Information here is either from the manual or my own playing experience.

Although this guide isn't 100% complete and is far from pretty, I think it's currently useful enough to be public. Expect unmarked spoilers.

The object of each run is to defeat Nikolai, the evil thing sealed for inscrutible reasons inside the castle. To do this, you need to collect the five named gems and the Sword, which was split into five pieces by somebody for some reason. The Sword, naturally, is the only thing that can harm Nikolai.

However, although each Sword piece and gem that you collect gives you more attack power or special abilities, each one also makes the Castle more aware of the danger you pose to its master. The mark in the status bar between the character's power level and your armor emblem count represents an eye. As this eye opens, the run becomes more challenging. This means that more elite enemies will appear and fewer merchants will be available.

In general, the gameflow should go something like this: beat up a few enemies to get some starting cash; hunt for golden chests or gamble, aiming to get armor, and picking up artifacts as you find them; then start wandering around or using Orb clues to find all five gems and the whole Sword. Once you have all the gems and the five true Sword pieces, you can go fight Nikolai.

These are the most common items you'll find during a run. Pickups disappear when you leave the room, so don't leave your upgraded armor laying on the ground. If you're carrying Blue Fire, gold and armor emblems will float towards you.

Red potion: Restores health. Tastes like crabs, probably, despite what the game claims. These can drop from the slot machine, gargoyles, grey chests, and (very rarely) after clearing enemies from a room. They can be purchased from grey and red merchants. Grey merchants are cheaper.

Green potion: Nasty herbal crap, like kale and pumpkins or something. Despite that, drinking it restores "dexterity," which is used for your special attacks. Dexterity also slowly refills over time. These can drop from the slot machine, gargoyles, grey chests, and (very rarely) after clearing enemies from a room. They can also be purchased from grey and red merchants. Grey merchants are still cheaper.

Gold: Money. Tastes like gold, but you shouldn't eat it. Drops from most enemies, from grey chests, and from certain spins on the slot machine. You can also sell armor, but that's kind of a waste of time. Like all organized gambling, the slot machine is not a reliable way to earn money--the best way is the old standby: beating up rich monsters. Use money to purchase potions, and to play the shell game and the slot machine. You will probably have a huge surplus by the end of the game.

(Occasionally you'll see a black blobby thing enter the room from the left--that's the phantasm, and if it gets to the center of the room it'll steal your gold. To prevent this, just turn around and leave the room. You can come right back and the phantasm will probably not reappear. I have been given to understand that the phantasm does not taste like black Jell-o.)

Magic Books: Tastes like learning. You have to hit the action key to pick up a book. Picking up one of these things will either give you the "Bookstuck" curse, or give you a silly message and kill every enemy in the room (but if one or more resurrectors are in the room, all the monsters except one resurrector will be resurrected). Bookstuck is supposed to disable attacks and special attacks, but some characters seem to be affected differently than others. If you're carrying the Blue Fire, the Bookstuck curse won't stick. You can use Bookstuck to overwrite a Beautiful Statue curse or blessing that you don't want. If you have a blessing you like, though, you should probably just ignore magic books altogether.

Shields: Shields add temporary, cross-shaped grey shield points to your health meter. If you have both a shield and body armor, shield points are taken away first when you are damaged. Shield points can't be replaced the way armor points from body armor can: when they're gone, the shield breaks and you'll have to find another one. There are four or five shield designs, which only differ in how many shield points they offer. Shields can be awarded by golden chests, shell-game merchants, and the slot machine: which one you get appears to be random.

(ToDo: Do certain characters get different types of armor? Like, do high-defense characters have a better chance of getting the better shields and armor?)

Body Armor: I guess the humans wear it under their other armor. Body armor, once you find some, adds what are effectively additional hitpoints to your health meter. These are the blue, shield-shaped points at the end of your health meter (between the red health bubbles and, if you have a shield, the grey shield points). Armor points are replenished by spending armor emblems at an anvil.

Armor has a second function, in that it acts as a sort of level-up mechanism: at an anvil, once your armor is at full durability, you can start adding points to categories that boost your total armor points (durability), your running speed (speed), and the length of your "dexterity" meter (skill). Upgrades don't carry over if you pick up different armor.

In general, the number of armor points the armor gives you when you first pick it up is equal to the number of points you can put into each of the three categories. For instance, leather armor has one armor point by default, and it allows you to upgrade skill, speed, and durability by one point each. When durability is fully upgraded, the leather armor will give you two armor points.

This mechanic means that stronger armor is extremely desirable: the strongest armor (Nipplefire armor) has a default armor value of five, and can be upgraded to have an armor value of ten, which by itself is longer than any character's health meter. On top of that, you get a five-point speed and skill boost.

Armor Emblems: Armor emblems are the flashing orange icons counted in the lower-right of your screen (to the right of the "eye" icon). They're used at anvils to upgrade your armor and refill your armor points. Armor emblems are earned from the shell-game merchant, from purple spins of the slot machine, and sometimes when defeating enemies. Elite enemies seem to be more likely to drop emblems, and gargoyles are another good source of them. Taste like burnt sienna crayons, which taste nothing like oranges. Do they even make burnt sienna crayons any more?

There are a few helpful NPCs in the castle. You can't hurt them, so don't worry about shooting them by accident. Why are these people even in the castle to begin with?

Grey merchants: These guys look like Andre the Giant wearing pre-Colonial America pilgrim clothing. They sell health potions for 200 gold and dexterity potions for 100 gold. Seriously, though, they look like they could snap the huntress in half and lose the shamaness under a fingernail.

Red merchants: These ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ look like that guy in the "I'm so British I ♥♥♥♥ the Queen" image macro. You know, the one with the guy with the big fluffball beard. Anyhow, he charges 400 for health potions and 180 for dexterity potions. He's a con artist--Andre's potions work exactly as well and are cheaper. Screw this guy.

Shell-game merchants: These guys look like some kind of red demon thing leading a traffic cone revue. Maybe they're n'rgon? They'll play a fairly easy version of the shell game with you, charging 100 gold a ride. You can win shields, armor, armor emblems, and probably other stuff. This is a reliable way to find high quality armor, since only a limited number of golden chests appear on the map. Don't pick up too many artifacts before going to play his game though.

Junk collectors / armor eaters / creepy dudes who offer strangers money to undress in front of them: These guys look like blue demons, and don't have a lot to offer you unless you've picked up armor. If you have, they'll offer to buy it for 300 gold. They then eat it, probably? Or maybe they just pay you to take it off while they watch. I don't know.

Generally, this is not a very good deal--you might not find more armor, and you never need gold this urgently.

If you're being followed from room to room by an armor you don't like, this guy can help. Just get it to a screen with this guy, let the armor dress you up, and then sell it to the creep. Then, just pick up your older and better armor--don't leave the screen with your armor on the floor, though, or it's gone for good.

Zombie Andre: A Grey Merchant who for some reason has red eyes and green skin. This guy shows up, as far as I can tell, only if you do the following. First, find a casino room--the one with the slot machine, shell-game merchant, and an anvil. Next, gamble until you get the jester's suit. When it appears, kite it until it touches the shell-game merchant. It will dress him up as a jester. Then just leave the room and return. Zombie Andre will be in the upper-left corner. I have no idea what is with this guy. He doesn't seem to want to talk or to have any obvious effects on the casino.

In addition to helpful people, there are some helpful static objects hanging around in the castle.

Slot machines: Gambling is good, but if you think you have a problem then please seek help. In the game, slot machines ask for an amount of money between 50 and 130 gold (thereabouts) and, in return, either summon an enemy or reward you with an item. The item could be gold, body armor, a shield, armor emblems, or potions. If the spinning dials show a black symbol with two red dots, though, get ready to fight. Gold dials mean gold, and purple dials mean emblems. Grey dials mean armor or shields. I will probably never figure out the precedence rules, though, except to say that a black and red dial ALWAYS means monsters.

Slot machines can drop a special type of armor with unusual properties. I've had this armor range from being useless to very good. Unfortunately, if it is spawned it will follow you around. If it touches you, it takes off your old armor and puts itself on you--this is very undesirable if you have good armor that you want to keep. You can try to lure it into a teleporter to ditch it--make IT go through the teleporter, not you. Or, as I mentioned above, you can lure it onto the same screen as those blue guys who buy armor off of you. In the latter case, just let the armor possess you, then sell it. Your old armor should be on the ground until you leave the screen.

This special armor can also be lured over merchants. I've gotten it to dress up a shell-game merchant--his game got harder and more expensive. There is probably a lot more to this particular armor than I will bother to research. I'd suggest not playing the slot machine at all if you have armor you are happy wearing.

Orbs: Scattered around the castle are crystal orbs, hovering silently over pedestals in the center of various rooms. Use the action key while standing on an orb to recieve a clue. Clues are sets of three numbers that indicate where important artifacts are located during the current run. The third number in a clue is the floor on which the particular artifact is located. The first and second numbers correspond to the minimap for that floor: the first number is a column, counted from the left, and the second number is a row, counted from the top. For instance, the clue 4 2 5 means that the FIFTH floor has an artifact in the room in the FOURTH column SECOND row of the map.

When you find the gem "See the Truth," the minimap is updated with blue outlines to point out rooms for which you have found clues.

Anvils: Armor anvils are upgrade stations for your body armor, if you are wearing any. Body armor in this game not only extends your health bar, but also allows you to extend your dexterity bar (the points you put into "skill") and increase your character's speed. Upgrades to armor durability, skill, and speed are permanent for that run, so long as you don't change your armor. Upgrades do not carry over to new armor, even if it's a duplicate of what you're wearing.

Once your armor is fully upgraded, armor emblems essentially become refills for the armor portion of your health (again, unless you change to different armor).

Statues: The first type of statue is the beautiful gold statue. Please note: the unearthly beauty of gold statues is not necessarily depicted in-game. Gold statues either grant you a blessing or curse you. The blessing or curse appears to last for a very long time and might be permanent until overwritten. I have gotten into the habit of avoiding these things--the "Weakness" curse causes you to take unavoidable damage, the chance of which isn't really worth the usually minor bonus a blessing could provide. The blessings and curses are described in the manual.

The Golden Sign artifact might help with curses, but I haven't made certain of that yet. I do know that Bookstuck can overwrite curses and blessings, if you are stuck with one you don't want.

There are also grey gargoyle statues in the castle. These guys are nice to find. Once you've picked up a few artifacts, these statues will turn into gargoyle enemies. When killed, gargoyles almost always leave behind useful pickups like potions, books, or emblems. Gargoyles also respawn when you leave the room. Once your power is up a bit, gargoyles become reliable sources of free potions.

Teleporters: These are the little swirly things in the middle of some rooms. In a given run, a particular teleporter will always send you to the same destination. It is possible to be teleported to a pool of lava or other danger, though, so you may not want to risk one of these if you are low on health. Ox Men can follow you through these.

However, enemies led into teleporters are counted as killed--except maybe Ox Men, which I have to check on (ToDo: check on this). It's pretty easy to kite a Centaur or Goblin into a teleporter, which is effectively a one-shot kill. You don't get their drops, but resurrectors can't revive them either. It's entirely possible to clear a room of enemies using a teleporter as a trap.

Once you are near the end of the game, teleporters all change to an orange flavor, and their destinations all become the boss's lair.

Chests: There are two kinds of chests. Golden chests are rare, and are always found in the center of an otherwise-empty room. Golden chests drop either a shield or body armor. If you don't need either, it's probably best to leave them alone in case you want to come back later and try for a new shield.

Grey chests are found in many different room layouts. There is a chance that a grey chest could be a ghost in disguise, though, so you should generally shoot chests before picking them up. Grey chests are NOT dropped by enemies, with the sole exception of minibosses--if you see a grey ghost drop a chest, then it WILL be a ghost in disguise. Grey chests can contain gold, potions, magic books, or an easy monster.

Other than attacking it, there are two ways to tell a grey chest from a ghost disguised as a grey chest. First, you can try to look for a shadow. Chests don't cast shadows, but ghosts dressed up as chests do. Second, if you are carrying more than one fake Sword piece, real grey chests will "jiggle" noticeably; ghosts disguised as grey chests will not jiggle.

Dead adventurers: Rarely, you might see a corpse of one of the playable characters laying around. I don't think this is related to your actual deaths--that is, I don't think the corpse represents where you were killed in a previous run--but they're rare enough that I can't really be sure. Either way, hit the action button on top of them to loot a small amount of gold from the body.

Also, if you wait a short while after you have died, you may sometimes see a living adventurer run onto the screen and be killed. I think this is just flavor more than anything else.

Artifacts are one-time pickups and are the things you need to finish the game.

When you look into the crystal Orbs, you are given a clue (map coordinates) showing where a gem or a genuine Sword piece is located. If you have the gem "See the Truth," minimap squares corresponding to clues you have found are marked with a blue outline.

Picking up any of the artifacts in this section opens the "eye" in your status bar a little bit. The more open the eye is, the more difficult the game will be.

The Sword is probably the only thing that can hurt Nikolai--although for most characters it's not like Legacy of the Wizard where you actually throw the Sword at him. The Cardinal, for instance, is smart enough to throw Swords, but the Champion just keeps using his fists. I guess in the latter case, just having the Sword around makes you feel better about your chances of winning. I think it's a like a Smash Bros Ganondorf sword taunt thing--something like that. Don't quote me.

Anyhow, in true old-school vidya fashion there are both fake and genuine Sword pieces, and until you have the gem "See the Truth," you can't tell them apart. You'll just have to grab them and take your chances. When you hold the aforementioned gem, though, genuine Sword pieces are blue and fake pieces are grey. You can still pick up a fake Sword piece if you really want to, just as long as you haven't yet picked up the true Sword piece corresponding to it. There is an achievement for constructing the entire fake Sword of Yendor.

Picking up a genuine Sword piece increases your power by 5. Carrying a fake Sword piece decreases your power by 1. You can end up with negative power this way, which is indicated by your power level being displayed in red instead of green. Having even one point of negative power makes enemies noticeably harder to kill. Thankfully, when you pick up a true Sword piece it replaces a fake piece if you are carrying one, so you not only get +5 power but the -1 power from the fake piece is removed.

It also appears that carrying fake Sword pieces is the cause of the "jiggling" of items and NPCs. You'll know what I mean when you see it.

I have not yet correlated power level to damage done to enemies. By the time your power is about 20, you should be killing weak enemies like ghosts in one hit, even with the huntress. The maximum power is, naturally, 25, since negative power points go away when you pick up genuine Sword pieces.

A presumably eldritch and mysterious and drunk group of warlocks or maybe plumbers have, in their carelessness, left five powerful gems laying around the castle. Each one grants you a special power intended to make the run easier, but each one also opens the eye-'o-difficulty a little bit (less than Sword pieces do, from my experience). You also must have all five gems in order to summon Nikolai at his lair.

"See the Truth": Turns genuine Sword pieces blue on the ground, so you can avoid the fake ones. Also remembers orb clues for you, marking minimap squares corresponding to clues with a blue outline.

"Remember Me": Marks visited rooms with symbols on the minimap. Unfortunately, the marks are not uncommonly wrong. I think this has to do with the way rooms are generated--for instance, a room maybe is--per the seed--supposed to have an orb in it, but the center of the randomly-picked room layout happens to be lava and the orb can't be placed. Becuase of the lava, no orb can appear in that particular room. Because there was supposed to be one there, though, the map wrongly notes an orb when one is not actually in the room. It's not gamebreaking.

• Merchants are marked with a symbol that looks like a capital P that I don't otherwise recognize.
  
• Teleporters are marked with a circle with four tiny tick marks around it.
  
• Unopened grey chests are marked with a chest symbol.
  
• Crystal Orbs are marked with a circle with a line under it.
  
• A symbol that looks like a dot with fan blades around it marks I have no idea what.
  
• A smiling red face marks Nikolai's room (boss).
  
• A pair of red eyes marks one of the Fallen (miniboss).
  
• The password / ritual room is marked with a broken red circular symbol.

Things not marked on the map: anvils, slot machines, unopened golden chests

"Ever Even": Elite enemies will do only one point of damage to you when you hold this gem. Normally, they would do two. (Thanks, game manual!)

"Eternal Dawn": After you find this gem, you no longer have to clear rooms of enemies to use stairways. Rumors that "Eternal Dawn" could increase the bust size of certain characters are categorically false.

"Faster Than Wind": The plumbers who made these gems couldn't think of anything awesome for this gem to do, like crapping thunder or curing hunger or immunity to goitre, so they just had it make you run faster. Either that or one of them named the gem before they had all decided what it was going to do. I'm looking at YOU, Carl the dualclass wizard/plumber. We could have had the gem Butt-thunder or All-the-food or Basically-dietary-iodine if you hadn't thought you were so clever. I hope he has learned his lesson.

Other Artifacts: There are two other artifacts that you can find in the castle. I don't know if orb clues point these out since neither is necessary for winning the game.

Blue Fire: Eternally burning cow farts. I assume. While carrying the Blue Fire, you can't be inflicted with the Bookstuck curse. Instead of killing everything in the room, the Bookstuck-cursed books will just do nothing except give you a little message about how not-cursed you are. The whirling vacuum created by the eternally burning cow farts also sucks in gold and armor emblems, which is a nice bonus except for the smell. And the heat. I mean you're literally just carring it in your hands and fire is hot.

Golden Sign: Not to be confused with the Yellow Sign, which fortunately does not appear in this game. Hastur. This thing will resurrect you on the spot if you are killed. It then vanishes from your inventory. It also appears to prevent curses from beautiful statues. I'm not sure if there's a limit to this latter ability, nor am I sure if it will still work after the sign revives you. (ToDo: more stuff to check).

Six characters are available, of which three have to be unlocked.

The three starting classes are the guardsman, the huntress, and the cardinal.

The guardsman is a basic fighter. His speed is low. His spear extends out to hit enemies both on extension and while retracting. The range of the attack is reduced if you attack before it finishes recharging--you'll see a charge percentage above your head after attacking.

His special attack is a spear stab that has full range even if the normal attack is recharging. I'm unsure if the special attack does more damage than a regular attack.

The huntress is a rogue class. Her speed is fast and she has 6 health. Her main attack must be charged to reach full range, but even at half charge it covers a good long distance. Her special attack is a flaming arrow that does more damage than a normal arrow and destroys some projectiles. Like the guardsman, her special attack has full range without needing to be charged. Her special attack does not work whlie Bookstuck.

Probably the most important open question about the game regards the huntress: why does she have lizard breasts in some official artwork, and not in other official artwork? The truth is out there. Rumors that the gem "Eternal Dawn" has something to do with this have not been substantiated. The gaming public cannot rest easy until this matter is clarified.

The cardinal is a mage class. If you could throw fireballs, I assume you could run the church as well as he apparently does. His speed is moderate and he has 5 health. His main attack is a fireball, which can destroy some projectiles (webs and feathers, at least). It appears to fire within a cone of about 90 degrees in front of the player, making it very difficult to control. I'm unsure if there's a way to influence the direction of the fireball. Sometimes it appears to target an enemy. It doesn't appear to be affected by the direction of your movement. My only real advice is to be close when you shoot.

His special attack is a spread of three fireballs at fixed angles. I think the intent is that you will mostly use the special attack in serious combat, since it is far more predictable than the normal attack. Remember, though, that enemies can't be hurt when they are flashing, so even if a single foe is hit with two or three fireballs, they will only take damage from one. To be efficient, try to hit multiple enemies with your special attacks.

The three classes below are unlocked during the game.

The champion is a fighter class. He is slow-moving, and has 9 health. His main attack shoots relatively high-knockback rocket punches, one at a time. Since his attacks don't need to charge, you can back groups of enemies into corners and pound away at them. His special attack has longer range (about half the screen) and moves a little faster. It doesn't appear to do much more damage, if any. Neither of his attacks work while Bookstuck.

The bandit is a rogue class. His speed is fast and he has 8 health. His attack is a flurry of claws that can hit multiple times. Unlike the fallen bandit, your attacks as a player don't drain health. When fired, his attacks stick to the ground for a second or so; you can hit enemies that are following you by attacking while running away from them. This makes him kind of like a trap-user, which I guess is why he is called the bandit.

His special attack is a dash that covers almost the entire length of the screen, and can be performed in eight directions. The attack leaves in its wake damage squares that work like the bandit's main attack. You can use this attack to create short-lived walls of damage for enemies to walk into, or to escape problematic situations. Be careful not to dash too squarely into enemies or traps--you're not invincible at the end of the attack.

The shamaness is a mage class. Her speed is moderate and she has 4 health. Despite her diminuative and cuddly appearance, it is my understanding that she is not a pokémon. Both of her attacks summon book pages to surround her. The pages persist until they hit an enemy or a crate (but not a slime). Her special attack (which you will be using more than her normal attack) sets the number of pages orbiting her to eight. Because dexterity regenerates over time and green potions are relatively easy to find, you will probably use her special attack more than her main attack. Having said that, you should try not to waste attack power: it's easy to hit a flashing (and therefore invincible) enemy with two or three or four pages, which is inefficient.

As for her regular attack... Well, it's wonky. If she has no orbiting pages, it creates up to one or two or three (dunno why the max seems to vary), one at a time. It takes a few keypresses to get it to work, too. If she has four or fewer orbiting pages, her normal attack distributes them more or less evenly around her. If she has more than four pages around her, her normal attack won't do anything at all.

I have not figured out why the shamaness's health bubbles are box-shaped, nor why her stats list her as having three-dot defense when she only has four HP.

Pretty much every enemy in the game comes in a normal and elite version. The elite versions have more HP, usually move faster and/or have harder attack patterns, and do 2 points of damage. If you have the gem "Ever Even," elites only do one damage. Doppelgangers, Gargoyles, and Polymorphs do not appear to have elite versions.

Enemies who are listed as "fliers" below are immune to traps on the floor. This includes spikes and lava. They neither trigger spikes nor are harmed by them.

The rarity of enemies is strongly connected to the seed for your run, it seems. Sometimes you'll see many of Doppelgangers or Polymorphs, for instance, and sometimes almost none.

One critical general tip: you don't need to kill every enemy you encounter. If a room looks hard, turn right around and go another direction. Save your HP for a room you can't avoid.

Goblin: AKA Filthy peasants. Poor little ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ who stand around doing nothing until some jerk hero starts smacking them around. Then they chase the hero a bit. The darker-green elites have more HP, and when you hit one of them the whole room of them start following you. They drop almost no gold when killed. Tend to show up in groups of four or eight. Common enemies.

Lamia: AKA Weremedusas. Snake creatures with the upper torsos of women, or woman creatures with the lower torsos of snakes. Whichever floats your boat. If you are directly in front of them, they have a chance of turning you to stone. Mash keys to return to become fleshy again. Normal lamias move only in straight lines, but elites move faster and in whatever direction they want. Try to kill these things from a distance, as you are probably going to get hurt if they petrify you when you're right beside them. Generally show up one or two at a time. Uncommon enemies.

Lich: AKA ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Dead losers who throw pumpkin bombs. Both the pumpkins and the gas they spawn can hurt you, and the pumpkins can't be destroyed by fire. Purple-black elite versions have wider-area attacks and more HP. They have relatively high HP and often show up in groups. Common.

Harpy: AKA Not-waifus. Fliers. Both versions flee from you, shooting feathers in either the four diagonal directions or, for the black elites, in eight directions. Feathers can be destroyed by firey projectiles like huntress flame arrows or cardinal fireballs. Because of the way they move, these things tend to pile up on each other, so don't charge in to pick up gold until you're sure you've killed the whole stack. There's no rush. Show up often in groups of two to four. Uncommon.

Ghost: AKA Grade 3 Ectoplasmic Manifestors. Fliers. Normal blue ghosts just follow you around the room. Grey elite ghosts split into two normal ghosts when killed, one of whom might polymorph immediately into a grey chest or a shell-game merchant. Be aware: when you enter a room, sometimes a grey chest sitting around might be a ghost. It doesn't hurt to shoot every grey chest you see to check for ghosts. Similarly, if you see a shell-game merchant without his traffic cones, shoot him--he's a ghost. Shows up singly or in groups of up to four. Common.

Centaur: AKA Elmers. These guys just charge directly at you after a short pause. If your attacks have good knockback, you can let a lone Centaur charge you and just keep swatting him away. Elites are faster. Moderate HP. Can appear in groups of up to eight. Uncommon.

Reanimator: AKA Archviles. KILL THESE GUYS FIRST. Launches fireballs at you, but the real danger is that they indefinitely and instantly revive other enemies. Reanimators will revive other reanimators, too. If a room has two of these, it's probably best just to grab anything useful in the room and leave. If you absolutely have to deal with two reanimators, either knock them into each other so you can kill both at the same time, or try to knock one into a teleporter. Elites are darker grey and throw two fireballs at a time. I usually just leave the room as soon as I see them.

I have seen a room with three elite reanimators. I wouldn't even try to fight that. Three is about their maximum group size, but they just about always show up with other types of enemies. Uncommon.

Golem: AKA Emmets. These are those armor guys who have spiked balls orbiting them--elites have more orbitals than normal golems. The normal versions wander around, but the dark-green elites move towards you. Anoyingly, elite verisons like to lurk just inside doorways, so you'll sometimes take a hit from them before you can react. Destroy at least some of the spiked balls with your attacks, then shoot the golem. Low HP, but you have to get through their defenses before you can hit them. Usually appear singly, but sometimes up to two or three show up. Rare.

Mummy: AKA Not-ghosts. It is not widely appreciated that, unlike their Egyptian counterparts who just spread curses and disease, Russian mummies teleport on top of their victims. They tend to teleport next to you, rather than right on top of you, and it does appear that you can hurt them right after they teleport (while they are flashing and apparently can't hurt you). Elite red versions are faster and teleport more aggressively. Rare, but tend to show up in groups of up to four.

Gargoyle: AKA Gargoyles. You won't see these guys until the danger eye is partially open. Whey they appear, they spawn from the stone statues you see in some rooms. Gargoyles seem to almost always drop useful stuff (potions, armor emblems, books) and are usually worth killing for that reason alone. They also respawn when you leave the room. Lastly, rooms with only gargoyles in them aren't marked red on the minimap. I guess the game doesn't really consider them enemies.

Ox Men: AKA Haggars. The little cousins of minotaurs. When they see you, they'll chase you from room to room, trying to bump into you. The grey elite versions are a little faster and tougher. You can end up dragging a big chain of these guys around if you aren't careful. It's easiest to retreat to a safe room and kill large groups of these guys as they come, rather than fighting them around a bunch of other enemies or traps. Uncommon.

Spider: AKA Weredriders Spiders and elite spiders wander around the room throwing webbing all over the place. Webbing sticks to the ground and to your character. When webbed, your character walks more slowly. Spiders explode into webbing when killed. Elite spiders explode into lots of webbing when killed. Moderate HP, and only show up one or two at a time.

Salamander: AKA Lil' Cardinals. Salamanders and elite salamanders shoot beams of fire, telegraphing very obviously by flashing before they fire. Just don't stand in front of them when they shoot. Blue salamanders are the elites, and they just seem to move a little faster. Moderate HP and rare to see, but often appear in groups of two or four.

Doppelganger: AKA Mans Who Look Like Me or Womans Who Look Like Me. These guys take the form of your current character and start the room off by standing around doing nothing. After a few seconds, they chase you for a short while and then stop. This pattern then repeats. If you are playing as the bandit, you can attack while running away to hurt them fairly reliably. Everyone else is probably best off hitting them when they stop moving. They don't appear to have elite versions, and have high HP. Rare.

Polymorph: AKA ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Wizards. Shapeshifters, or ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ wizards or something. They float around doing nothing until you attack them. They then polymorph into a random monster, hop up on speedballs and start chasing you around. Never fight these guys. They have poor drops, unusually high HP, and can appear in groups.

As if there weren't enough things trying to kill you, absentminded drunken plumbers left a bunch of traps all over the castle. Most of these, however, can also hurt your enemies.

Floor spikes: These blend into the floor, and are triggered when you or an enemy walks over them. Most characters can walk over them safely, if you keep moving across them. Flying enemies don't trigger spikes or take damage from them if they're already up.

Ball 'n chain: Spinning iron balls on short chains. There's no way to remove them, so just stay away from them. Only the ball can hurt you--you can stand on the chain or the plate in the floor to which they're attached. I have no idea why sometimes plates show up without their balls ('n chains).

Ice: Some areas of the floor are made of perpetually-frozen bricks of ice, and you'll slide when you walk on them. Tread carefully. Darker-blue areas of ice don't appear to behave noticeably different from light-blue ice.

Water floors and lava floors: Channels in the floor can contain dark blue water, which doesn't hurt you or enemies, or bright orange lava, which hurts everything that walks on it. Stay out of lava--it can drain your health faster than you might expect. Unfortunately, if gold pieces are dropped on or float over either lava or water, they are lost. Your huntress is just too good to go crawling around in water after a few G, I guess. Flying enemies aren't damaged by lava floors.

Whirlin' blades: Someone--perhaps giant ninjas--left giant spinning stars laying all over the castle. You can bat them aside with your attacks, although the shamaness isn't very good at doing this, and the blades behave kinda strangely when the bandit hits them. You can even knock them out a door to get rid of them, but they'll respawn next time you enter the room. Maybe you are best off just avoiding them.

Would giant ninjas be less intimidating than regular ones? After all, it'd be much harder for them to hide.

Slimes: The big green bubbles on the floor are slimes--and are the bounciest slimes this side of a monster-girl porno. It's easy to get stuck being juggled between these while your character slides back and forth over spikes or lava. This is an embarassing way to die, which is true of all slime deaths in video games. On the bright side, however, you can pop them with your attacks. They'll respawn when you leave the room. In a pinch, you can usually shove your way through them, but it's probably better to just pop them like so many green bubbles.

Ambushes, which are kinda like traps because I said so: Okay, so I have no idea if there's any pattern to an ambush being triggered. They appear to happen in both newly-visited and previously-emptied rooms, and it doesn't appear that they happen more often when the difficulty eye is more open. Whether the exits are blocked by water or lava seems to be related to the difficulty eye, but it might also be a function of the floor on which the ambush appears.

Ambushes are a great reason to not hang out near the entrances of rooms. The last thing you want is for a lava square to appear underneath you when you are at one HP. You don't need to eliminate the enemies to escape the ambush room. You can actually just walk out the door, if you don't mind walking over water or lava. Also, the squares will disappear after about half a minute.

The numbers on the character select screen are the seed for the run you are about to start. Increment them using the attack, special attack, and action keys. There is at least one special seed, the number for which you can probably guess easily--what's a three digit number with special significance to this game?

It's 666. This seed starts you off with the fake sword completed, and causes traps and items to bounce around the room disconcertingly while pickups and NPCs float away from you into corners.

Three characters are locked when you first start playing. These characters are unlocked when you find them and defeat their "fallen" versions during a run.

The fallen are basically minibosses. If you defeat one, you get a bunch of gold and other pickups--nothing critical for a run, so don't feel compelled to face them if you already have the unlock for that character.

You can get an ominous message when you use the action key atop an open chest left by one of the Fallen. Shades of a sequel?

The Fallen Champion: Follows you around. If he starts flashing, he'll shoot one, four, or eight fists at you, depending on how much health he has left and how he feels at the time. He can sometimes surprise you by shooting you with a fist when you're close by without telegraphing it with flashes, so stay away from him. By far the easiest Fallen.

The Fallen Bandit: This ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ not only drains health when he hits you, but he also stuns you. His second attack pattern involves him dashing about, leaving damage squares scattered around the room. Pain in the ass--you can't out-damage him, because he drains health and will heal faster than you can damage him.

The Fallen Shamaness: The fallen shamaness mopes around the room summoning gigantic book pages around her. You can destroy them by hitting them. Her second attack pattern has her teleporting around the room, with her pages following her around the room. It's a pain to stay away from them since you can't really predict where she's going to teleport to, so you don't have much time to dodge if there are pages coming your way. Be prepared to take hits.

The boss of the castle is Nikolai, a vaguely evil demon trapped in the castle by somebody. It's not even certain that his name is Nikolai.

He hangs out in his lair, which is identifiable by the huge symbol on the floor. This symbol is similar to the one on the floor of the room where you start the game. When you hit the action key on the boss's symbol, you will either get a "Something is missing" message or summon Nikolai, depending on what Sword pieces and gems you have.

You actually can start the final battle without having the complete sword. If you don't have five true pieces of the sword, though, you can't hurt Nikolai and die as soon as he reaches you. Fortunately, you can just leave the room if you aren't ready to fight him yet.

When you're ready for it, the final battle has three phases. The first phase involves Nikolai hovering slowly after you, turning black and teleporting at you from time to time. He doesn't telegraph the teleport, so it's best to wait to attack until just after he has teleported. It takes him a few seconds before he can teleport again. If the second phase doesn't seem to be starting after you defeat Nikolai's first phase, try walking around the Castle a little bit.

The second phase is when Nikolai's health bar finally shows up and his lair gets redecorated. His health bar has to be depleted three times in order to kill him. In the second phase, his personal attack pattern is largely the same as the first phase. However, after teleporting several times, Nikolai will disappear completely from the room. While he is hidden, the room's doors will slide around the walls and shoot fireballs at crazy angles. Usually there is a corner you can stay in that is far away from the doors, and in this phase the doors don't shoot as much when they are moving. So, basically, while the doors are active try to stay in the corner furthest from them, and change corners when one of the doors get too close. Nikolai will be back in a few seconds to resume his teleporting-on-top-of-you routine.

The third phase starts just before you empty his health bar for the second time. Instead of turning black and teleporting on top of you, Nikolai wil turn blue, teleport to the center of the room, and spiral out counterclockwise around the room. He'll reappear in the center of the room. Stay away from the center of the room, and follow Nikolai around as he spirals outward. It's not too tough to avoid this attack, and you can hit him while he's doing it although your damage appears to be decreased.

Nikolai will still sometimes go hide and do the sliding-doors trick in the third phase. However, the doors shoot fireballs much more aggressively in the third phase of the fight. The same basic strategy for avoiding their fire works, but you are much more likely to take some hits.

Naturally, the best way to prepare for the last fight is to practice it. There are a few other things that will help, but they are limited and pretty obvious. Try to show up with full health and dexterity--grind on some gargoyles if you need to get potion drops. Bring a good suit of armor, and fill up your armor points before you come to the fight. Bring a shield. Nikolai himself isn't too hard to keep away from once you've seen his patterns; your cheap hits are probably going to come from the fireballs.