One is for finishing the level in less than or equal to the moves shown by the yellow cutoff number at the top by “Award Tracker”. The other 2 stars are for 1) not using any powerups from the powerup menu on the left side of the M3 board and 2) simply completing the level, so you will always get at least 1 star for every level you complete.
The “Award Tracker” has 2 numbers by it. The one in yellow is the 3 star moves cutoff as described earlier. The other number is a counter showing how many swap moves of tiles you’ve made. It is green as long as you stay within the cutoff, then turns white if you go over. A useful trick to know is when there is some type of extra item on a level like a fireball or brown skull which can be hopped, hops do NOT count as a move on the award tracker unless the hop causes a match.
I played the entire game without using any of the powerups on the left side of the screen because my gaming OCD makes me go for 3 stars all the time, so this section is mostly based upon commentary from the developer. If you want to use powerups, there’s a green bar on the left side of the screen which charges with matches you make in the M3 levels. The green bar has to be full before you can pick a powerup. Click on one of the powerups shown on the left side to use it. Mousing over the images of each powerup will explain what it does. Using any of these powerups will cost you some energy from the bar as well as a star off the level.
Answering the trivia questions correctly grants you faster charging speed on the green powerups bar and later, additional attack strength and additional hit points for battle levels. If you miss a trivia or dialog question, click the Main Menu button in the dialog box and then click Start Game from the opening screen to be taken back to the start of the dialog with the trivia quiz to get another chance at the questions.
Larger matches of 4 or more tiles changes one of the tiles you matched into a bomb which clears a cross-shaped area (removes row and column). In order to trigger a bomb, you must match the bomb tile with others of that same type, so this is not one of those “click on free bombs to blow your way out of everything” games. Making and using your own bombs doesn’t cost you a star.
Level goals will vary as you go along. Check the goals on the right side of the screen to see what it is you need to do to win each level.
If you are completely stuck on any level, minigame, or puzzle, wait for the Skip button to fully charge at the bottom left corner and you can skip it. The Skip button charges extremely fast in minigames/puzzles so those who only want to play the M3 part of the game can rapidly omit all the other content.
If you want to replay previously completed M3 levels for stars you missed or give a M3 level you skipped another shot, click on the “replay M3 game” button in the main menu screen to be taken to the level selection screen.
And now, on to the walkthrough. Enjoy!
Walkthrough
Opening scene trivia quiz: Note that the “mute” button in all dialog boxes is for muting the typewriter sound when dialog is being displayed. It doesn’t turn off any other game sounds.
There are 8 crows accompanying you.
There was 1 shovel outside.
“Keys and locks” levels: The object is to get each key to a lock. The mechanic is a bit weird in that the key doesn’t have to be on top of a lock or even immediately adjacent to a lock to unlock it. If there is only 1 square separating a key from a lock, an arrow appears to indicate you can drag the key to that square and the lock will disappear (even though the key was not actually “in” the lock)! This trick is important to remember in some of the trickier levels where the locks are in extremely tight spaces and it is not necessarily that easy to get a key completely on top of a lock or right next to a lock.
Level 1: Use matches to shuffle the keys straight down to the locks at the bottom.
Level 2: Bust out the crates with matches or exploding bombs from bigger matches so you can get the keys in range of the locks.
Level 3: Same strategy as in level 2.
Jake’s trivia question: A hexagon has 6 sides.
Madame Vinterfragen’s office HOS: The X button is to exit the HOS, but this isn’t the skip button. To skip the scene entirely, wait for the Skip button on the bottom left of the screen to fully charge. The number on the top right corner of the list is the number of items left to find.
Level 4: Use bombs to help you get the 60 red cubes faster.
Level 5: Use bombs and work mostly from the bottom middle so the cascades will help you get all the tiles needed faster. When most of the goals are done, focus on making matches of the tile types you still need to get the last few goals out of the way.
Level 6: Work from the bottom middle and use bombs; all you need is to collect 200 tiles of any type. A few good cascades should do the trick. 3 star cutoff is only 14 moves.
Arkadiusz’s question: Answer “expect pain!” LOL at least the developer has a sense of humor!
Mansion puzzle: The X button exits the scene but doesn’t skip it, and the circular arrow resets the puzzle. The Hint button will flash 1 misplaced piece for you.
Kombi minigame: This is sort of like Tetris where you need to match 4 or more in a row of the same color horizontally or vertically to clear it, but all the pieces are just 2 balls long. If the pieces fall too fast/slow for your liking, move the slider either left (slower) or right (faster) to change the default speed the pieces come down. I found it much easier to play with the keyboard instead of the default mouse controls, so you may want to click the “keyboard” button on the right to switch to keyboard controls for this game. If using the keyboard, the arrow keys are the ones to use. Up arrow rotates pieces. Left arrow and right arrow move pieces sideways and down arrow or spacebar speeds up the rate of falling. Pieces will not split with gravity, but if a match breaks a piece, the leftover ball will fall down to the lowest available spot.
If you choose to play with the mouse, moving the mouse left or right moves pieces sideways, and right clicking rotates them. When you finish a level, you must always use the mouse to click on the buttons in the end level dialog as keyboard controls only work for the actual playing of a Kombi level if you selected keyboard controls.
Unlike some other Tetris style games, you can’t shift a fraction of a piece into a tiny gap in the “stack” to close a small hole someplace at the last second. Here, the pieces will immediately stick to the bottom or whatever lowest point of the stack is underneath once they contact that place, and you can’t flip a piece at the last second to get a portion of it into a hole either – the entire piece must be able to fit into the hole before it will move. Otherwise you get sort of a funny “freezing” effect where the piece hangs in midair. If that happens, stop pressing on the key or let go of the mouse so the piece will fall down.
Arkadiusz Kombi level 1: You only have to match 15 balls in Kombi level 1, and it’s advantageous to set up bigger horizontal matches because all the pieces in a match will count (i.e. matching 5 balls in one move credits you with 5).
Arkadiusz Kombi level 2: Use the falling pieces to match out the same colored angry faces until they’re all gone. Don’t forget pieces can break after a match, so having holes in the stack isn’t necessarily bad if you can set up the colors to where leftover balls will fall onto angry faces lower down after a match higher up is made.
“Brown Skull” levels: The brown skull exchanges places with any tile in its range when you hop it around. This is critical for putting tiles into otherwise unreachable spots for matches. The hopping range of the brown skull is a 2 space radius in any direction from its current location and you can hop the skull to any available spot within the range highlighted by the green cells. You are not debited a move for hopping the skull unless the hop produces a match, so can use it to conserve moves for your moves star.
Level 7: Pay attention to what tiles are near the top wood boxes blocking off the keys in the upper corners. Hop the brown skull so you exchange tiles as needed to set up matches to break the wood. Do the same thing to help get the keys to the locks so you can reach the locks with less moves. It takes some practice to master the hopping technique, but the brown skull is a great asset once you figure out how to get your tiles rearranged with it!
Level 8: Use the brown skull to set up a match to break the wood holding up the top center left key and then move it straight down to the lock. To get that pesky key in the unreachable top left, you have to use the skull to put 3 of the same tile into that narrow column for a vertical match. Hop the skull into the otherwise unreachable column when you have it in jumping range and then hop it back out into the accessible part of the board to swap tiles into the unreachable column. For the top center right key, move it all the way down to the bottom of the board, then drag it 1 space right to the lock. You will probably have to use the skull to rearrange tiles a bit so the far right key can get to its lock.
Level 9: Lower the keys down as far as they will go using matches (use the brown skull to set them up for you if they aren’t there), then drag them into the locks. The current version of this level is way easier than the original version which had a very sneakily placed key on the bottom right.
Level 10: Try to do the bottom right key first because the spaces around it go empty and don’t refill well (matching in the 6th column from the left does repopulate some of those spaces but not necessarily all). Use the brown skull to help set up matches to get that key down far enough. Then use the brown skull to swap 3 of the same type into the open spots on the upper right so they will break the wood with a vertical match, and then to move the top right key down enough. Keep using the skull to help with the left key. You can finish this in a very small number of moves if you rely on the skull to do most of the work instead of making matches yourself.
Arkadius dialog: Pick “0 stars” LOL! Well, now we know the dev doesn’t have ego issues…
Thelma dialog: Pick “another intruder”. Hahaha! When she asks you what you want, pick “about Arkadiusz’s meals”. When she asks you about the “9th Corpse” game, choose “not yet, but it sounds interesting”. (I also think it’s hilarious when I wrongly pick “what’s a HOPA” and get yelled at.)
9th Corpse sub-game interlude 1
HOS 1: The number in the upper left corner is the level number for the HOS in this sub-game. The X button exits the scene but doesn’t skip it. The green button with the figure stepping over an obstacle is the skip button. The number above the exit and skip buttons is the number of items left to find in the scene. The magnifying glass on the right side of the list is the hint button. There are 2 fried eggs to look for which are confusingly named “fried egg 1” and “fried egg 2” in the list; it does not mean 3 eggs total. If the fried egg you’re clicking upon isn’t working, try the other one.
HOS 2: Pretty straightforward, although I don’t get how the dialog from the girl and her dog is fitting into the main storyline.
Arkadiusz Boxtrap 1 and 2: This game is a stationary version of Tetris where the goal is to get all the skulls by surrounding them with the pieces from the right side into boxes of at least 3×3. Right click on the pieces while they’re on the right to rotate them, because you can’t rotate them once they’re dropped into the grid. Drag the pieces with the left mouse button to put them into the grid and release the mouse button to drop the piece into place. You can make bigger boxes than 3×3, so long as the skull is inside at least a 3×3 sized box with no holes.
Arkadiusz Boxtrap 3: You may be able to use piece fragments left over after a box is made to build new boxes out towards other skulls.
“Magnifying glass” levels: These are a lot like the key/lock levels earlier on, except magnifying glasses can be swapped if the tiles around them would make a match. Get the magnifying glasses within range of the blue squares (fingerprints, but you can’t see the fingerprint pattern when there’s a tile atop the blue square), then drag the magnifying glass into the blue square. Since the magnifying glasses are swappable, you must get them immediately adjacent to a blue square before you can drag them into the blue square. You also have to be careful not to swap a magnifying glass away from a target blue square in order to avoid getting stuck.
Level 11: Get the glasses all the way down to the bottom. The center glass can be dragged 1 space left or right once it’s down.
Level 12: Be careful not to shift the glasses away from the center 3 columns or the level will be extremely difficult if not impossible to complete. Bomb explosions which clear the column will instantly drop a glass all the way down to the blue square. The other goal is to collect 100 tiles.
Level 13: Don’t shift the glasses away from the columns they’re in so you can drag them 1 space over when they’re all the way down. 3 starring this one takes luck with getting the right moves at the right time or well-placed explosions.
Level 14: The 2 center glasses are tricky. You first have to shift them 1 column over with matches to get them away from the holes in the board and then try not to drop them past the blue squares in the middle. Avoid exploding any bombs while working on the middle glasses. They are harder to get to the lower squares as you have to shift them back into the original columns to reach the lower squares.
Level 15: Work on clearing the outer glasses first before shifting the middle glasses over a column into the middle one at a time.
Jake trivia quiz:
Tasmania, Queensland, and Victoria are in Australia.
The Iliad and Odyssey were written by Homer.
The chemical symbol for gold is Au.
“Blasting the gargoyles” levels: The most efficient way to solve these are to see if you can line up the fireball (the black circle) with multiple gargoyles (they are randomly placed on the outer edges of the board) and then blast them all with 1 hit. The gargoyles get a bullseye pattern when the fireball is aimed correctly. The fireball can be moved around like the brown skull you saw earlier and hopping it doesn’t cost you any moves if the hop doesn’t make a match. But if the fireball had some charge on it when you hop it, part of the charge will be lost, so aim first before charging. Bigger matches around the fireball charge it faster, but hitting the fireball with a bomb explosion in the same row/column will instantly give the fireball a 100% charge. Even exploding a bomb in an adjacent row/column to the fireball will give a substantial charge to the fireball. Right click when the fireball is at 100% to shoot the fireball at the gargoyles. Another extremely useful thing about the fireball is that since it works like the brown skull with trading places with the tile you hopped it with – you can use it to create match setups and reposition things into spots you couldn’t get into otherwise.
Level 16: It’s a tutorial level as the fireball is already aimed at the gargoyle, so simply get the fireball to 100% and right click.
Level 17: First gargoyle level where you need to aim the fireball first before charging and firing on the 2 gargoyles.
Level 18: The 2 gargoyles by the “notches” are hard to blast because of the board shape making adjacent matches hard to get; bomb explosions for an insta-charge are quite useful.
Level 19: Red gargoyles have an energy bar and require multiple hits to get rid of, plus they randomly move around the board edges after being hit. Try to position the fireball where it will hit both gargoyles with 1 hit and keep aiming and blasting until they’re gone.
Level 20: Three red gargoyles to blast. Use the same strategy as for level 19.
“Battle” levels: The goal is to charge the lightning bolt to 100% with the same methods you use for charging the gargoyle fireball and then right clicking to attack the enemy until all the enemy’s hit points are depleted. The lightning bolt can be repositioned (and will lose charge if it was charged) just like the fireball, but it’s not necessary to aim it in order to attack the enemy. The enemy is the character on the top left of the screen; you are the “inquirer” on the top right. As you make matches, the enemy’s attack meter will charge (red bar) and when their attack meter’s full they’ll blast you costing you some hit points. There are more secrets to winning battles later as the enemies get stronger which I will explain as future battles come up.
Level 21: First battle level against Arkadiusz. He’s not too tough, especially if you can get a bomb insta-charge or 2 to the lightning bolt.
“Cloudy square” levels: The object is to match over all the cloudy greenish squares or blow them up with bombs.
Level 22: You’ll need a bit of luck with cascades/bombs to 3 star this since the cutoff is just 12 moves.
Level 23: Focus on the lower cloudy squares and let the cascades/bombs help you with some of the upper ones unless you’ve got an easy horizontal match on the top.
Level 24: Use bombs to help get through the wood if there aren’t convenient matches. Try to explode a bomb on the bottom row for super efficiency.
Level 25: Clear out the wood or the bottom will not populate.
Level 26: Pay attention to how the tiles are falling in at the top and match the cloudy squares up top as soon as a match falls into place. If there are no matches over the top squares, work on breaking the wood instead to get to the lower squares and/or strategically position bombs to blast the lower squares.
Level 27: Battle with Avril. The health potion bottle is introduced here. It can be moved, charges and can lose energy in the same way as the lightning bolt. Right clicking on the health potion bottle gives you back some hit points. You probably won’t need to worry about restoring your hit points here since Avril’s not hard to defeat, but if you line up the lightning bolt and health potion bottle, they can simultaneously be charged with one bomb explosion.
Avril dialog: Pick “not at all, the room’s decoration caught my interest”.
9th Corpse sub-game interlude 2: You will be picking up from where you’d left off in interlude 1, so the HOS start with level 3.
HOS 3: Some of the items are slap-in-the-face obvious and others are tiny.
HOS 4 and 5: You should be able to figure them out. HOS 5 has a few items where there is more than 1 potential choice to pick from in the scene but only 1 of them will work.
Avril dialog: Pick “those are ashes of dead people”.
“Puzzle” levels: Clear all the tiles from the screen to win. Super easy to 3 star since you can’t access powerups and either you win them or you don’t.
Level 28: Blue, red, green, purple.
Level 29: Blue, purple, blue.
Level 30: Move the purple that’s atop the wood box 1 space left. Then purple, green, skulls.
Level 31: Red, then move the purple that’s atop the wood box 1 space left. Green, red.
Level 32: On the bottom right, move the skull with a pipe to its right 1 space right. Then match the skulls on the right. Blue pieces, skulls on top left, purple.
Level 33: Full of cloudy squares, so match all the spaces or blow them up.
Level 34: You need considerable luck with cascades and bombs to 3 star it since half the cloudy squares are in the corners and the cutoff is 18 moves.
Level 35: If you don’t have a match over cloudy squares, try to make bombs because there’s always some pesky cloudy square someplace in this one… Again, you’ll need some luck to 3 star it with a cutoff of 24 moves.
“Unlocking red squares” levels: Parts of the board are hidden until you match over the red squares or hit them with bombs.
Level 36: Get rid of the 3 red squares and then the cloudy squares are easy.
Level 37: Focus on removing the 4 red squares first and you should be able to take it from there.
Level 38: Battle with Jake. The moon powerup is introduced here which charges, loses charge, and can be hopped just like the lightning bolt and health potion bottle. The moon powerup instantly drains the enemy’s attack meter back to zero when you right click it, so the best time to use it is when the enemy has a significant amount of charge on their attack meter. Jake’s not all that tough to beat although he does attack more frequently than the enemies in earlier battle levels, but you can experiment with lining up your items on the board (I actually prefer an L-shaped setup because even though you don’t get everything charged with a single bomb, it’s not always advantageous to have everything charge at the same time) to charge them simultaneously with bomb blasts. Leave some spaces in between your “stuff” because otherwise it’s hard to get matches.
Jake trivia quiz:
Angel Falls is in Venezuela.
“Baba au rhum” (not sure but I think this translates as “rum cake”?) is a sweet.
Pride and Prejudice was written by Jane Austen.
Napoleon was 35 when he crowned himself emperor (I confess to having to Google this).
The Lone Star State is Texas.
Etymology is the study of the history of words. (The similar looking “entomology” is the study of insects.)
“Brick wall” levels: Brick walls do not let anything drop through them, so you have to shift required items over a column or more so they will have a free path to fall. As in games like Laruaville, you can’t make matches through the walls either.
Level 39: Work mostly from the lower half of the board and let the bombs/cascades help you out with collecting all the tiles. When you’re almost done, focus on specific tile matches to get the last few needed.
Level 40: Use the same strategy as in level 39.
Level 41: Although it seems counterintuitive, I’ve found you usually have to “zigzag” most/all the glasses around the brick walls, as the left and right glasses usually can’t be shifted towards the center to drop more efficiently. There are certain spots of the level which you have to use in order to get the empty spaces to repopulate. Note that dragging the magnifying glasses into the blue squares doesn’t cost you a move. If you think this level’s hard, the original beta version I played had the 3 star cutoff at only 40 moves which was a win the Powerball lottery case!
Level 42: Try to shift the right magnifying glass 1 column left, then 1 column right. For the left glass, 1 column right for best efficiency. Matching in the top area repopulates the empty spaces and this one’s easier than level 41 was, although there’s still a definite luck element with getting the pieces to line up correctly in order to shift the magnifying glasses at the right times.
Level 43: The 3 glasses on the left already have a clear path, but if you want to be more efficient, move the 2nd glass from the left side 1 column to the right so you can put it in the center blue square higher up. The 2 glasses on the right have to be moved over a column in either direction to drop them, but it’s more efficient to put the 2nd glass from the right into the center blue square too (shift it 1 column to the left). Make matches in the top half to repopulate empty spaces.
Level 44: Battle with Lewis. Play it like you did the earlier battle levels. Although he attacks quickly, this still shouldn’t be too much a hassle.
Arkadiusz Kombi level 3: Your control selection from earlier will stay until you change it, so if you’d picked “keyboard” earlier…
Arkadiusz Kombi level 4: The angry faces on the right are pretty high up in the board, so focus on clearing those first because once the lower angry faces are gone it’s a lot harder to build up the stack to reach the higher ones.
Level 45: Work from the bottom and let the cascades/bombs help you.
Level 46: Focus on red cube matches since those are the only ones which count, but if you don’t have any red matches, make bombs with the other stuff so the cascades and explosions will help you.
Level 47: Only blue and green matches count this time, but the strategy for level 46 also works here.
Level 48: Brown, red and purple matches, plus bombs/cascades.
Level 49: Blue and purple matches, bombs/cascades. Break all the wood so the board will refill better.
Level 50: Battle with Thelma. Use previous battles strategy.
Arkadiusz Boxtrap levels 4 and 5: If there are skulls close together, try to put them into the same box to finish faster.
“Bouncing keys” levels: The quirk with these is if a key touches the bottom of the board, it will go back up to the top, so you want to avoid having a key go all the way to the bottom and instead align them above the locks if said locks are on the lowest row. These keys can be swapped to move them more easily, unlike the keys in earlier key/lock levels.
Level 51: Shift the key 3 columns to the right with matches. You’ll have to lower it a bit first to be able to shift it rightwards, but don’t drop it too far down or it will be hard to keep shifting it. When it is 1 space away from the bottom, drag it down or right 1 space to clear the lock. Don’t explode bombs in the same column as the key.
Level 52: Shift each key 1 column to the left and then drag them down 1 space when they are 1 space away from the bottom. Strangely, the nook on the right side doesn’t count as “touching the bottom” so if the right key hits that spot it won’t go all the way back up. If the matches aren’t cooperating with you, send the left key back to the top and keep trying.
Level 53: Ugh, this one’s a PAIN! The left key needs to be shifted 1 column to the right, but the center key has to shift 1 column right only after it’s gotten below the big hole in the center of the board. The right key is even worse since you have to shift it 3 columns to the right. Each lock only takes 1 key, and if you mess it up by putting the right key instead of the center one into the center lock, you’re far better off restarting it. The 3 star cutoff is 70 moves, which is still pretty difficult, but nowhere as tough as the original 45 moves.
Level 54: Wood boxes prevent the keys from bouncing, which cuts both ways as you can use them to block a key bouncing when you don’t want it to. The left key needs to be bounced to the top once the column it’s in is free and don’t let it drop past the lock. A good trick to know is if the key is in the 1 space wide spot just to the bottom right of the lock, you can drag it up 1 to clear the lock. The right key is harder because you have to work on first shifting it 1 column to the right while it’s in the bottom half – it will not bounce properly while in a column with a hole and you’ve got to clear the wood before the bottom right will refill correctly. Then bounce it to the top and drag it one space to the right when it’s aligned with the lock.
Level 55: Far easier than level 54 was, assuming you don’t accidentally shift any of the keys over a column. Don’t forget you can drag the key down 1 space when there is only 1 space blocking the key from the lock. It is difficult to 3 star this one though since the cutoff is just 14 moves.
Level 56: The left and right keys need to be lowered 3 spaces straight down until they’re aligned with the locks and then dragged over 1 space. If you drop them too far, bounce them back to the top and keep trying. Not sure but I think it’s the 3rd column in from each side which you need to match in to refill empty spaces on the sides should you need to refill areas. Don’t shift the center key away from the column it’s in since the center key has to go into the lock at the bottom center.
Level 57: Battle with Avril. I like to set my “stuff” up in an L-shaped pattern with some spaces in between and use this setup for all the rest of the battles in the game. Save the health potion for after you’ve been hit, and save the moon for when Avril’s attack bar is getting pretty full.
9th Corpse sub-game interlude 3: You’ll still pick up from where you left off previously.
HOS 6: You should be able to figure this out.
HOS 7: There’s more than 1 choice for some of the items in the scene, so if what you’re clicking upon isn’t working, try to find another one.
Level 58: Break the wood so the magnifying glasses can be dropped. The cloudy squares will probably mostly clear themselves while you’re working on getting the glasses to the blue square, but clean up any cloudy squares after the glasses are gone (the cloudy squares have more of a green tint to them).
Level 59: Get all 4 magnifying glasses straight down and put them into the blue squares, then clean up any cloudy squares still left in the top center or under the holes. You need a bit of luck to 3 star it with a 20 move cutoff. Dragging the magnifying glasses into the blue squares will not cost you a move.
Level 60: Clear the wood on the top first, then the bottom and use the bombs to help you with pesky cloudy squares.
Level 61: The 2 magnifying glasses in the middle which are not part of the group of 3 need to be shifted over so they are 1 column away from the blue squares on the edges. A few lucky “breaks” and good bomb explosions are necessary if you want to 3 star it since the cutoff is only 24 moves.
Level 62: Battle with Thelma. Since she’s got quite a lot of hit points and a powerful attack, you’ll need some insta-charges from bombs to hit her faster than she can attack you and get your hit points back. Use the same tips with saving the potion bottle and moon as earlier. This was the first battle in which I came close to running out of energy. Thelma has a fast recovery here too, so using the moon may not necessarily drop her attack meter all the way to zero, but will still help hold off her attack.
Thelma’s kitchen HOS: A relief to finally get a non-cartoonish looking HOS. This one’s much easier to do than the cartoon ones IMO.
Level 63: Wood boxes will block the fireball blast from the gargoyles, so make sure there’s no wood in the way before shooting the fireball. 3 starring this one isn’t as tough as it looks if you hop the fireball around to create the matches needed for breaking the wood.
Level 64: Same strategy as in level 63, but you also have to clear all the cloudy squares. If the fireball happens to fully charge while you’re hopping it around, pause on clearing wood/cloudy squares and shoot the nearest free gargoyle(s), but otherwise focus on getting the wood and cloudy squares out of the way before getting the gargoyles.
Level 65: Focus on getting the magnifying glasses down to the blue squares (use fireball hops to help you if you want, but the 3 star moves cutoff is pretty high so I just made matches) before working on the gargoyles so you don’t accidentally shift the glasses out of their columns. The wood boxes will probably take care of themselves somewhere along the way but just make sure there’s no wood in the way when you fire at the red gargoyles.
Level 66: A lot like level 65, but no magnifying glasses and a much tighter cutoff for 3 stars, so hop the fireball around to rearrange the tiles to break the wood instead of making matches yourself. Then blast the gargoyles.
Level 67: Lots of wood to clear before you can hit the red gargoyles. The 3 star moves cutoff is pretty high, so you can make matches instead of hopping the fireball for the bulk of the wood. Try not to charge the fireballs too much while working on the wood so as not to waste the charge. Hop the fireballs to set up matches to break wood if you aren’t getting matches in the right spots, but a really clever move-saving strategy is to aim 1 fireball at free gargoyles and hop the other fireball around so it sets up bomb matches to insta-charge the aimed fireball.
Arkadiusz Kombi level 5: Useful tips for this one are if you get a piece which is all one color, put it vertically onto a matching angry face on the bottom because as the “stack” builds, the angry faces on the bottom tend to get buried, so try to work from the bottom up. Otherwise, set up your pieces on the upper angry faces so when the match is made to clear one, the leftover balls fall down into setups on the bottom angry faces.
Arkadiusz Kombi level 6: Work on clearing out singleton angry faces which are blocking off pairs of angry faces that are the same color. This way you don’t have to get as many balls into place to match out the pairs of faces. Just make sure you don’t mix up the leftover ball colors too much while working on the singletons so as not to bury the other faces. Another useful tip is to clear all the angry faces from one side of the board first so you can “discard” pieces which don’t work for making setups on the rest of the angry faces.
Level 68: Purple, blue, red, purple.
Level 69: Horizontal match of red on the top right, purple, blue.
Level 70: Skulls on right, then move the purple that has a green piece to its right 1 space right. Match the blue.
Level 71: Blue on the top left corner. Red, purple, blue in middle. Green, skulls, purple.
Level 72: Blue on the left where the red pipes are. Green, red. Skulls, purple by the 3 wood boxes. Blue, then the 2 red matches.
Arkadiusz Boxtrap level 6: The skulls are spread out and there are holes in the board, so be careful you don’t lock it with too many random piece placements. If the pieces available won’t properly fit to build a box for a skull, you can get rid of them by making skull-less boxes elsewhere in the board.
Arkadiusz Boxtrap level 7: Don’t overthink this one with trying to make huge boxes; getting one skull at a time is much better.
Arkadiusz Boxtrap level 8: The lowest skulls in each column will have to be boxed individually, but box the other skulls in pairs if you can for the best efficiency.
“Padlocked tile” levels: You may or may not have to clear all padlocked tiles from the board depending on the level’s goals. If there’s a padlock goal, you do have to remove all padlocked tiles. Otherwise, the padlocked tiles simply obstruct the flow of pieces underneath of them. Bombs will NOT remove padlocks, but padlocks can be swapped in matches to reposition them.
Level 73: Clear out enough of the padlocks to get good flow on the board as you only need to collect enough colored tiles to finish it, but all the padlocks will likely go away on their own while you’re working on gathering the tiles.
Level 74: Focus on removing all the padlocks as that’s the only goal in this level.
Level 75: Clear all the padlocks again, but you’ll also have to get all the cloudy squares. 3 star cutoff is only 20 moves so you need to be very efficient with clearing padlocks and cloudy squares together to 3 star it.
Level 76: Lots of padlocks to carefully match over. Try to get the ones on the upper right and left sides early on since the spaces want to go empty around them; 3 starring this one requires some luck with getting pieces to fall in the right way on the upper padlocks. When there aren’t any more moves up top, get some of the other padlocks lower down so the board will refill better. Although bombs won’t clear the padlocks, they are useful for reshuffling the other tiles around for potential matches to fall in around the padlocks.
9th Corpse sub-game interlude 4: Sort of an odd interruption since the last interlude featuring this sub-game was quite a ways back and there’s no dialog to explain this interlude, but I had asked the developer to split up what was previously a pretty long diversion with a huge block of HOS and Boxtrap games all crammed together so M3 fans wouldn’t feel like they’d just been sucked into another dimension without any M3 boards. 😉
HOS 8: There’s more than 1 shirt and pink container in the scene so if the one you’re clicking upon isn’t working, try the other one. It took me several runs through the entire game before I noticed the creepy stuff on the back wall of the room in this scene, yikes!
HOS 9: You should be able to do this.
HOS 10: There’s several choices for “cup” but it’s the teacup the game wants.
Level 77: The padlocks are blocking off the magnifying glasses, and you have to shift the outermost glasses one column in towards the center in order to get them to the blue squares which is the really hard part of this level. Try not to drop the glasses all the way to the bottom because for some reason it’s really hard to shift them the column over if they’re all the way at the bottom. You don’t have to clear every padlock, only get the glasses to the blue squares. Definitely a big luck factor involved if you want to 3 star it.
Level 78: Shift the left and right magnifying glasses in towards the center row. You don’t have to clear all the padlocks, just enough of them to get good flow on the board. The 3 star cutoff is much higher in this one than in level 77 but there’s still a luck factor with being able to shift the glasses over soon enough because if they get all the way to the bottom it’s much harder to move them.
Level 79: Here, you do have to clear all the padlocks as well as shifting the left and right magnifying glasses over a column either way so they will align with a blue square. Don’t shift the middle magnifying glass or you’re just making life more difficult. Try to clear the padlocks on the bottom corners early on because they’re hard to reach.
Level 80: Battle with Jake. As with Thelma earlier, line up your items strategically and use the bombs for instant charges; use the moon and health potions at the right times. In these later battles, remember that the goal is to hit the enemy, so if you’ve got a choice between charging the lightning bolt with your matches or charging something else with your matches, it’s usually better to charge the lightning bolt.
Jake trivia quiz:
The longest river in Africa is the Nile.
Turandot was composed by Giacomo Puccini (I confess to having to Google this).
The current capital of Japan is Tokyo.
The total number of soccer players on the field at the beginning of a match is 22. I was really confused by this question even after Googling it because a soccer team has 11 players, but since there’s 2 teams in a game, d’oh!
X-rays were discovered by Wilhelm Roentgen.
Ariel, Prospero, and Miranda are characters in The Tempest.
The Storm on the Sea of Galilee was painted by Rembrandt. (I’m embarrassed to admit I didn’t know this one either.)
The main character of The Hound of the Baskervilles is Sherlock Holmes.
The “H.P.” in H.P. Lovecraft’s name is short for Howard Phillips. (And thanks to a friend of mine, I recently discovered this wonderful author’s work, which is great classic horror/sci-fi/fantasy without being overly creepy or gory.)
And finally, “Nevermore” was quoth by the Raven!
Level 81: Not only is hopping the fireball necessary for aiming at the gargoyles, but you can use the fireball to reposition the magnifying glass by the blue square so that you don’t have to shift it over a column yourself or work much at dropping it down, which is the secret to 3 starring this with a 45 move cutoff. If you think that’s tricky, the original version of this level had the bottom row completely cut off from the rest of the board and only 27 moves for 3 starring. I wonder how many of the testers figured out the trick then…
Level 82: Work on clearing out most of the magnifying glasses before doing the gargoyles because the wood gets in the way and you might accidentally shift a glass away from a blue square. The 3 star cutoff is pretty high so you don’t need to rely on hopping the fireball that much for setups but is great for repositioning the magnifying glasses. If the fireball happens to fully charge, you can shoot it through a magnifying glass.
Level 83: Hop the fireball around to get rid of the cloudy squares and wood before blasting the gargoyles, unless the fireball happens to fully charge, in which case shoot it at the closest free gargoyle(s).
Arkadiusz Kombi level 7: Work on the bottom angry faces first if you can. It’s possible to carefully slip pieces around the higher angry faces to get to several of the lower ones. When matching the higher angry faces, try to set up the pieces so when the match occurs, the leftover balls drop down in a setup on lower angry faces that you couldn’t reach earlier and also so the lower faces don’t get buried.
Arkadiusz Kombi level 8: I like to work on the angry faces higher up to start with for this level, and put the single colored pieces vertically on the higher faces so then it only takes one more ball to get rid of that face. When putting the 3rd ball into place on an angry face, place the piece horizontally if the other ball will fall down onto a matching angry face, but if the other ball doesn’t match an angry face next to it put the piece on vertically with the matching ball on the bottom so the remaining ball will fall straight down into an empty space of the playfield instead of blocking off a lower angry face.
Level 84: Break out the wood boxes because that’s the only goal of the level. A shockingly easy level after some of the ones prior!
Level 85: Work from the top down with the wood in the beginning, as the spaces around the wood go empty easily. When you don’t have any more matches in the upper parts of the board, start breaking the wood somewhere lower down. The columns immediately adjacent to the inside edge of the holes in the board (4th column in from each side) are the ones which refill most of the empty spaces if you match in the lower part of the board using those columns.
Level 86: Clear all padlocks and wood.
Level 87: Try not to shift the magnifying glasses over to another column accidentally while clearing the wood because the glasses are already in position for the blue squares.
Level 88: Focus on clearing wood until you can move the fireball and all the gargoyles are free. You don’t necessarily have to clear every wood box as these are only gray gargoyles. Note that a bomb blast will not cross an empty square so will not insta-charge the fireball if there’s an empty square in the way.
Level 89: Battle with Lewis. Use the battle strategies described earlier. Lewis is able to recover some of his attack meter rapidly so the moon powerup won’t drain his attack meter to zero unless he doesn’t have it charged up very much, but it’s still useful to wait until he’s got a fair bit on the attack meter before using the moon powerup. Get some bombs made on the board for insta-charges to your items since he’s got a very strong attack.
Arkadiusz Kombi level 9: It’s better to work from the bottom up because as the “stack” starts growing, pieces will get increasingly jumbled and block off the angry faces below. If the stack allows it, try to set up horizontals with the pieces that have 2 of the same color to match angry faces so the stack isn’t quite as high.
Arkadiusz Kombi level 10: Again, work from the bottom as much as possible and clear as many of the lower angry faces as you can because the stack will otherwise block them off. If you get an all-one-color piece, put it vertically on one of the higher angry faces.
Arkadiusz Boxtrap level 9: Box the skulls individually. Don’t let the notches on the lower left throw you with boxing those skulls.
Arkadiusz Boxtrap level 10: You can box several skulls in pairs depending on where you start building the boxes, but don’t overthink it because it’s better to box skulls in any manner available instead of clogging up the board and locking it.
Level 90: There’s 7 red squares, but you may not have to get them all cleared out in order to drop the magnifying glass all the way down. I’m not sure if each different hidden section of the board is specifically connected to a particular red square, but I just cleared out the red squares working from the top down until the board opened up enough to allow the magnifying glass to get to the blue square (it will drop itself down as the hidden spots of the board open up). Clear the leftover cloudy squares after the magnifying glass is gone.
Level 91: If there’s an easy match in the bottom left corner over the cloudy squares when the level loads, go ahead and make that match. Otherwise, work your way into the red square on the bottom right which will open up one of the blocked off red squares higher up. Get that red square to free the last red square and clear that too. Bombs will clear red squares, so if you get a lucky explosion across the upper row with the 2 red squares you may not even have to open up the lower right red square. In any case, once the 2 red squares from the top are gone, the bottom left corner will now be joined to the rest of the board and you can take it from here.
“Hidden red squares” levels: If you don’t want to match all over the board trying to find the secret red squares to unlock the otherwise unreachable areas, try making bombs and exploding them randomly around the board as bombs will get the hidden squares for you if the explosion is in range.
Level 92: The hidden red square is in the bottom left corner. There’s still a bit of luck involved if you want to 3 star this one since the cutoff is 15 moves.
Level 93: There are at least 3 hidden red squares, but I think they change position every time the level is played. Make some bombs and blast randomly; eventually you’ll hit some of them and the board will open up enough to join up to the singleton spaces. If you find all the red squares the entire level is a simple rectangle and clearing the cloudy tiles is easy, but I’ve gotten cloudy tiles by hitting them with a bomb even when the space was a singleton space.
Level 94: Get all the obvious red squares, then start bombing/matching randomly to get the hidden red squares discovered. There’s quite a few of them and if you find them all, you don’t need to shift the keys over to any other columns as they will be able to fall straight down to the locks.
Level 95: Work on getting the cloudy squares. While you’re bombing the board, the hidden red squares will pop up eventually and completely free the magnifying glasses. If you find all the hidden red squares the board is a simple rectangle.
The last few levels aren’t all that terrible except for the final battle.
Level 96: Work through all the accessible wood to reach the 2 red squares, which will open up the otherwise inaccessible 3 wood boxes in the bottom center. With a little luck you may not have to remove both red squares because if the pieces fall in the right way you can break all the wood boxes; it’s just that removing both red squares opens up the board entirely.
Level 97: Break the wood and shift the magnifying glasses away from the brick walls.
Level 98: Pick a column of wood which is easy to break and start clearing some of it with matches; start making some bombs once you get more working room and blast away to help with the rest of the wood and magnifying glasses.
Level 99: Clear all the assorted obstacles plus the cloudy squares and the last goals of getting the magnifying glass and key should be easy.
Final HOS: Check everywhere in the scene as some items are hiding way down in the bottom corners. “Synth Totally Sucks at HOGs Hall of Shame Award”: I couldn’t find the fish without using a hint the first time I played. No, really. Please don’t hurt yourself laughing.
Level 100: The final battle, with the Mother of Ashes. You definitely want to insta-charge your items here as this was the only battle I lost a few times. If you answered all the trivia questions correctly throughout the game, the level is considerably less difficult. When there’s an obvious match by the items, go ahead and make it, but otherwise you should focus on creating bombs to rapidly charge your stuff so as not to have your hat handed to you. Wait until the Mother’s attack meter is nearly full to use the moon powerup.
The End! As an aside, I wondered why some of the house scenes had what looked like jumbled tree branches somewhere in them. The developer has told me those are tree roots; nature is slowly taking over the mansion and will eventually engulf the entire place. Let’s hope Arkadiusz realizes this before he gets fenced in, as he sure seems obsessed with designing games!