Hi! This is just going to be a sort of repository of the various games I cherry on UFO50. I started taking a good deal of notes as I went through several games and found some friends were having issues beating some of the games. Many of these games are homages to genres I enjoy a lot and played many moons ago, so I figured I'd share my thought process a bit. That or I'm bored at 5am.

Either way, maybe this helps you. Overall, all I can say is pay attention to the feedback the game is giving you--even if it's simply information you by you losing. I keep making jokes on stream that 'these games are lies'. The meaning behind that comment is, I feel every game in this, at least so far, is simply beatable with patience and general strategy. Even the cherry comes from that I feel. If you're struggling in a game, you may be trying very hard to slam a square peg in a round hole essentially. Also, each game sort of presents itself as maybe a knock off of SimAnt and it seems impossible...but there's actually ways to abuse the game mechanics beyond what you may expect and that's really what you need to discover. That's sort of why I said it's a lie--you're being presented with a genre and maybe feel you need to get good at genre you may not be good at. No, you need to figure out what is the path of least resistance to beat the game as each game seems to have mechanics that once you find them takes what seems an impossible game into something quite beatable. Maybe except party house (for the cherry)...that one well...is going to require some Dominion-esque math haha.

Anywho I hope you enjoy or gather some insight from this, or just enjoy looking at someone's thought process 'solving' a game.

Also, I need to share this everywhere as you never know who may help:
I am seeking a living kidney donor cause genetics said so. You can learn more about this at https://iggyland.org . You can DM me with any questions about it, but really the clinic is the best resource for any and all questions. They're incredibly patient and it's a serious decision nobody in the process will take lightly. I don't get to know anything about people's medical history unless you tell me personally. I won't even know if you called. They also will not let anyone donate it's not safe for and that's a major piece of finding a donor and hence why you're reading this random guide on the internet and hearing about it.

Haven't really played this one much yet:

Notes so far:
first shop go left from start fall down behind miner, umbrella 100 trash 50 pin 200

I didn't really have a ton of notes on this one.

You'll play through the same scene with increased difficulty each time. Remembering the paths you like through each area is important. Your character is also never actually stationary, so be sure to give yourself a margin of error + shuffle yourself around, usually a hair backward to maintain position.

Everything in this game is completely consistent and you will have to memorise locations where 'backattacks' happen. Once you have a mental note of when hanging out on the left 1/3rd of the screen isn't safe, that makes the game way easier. Then for the cherry it's just a matter of playing safe while still maxing points. Be riskier early on since you can reset if you get a bad start/miss points. But the cherry wasn't really that hard or extreme.

Bonus areas:
Throughout the level, they'll be a point where cherries appear. Grab as many as you can and really try to maximise the time you're within the bonus area grabbing the pickups. As you grab a lot of them they'll change to dumplings, then coffee. The coffees are worth 50 points each and critical to getting the cherry. Once you've seen each bonus a few times, you'll notice what patterns let you grab the most. Running back to the left of the screen / making sure to get everything you can from the high platforms before falling off and you can't get back there is really important!

As you beat enemies there's 2 upgrades to your attack. They're really important. It seems they're rewarded based on points, sort of castlevania style. Once you take out 'enough' after losing a guy, which resets your attack to initial power, you'll get the upgrades.
A fully upgraded attack allows you to take down the larger enemies faster, and take out spikes. The spikes in the first / second round are worth a good amount of points to rack up points.

Balloons spawn and hitting them is a 1UP. They tend to spawn in the same location and sometimes I got a ton of them. I'm unsure if this is related to points or some measure of success, such as number of enemies downed, etc.

Boss Octopus
The boss isn't too hard but you need to be patient to get an opening as you have to wait for him to make the right platform. You're in no rush, so just be careful to avoid and await the right platform to unload near enough to him before your attack despawns.

A hybrid of rally x/crush roller, object is to cover as much of the game space as possible with paint. When the time runs out OR you cover the entire board at once, the round ends. You can also lose if the red guys take 70% of the board at any time. For the cherry, you need a strong score in nearly every level. A recent patch made this easier to target 555 instead of 575.

The game is 26 levels and [reminder to myself to just post a video]

Some overall notes:
Enemies always move in the same pattern and they always spawn the same too. So if you're struggling on a level, usually changing your pathing and which enemies you take out will help.

Painting a powerup blue gives you the powerup. This does mean if you know an enemy will path over the powerup, you can acquire the powerup again. Having the same powerup twice upgrades the powerup, super paint gun, 2 drones + they fly super fast, etc.

Powerups:
Time stop - time is stopped for a reasonable period of time. Generally most useful right at the time. Any enemies about to spawn (spawner is blinking) will be dumped out upon pickup, so this lets you remove them too.
Spike - car shoots spikes out the side / front and removes enemies. Very useful on slug levels especially to prevent them from making friends.


Enemies:
Paint trucks - the normal enemy, nothing special.
Slug - Really annoying enemy, will reproduce (slows down and blinks as a signal).
Spike shooter - when you're orthogonal to them, they'll shoot their spike (and become weak to being run into normally afterward) which will make you crash (freeze for a while, real bad), but it will also hit any enemy as friendly fire.
Blobs - hitting them with a speedboost will spin you out until you hit a wall and crash. You'll paint red until you wreck. This is really bad. Remove them by driving into them normally or spikes.
Spike truck - must hit from side/behind normally to remove.
Airplane - flies around and then flashes. After a very brief period of standing still, will shoot paint gun.
Grenade - This guy is really dangerous. It does almost nothing until it blinks and explodes, painting about 1/2 of the arena red. They take about as long as the plane does to get to this state.
Ground Spike - block the path. Use speed (flashing car) to go through them. Start appearing when the bumpers show up and they intend for you to use those to destroy them all.
NOTE: Besides being shot by the spike from the spike enemy and the blob (speed wrecks you here) every enemy you can destroy from any direction by having zipper speed. Your car will flash while you have it.


Speed zips--speed zips do 2 things, one that's obvious, it makes you fast as well. If there are 2 sources of zips nearby, you can stack the boosts to go even faster!
Bumper - work same as speed zip, just you get reversed in direction/they block. Use these as zips, they're incredibly strong and let you just go around in a circle painting and taking everything out nearby, including spikes.

Upgrades -
Spikes - shoot spikes to take down enemies
Drone - a drone paints for you. If it touches an enemy when not just spawned (it gets some iframes), it will be removed. Multiple drones have super speed.
Paint gun - Same as airplane. Shoot paint balls and the balls will paint the first spot at the end of the column/row shot at all the way on back to you. So this lets you get corners that are hard to get to easily.
Time stop - stops time. Generally best picked up right before the level ends so the enemies can't repaint anything!

General strategy that will eventually get you the cherry:
Know where enemies will spawn on each level. Some levels your general strategy will break down and you basically want to know 'the break' in billiards parlance. What do you want to have control of and setup after the first 10 seconds of each level. This will assure you have all the extra blue paint at the end to get a higher score.
It doesn't really matter that they paint stuff red. It's more important to gain about half the map you know they cannot contest. That's either that their pathing doesn't go there at the start or you can take out all the enemies that would threaten it. Then when the timer is nearly running out, use everything you got from powerups/zips/good pathing, to take the rest of the map.
Some levels you have so many powerups and speedups that you can just camp the enemy spawns.
Constantly use the zips, they give you the power to vastly outpace / keep up with the multiple enemies. The early levels you can nearly cover the entire board and they're worth an inordinate number of points compared to the later levels as the % required goes up, which means there's less points on offer.


Scoring
Each level has a target score. For every 1% you exceed that by, you get 1 point. There is no bonus for 100%, but the level does end immediately.

For this one I started taking notes about what's happening. Turned out taking notes really wasn't necessary too much. It would help as you're going to know what holes you've not cleared if you're interested in 100%. I had to resweep the game, but it was pretty easy to find the couple things I missed as they were in areas I couldn't fully explore at the top (the north/northeast)

Any progress you make in this game is saved immediately! So it's ok to 'stretch' your shots without fear of losing progress besides having to restart at the last checkpoint.
Wedges you pick up are +3 permanent shots and it immediately refills health
In various bushes and hidden inside stuff sometimes there's birdies or eagles, those give you +5 and +10 restored shots and are especially useful early.
The Bird bots notice you and then you have 5 or so turns to hit them prior to them flying away. They respawn if you go in a hole and come back. So making the right 'approach' (heh golf jokes, when in rome) makes them pretty easy to get in all circumstances. If it looks impossible, come back with upgrades.
The game has a path of least resistance and that's sort of the goal to find it. I ended up going to the northeast first and flipping around water and stuff without any upgrades at all using edge cases in the game--such as if there's ground to the south of you and you're sitting in water, it'll let you shoot.
Getting 'stuck' where the ball can't steady--if you hold a direction, it'll try to 'pop' you lightly in that direction.
Any of these 'edge case' shots you want to find a safe spot if there's risk of hitting water/falling because the game always resets you to the last 'safe' shot.
Get the powerups first, the tees if they're nearby. Collecting all 4 tee pieces let you unlock the final boss in the northwest area.

Final boss section
2 parts. One is a puzzle to solve to unlock the final boss. Be slow and deliberate in each section. You won't get an HP restore for the final boss. All the friends you've found along the way will give you HP back when you get low though.
The gopher boss will initially spawn in the middle. Smack him. He'll stand up, unhittable and start a timer. Take small deliberate shots that get you out of random of the targeting crosshair. Here you want to plan shots such that you've found yourself a way you're comfortable with that can get you to either the left or right. The boss picks a random spot that he wasn't just at to move to when done firing. You'll have 6 shots to get him in the face again.
There are some eagles, 2 are free (the middle and right side one). I'm unsure how you get the left one and didn't bother trying as I never needed it.

Like 5-6 hits to the face is all it takes to win.


My original notes are below. I found stuff quickly after this and the game had a lot of falling action from here, so I didn't take much notes:
wise ball under tree - head west to pond and then south under a tall bridge

found ball NE of town -- calm cave was like go east for more dudes
south of this guy in the desert is an oasis (very east from start deep in desert)
the stopper ball is in the forest
sea guy has sand power - mulligan manse east/south route requires brick breaking

In hitting one of the trees in the southwest region, I found a easter egg message:
:welcome to the team, E$TER."

Angles are referenced against the horizontal. If not numbered, each sentence is one of the shots of the hole. Patience is critical. I got the cherry on the first real attempt while writing these notes out. I had figured out how to get a birdie/eagle on several holes and it's largely just clean play.
There's no penalty for water hazard. So even if you mess up, don't fret! Just try not to lose a crazy amount of shots redoing the same shot over again.

1
45 degree angle max power, attempt to dunk on the down slope to get more distance. Object is to get as far as you can.
if you end up below, straight shot into ramp, dunk into hole pretty easy birdie

2
play low, max power sets up 2nd shot
about 50% chip to get across without hitting water
about 50% chip into hole
3
aim high full power, avoid birds
should be birdie or near hole in one, don't use dunk

4
lay up? missed
5
aim 30-35 degree angle full power, get into bottom right corner on 1 shot if you can
hard to time 2nd shot but should be makeable in 3
6
try to go above cannon, it only has 1 cannonball, it's about 35 degrees, consider gravity in aim
2nd shot , can we play high and go into the gap?
if you get through gap it's about a 50% shot into the hole
7
1st shot to sand trap, use dunk to land reliable near the oil barrel
2nd shot to sand trap, same deal,
3rd shoot over unicycle
probably bogey
8
think shoot 45 degree over the bumper and try to dunk on the glass platform
2nd shot if you get it, about 60% 45 degree angle
9
full power, I time it based off the right side guy to not stop me. Hole in one
10
around 45 degree full power, dunk
2nd shot, be careful as you can easily bounce back, do not dunk
11
High angle, tried to dunk for one
12
45-50 degree angle, dunking to hit sand trap
2: low angle shot, dunk into sand trap
3: above 45 degree angle shot if it's nice it'll land across the wooden bridge in the little cubby hole. Being at the end of the bridge is fine too. Do not overpower/overshoot you'll end up in water.
4: go for hole, full power
13
do not fall in the hole, go for par
14
mid power shot to go under the bumpers using the trampoline
2: 75-85% shot to get to the left side of the gap, too hard you will fall in
3: hard into the ramp, dunk to maybe go further right on the downslope across the gap
4:
15
1: the correct angle will hit the top ramp at 100% and you'll get all the way over by the chopper, do not use dunk!
2: go for the eagle!
16
1: higher angle shot to kinda get close, don't tempt the edge of the bridge--can use dunk to get a little closer if you're way back
2: go for the hole, avoid obstacle of course!
17
1: low angle 100% go for the sand trap
2: careful shot across, more important to not get water hazard
18
1: full power, above the acrobats into sand pit
2: hard shot, you want to just get across safelly through the middle, not full power.
3: low angle shot go for good position in the sand pit
4: play across to sand for safety

Random notes. A lot of it is sleuthing out what each tower item actually does.

The bottom part is a round by round guide so you know exactly what to prepare for. The 4 emperors is a really clever level design and it's quite hard to cherry!

I wasn't aware until about halfway through the game you could upgrade your attack. Game changer! Generally you want the 30 meat weapon upgrade, then the speed upgrade. Likewise get the 2nd power upgrade first. Many levels you can get far ahead and largely the goal for cherry is to be as cheap as possible at the start and save all available funds to get the chicken cookery going.
You can build during phases--in the 4 emperors I would leave 1 enemy running so I could build.

The notes start with testing random testing and just annotating what works or how stuff works:
---
Wheel is great against the cats
Archers really far range great against flyers
Spear is melee no range / ? more damage
[12:22] @+Eatitup_86: I dunno what rock 2 does but wheel rocks tokyosLonk
[12:22] +Medifaded: Good damage not great against armor

2 fires cooks chicken faster

spear bad against armour
archers kinda good at everything

fire good against armour

chickens give 5 always until fully cooked
fully cooked takes 2 'fire turns' -can be next to 2 fires to get immediately

1 fire costs 10
chicken costs 10
2 turns

fully cooked is $30

2 fires - 1 chicken is $30-35 immediately? - 20 = +10-15
1 fire - 1 chicken is 2 rounds to payoff - 20 + 10 + 30 = $20 but it takes 2 rounds - $10 net
seems best strategy is instant cook

first weapon upgrade quite good BUT the fire rate upgrade is secretly really really strong

green dinosaur takes 2 level 2 axe hits + 1 rock thrower

terror overhead -- level 4 cats come from left side, level 3 flyres come from top
9 and 10 you'll need to cover the left side -- need slows, lots of bows--bows will easily take down flyers with a small amount of slow help

these are noted as pre that level
level 1 - 2 cavemen + 1 chicken upgrade damage
level 2 - upgrade speed, build chickens upgrade into spearmen. during level buy chicken/fire with your $20
level 3 - upgrade damage and speed.
level 4 - upgrade 2 bowman/spearmen -- should be ok. lots of chickens.
level 5 - continue upgrading--get some slows/bows on each spawn
level 6 - i didn't build slows on the left side, had to help with cats
level 7 - rest you can handle easily


jungle rush
level 1 - one spear + one rock left, upgrade weapon
level 2 - add spear to top right, nothing comes out of nearby hole
level 3 - upgraded speed + 2nd weapon, flyer warning 1 comes out of nearby, fast left, finish reds manually
level 4 - cats are on right side will arrive first, mosquito out of nearby again
level 5 - mosquito comes from top, start building econ.
level 6 - more econ? opened up middle for bow? hard shells, watch out! 2nd spawn is mosquitos out of bottom right
level 7 - upgraded right to bowmen just to cover, mosquitos come from top
level 8 - finished upgrading self, build defence everywhere
level 9 - mosquito rush from bottom -- you'll have to run away and let your bows finish it. very scary
level 10 - you will be mosquito rushed again!


emperor
you will want to be building during the level as you get 80 at the end
level 1 - build spear men, upgrade attack once
typically I'm covering the top side cave with attacks
level 3 - current build of a few spearmen all around has cats coming through from the top left through the top
*around here I placed wheels covering the entrances

level 6 - by now you have maxed abilities

warning that bows are blocked at the top near the finish

of the 4 --
right, bottom, top, then left is the order that they arrive at the finish. right/bottom arrive at the finish near same time

of starting caves: bottom right/ bottom left, then top left, then top right arrive

bottom right goes to right finish, bottom left goes to bottom, top left goes to top, and top right goes to left

emperor
level 1 - upgrade attack and speed, build 2 spearmen on the right hand side--you'll work the left hand side and then walk right after the initial break to clean up anything
correction -- 2 spears on right side, 2x2 chicken fire in middle, upgrade atk once -- you'll need to lay the chicken/fire while finishing last enemies
level 2 - add 2 spearmen on right, upgrade speed, place 1 bone thrower on left
let last red dino from top live so you can place your extra chicken/fire to make a 3x2
new correction -- 2 spearmen on each lane on right, you'll cleanup but you can get a 3x2 + 2x2 + 1x1 of chicken done during this and just chase what you need to (you'll have 1atk/1spd upgrade but now a ton of money)
level 3 - setup 2 wheels on right hand side to cover entrances, upgrade throw (looting 3 chickens + rebuild them)
focus on left side you'll need to clean it up yourself
cat comes from right hand spawns somewhere
level 4 - wheel now on both right hand side + lots of spear guys. cats come from top left this is NOT covered
added wheel to top left--I'm further ahead on this run through
and I added a 3x3 chicken coop on the left hand side
top left has cats early, you must cover both the cats and the red dinos yourself (will threaten the bottom)
level 5 - cats come from bottom left and top (not bottom right?)
added tar guys to the wheels and a bowman on the right, more chickens, you'll come back to finish the blue guys (add more chickens during this if you can)
level 6 - cats come from bottom left
level 7 - some cats from top left then more dense from bottom left lots of armours
level 8 - at this point covering the left spawns and then building with your money before the round ends is $$$ - no losses with just putting wheels + slows + bows/spear 2s all over right side
level 9 - way too many cats from top left--you cannot handle it yourself, too many armours as well
level 10 - way too many cats again
level 11 - way too many cats again
level 12 - way too many cats
level 13 - add flyers, just beware but they don't matter
level 14 - nothing really just cover
level 15 - add mosquitos, stay in middle use your bows as cover
level 16 - nothing to report, started running out of space
level 17 - all enemies
level 18 - nothing to report, cover the map at this point, stay in middle
level 19 - may need to cover SW of finish too many cats/armours at once + bosses
level 20 - there's a few new enemies listed..high HP flyer bottom left boss, stego massive HP top right

misc info i stole off the internet:
Yes, each campfire next to a unit increases its attack power (not speed) by about 25%. So the higher the base damage of the unit, the more value you get (until you do way more damage than you need to). While I'm at it, I'm just gonna post other info I have on units that the game doesn't tell you.

Rock throwers 1: fast attack speed and lower damage, but have 2 range.
Rock throwers 2: faster attack speed and more damage, 2 range.
Spear throwers 1: slow attack speed with high damage and generally more DPS than rock throwers, but 1 range.
Spear thrower 2: same attack speed and still 1 range but much higher damage.
Fire throwers 1: armor piercing (for the blue slime things), do slightly less damage than spear throwers with moderate attack speed, 1 range.
Fire throwers 2: armor piercing, extremely low damage but extremely fast attack, 1 range.
Tar throwers: attack slightly slower and do slightly more damage than rock thrower 1 and have 1 range, but slow enemies they hit.
Wheel thrower: 1 range and very slow attack, but high damage and attacks can hit multiple units in rows. Depends on the map layout how good they can be, but very effective against green and red dinos if placed well.
Bows: High single target damage with very slow attack speed, but 5 range.

A campfire will cook any chicken by it over 2 rounds, but a chicken next to 2 campfires will cook instantly the next round.

Units can miss their attacks as well. Seems to depend on angle and enemy run speed.

This game is really cool. At the moment the cherry is bugged with game crash issues. You'll get to the final fight and it breaks due to a null pointer exception.

The most important tip is that the game creates a save when you go down each floor. Abuse this. Make sure you're loaded up before going to each floor. Also make sure you get the throne on each level. That's your level up and it makes you much more strong. If you get bopped, you'll restart at the start of the floor, but lose gems, keeping the rest of your stuff. Use potions liberally if you're struggling especially, and dropped items. None of them are poison to you.

I primarily used the longsword. The swords seem to use less stamina than other weapons so you get more DPS for each time you get in on difficult enemies. Clubs stun, spear type stuff + zweihander hit the backline (some enemies don't block as much and can get leveled by you with this but these weapons again require a lot of stamina to use effectively.)

So my notes here was keeping track of what I found. I took screenshots of every spell I found and I doubt I found all the spells!
Casting a spell is a 'mousegesture', you hold the spell button and hit your d-pad in the directions shown to create that object. Some spells require you to go back to the centre, others you end on an edge. There's some way to read this on the map, until I could tell--I just tried both combos.

Playing these kinds of games is about testing everything. My original notes contain the spells if you need them and due to guide text character limits, that's in the next section.

Traps--if the switch triggers a trap, run immediately! I basically never got hit by traps by quick movement.
Fountains are a scam. Think half the time they poison and it's random. Once you learn how to minor heal, there's just no point to risking unless you're truly desperate.

Most effective spells that I used:
Map--lots of screenshots I took as I was lost in areas.
Pierce--Any enemies that guard a lot (Jester, Hand, Bosses), deals a small amount of damage to both front and back row.
Minor Heal--use it constantly, in combat as well to top off your HP as manna regens as you deal damage or time passes. So the more manna you have, it's essentially a bonus hitpoint pool

Nearly every level has a special room. You can search this room for items. The final item in each is usually special. The first level you get the Zweihander. A strong sword in itself but it's for the cherry.

Enemies
As you move up, nearly every enemies turns into a guarding/slashing enemy of some kind (or a caster that blocks annoyingly too).
Nearly every enemy in the game I developed a pattern on how to fight them and upgraded my stats/used equipment to make sure when I got a hit in--that hit (many slashes) was sufficient to down them in 1 hit.
Skeleton for instance will pull his sword and you can interrupt him. He swings if you stand in front or just to the side of him. His slash is rather wide and I'd position myself on later levels far enough such that he'd 'bump' into the enemy next to him and can't get in the range to swing.
Naga, just like skeleton. If it blinks red, that's a guardbreaking nasty swing. Deal with naga just like skeleton--duck and dodge and stand in front of them, they'll go for a swing--interrupt and down em.
Lizardman - the first of these guarding guys like skeleton/naga. This one has a poison breath that drains stamina, just avoid/wait for it to despawn.
Rat Bats - When you see them move in, just walk sideways then come back to hit em. You can also just swing early enough to just bop em too. They are hittable as they're coming down.
Jester - If you time a swing as it hits the ground exactly, seems it overrides his guard. Or just wait for him to cast. Avoid the ball and you can do this all day. Can use pierce, but I save manna on this floor for hands.
Hand - With fungal cloak, the timing for me is to run from a 45 degree angle and back in front about 4 times, his guard time is really long. If you have a shield, you can just block/wait for cast (remember I have no shield). This guy is a priority to take down and use the fact that the Nagas/Skeletons can't swing at a wide enough angle to get you (assume you're standing at the edge of the hand that avoids their wider swings!). I will frequently use pierce to get in on the hand and get them down ASAP, usually takes 2 sets of attacks as it'll have a sliver of HP left.

Crone -- mostly sells garbage. Gems are superfluous, so if crone sells something you want, go for it.


Cherry:
I think the fountain can scam you but here's what I did:
Get zweihander by fully searching the armour knight room in the first region (floors 1-2)
Give it to the red knight, he'll give you a red coin
Toss the red coin in a fountain.
You'll be offered 3 things. If you're uninterested in the cherry, you can get bonus level up or money. For cherry you need to wish for honor. If you're shunned here--you may need to reset until you get the 'good' message.
Go back to the red knight and talk to him. He'll give you the red star sword which you use on the final boss. The sword is terrible otherwise. I wait to equip it, equipping it in the final room prior to placing the gem.

If you're struggling with any boss. First know where the boss spawns, they don't move. This means you can always 'prep' before the fight. Here's the items I cared about most for fighting:
Yellow potion - stuns the enemy.
Black potion - gives you a massive power boost. You can down any boss in seconds with it and it probably is the best potion.
Grey potion - this gives you an immense amount of shield ability.
Bouncy ball/skulls - these are played like a pong game and can repeatedly stun enemies, even bosses. The larvae egg will also be a permanent ball for a good deal of times before hatching into a friend that can go into combat first (you hit a button to have them stand aside and let you fight--the hatched bug can be good to 'get a preview' of a fight you're concerned about but the bug does little damage once hatched)
Lizard's Bracers - deals additional poison damage to enemies. You cannot defend like you can with a shield with this on, but it deals so much damage that you can 1 shot enemies.

Grey/black and a stunning item lets you easily down any boss.

Equipment of note:
Longsword is plenty to finish the game. I went 15/13/6 stats, high str/con made sure I had plenty of stamina and HP. You cannot use items in combat, so things like red potion are terrible once you know how to cast minor heal.
After beating the queen boss, I got a fungal cloak. This cloak I preferred over armour as you move REALLY fast (just dodge any attack basically) AND you regenerate any health lost in combat just about when you're regenerating stamina! This requires you to have 'control' of the combat, but you can just fruitlessly attack the last enemy that blocks in a fight until your stamina is super low, let it regen and watch your HP come back too. The fungal cloak ONLY heals HP lost in THAT fight, so you need to top off prior to the combat ending. I just used minor heal to heal the little bit that doesn't heal.



Also note that casting spells pauses the game briefly which can let you assess the situation. Failing to cast a spell costs one tiny bit of the MP bar.

My original notes below:
plus map spell R L U
N tetris gate spell L U U U - use on wall cracks
2 up - pierce U U U D D D
minor heal - R U L U U
whirlwind - U L U R R D D
spark - U R D L
invisible - U L U L U L D D
ice block - U U U R R D D L L D?
major heal - L L U R R R U U
4th spell
lightning storm L R U L L U R R
fireball U U L D L D R D R U
haste R R L U D D U L
(note some spells go back to the beginning)
*we have found 3 spells per level
*1 throne per level
5th level spells
silence U R R D L D L U
double U U R R D L L L L

red pot hp
rat heart some hp

club less damage but can stun

slime skull bounces and stuns
bone from skeleton - scares nearby monsters might attract?
orc tusk is a combat item did 34 damage to 1 enemy

blue pot magic?
green haste
black potion power
yellow reflex 'you get the jump' next fight -- enemies get long stun next fight
gray sturdy 'shield feels unbreakable'

crone sells
club 5 , hooded cloak 4 , dragon shield 14, green potion 3

red knight--he wants an item to give--gave club 'your kindness will not be forgotten'


throne lets you level up - shows the cost there is a throne on level 1 - 200 got me 3 points

fountain can be poison
spikes seem to have a 2 turn window you can wait to pass them

selling club was worth 2 gems to the crone

game saves each floor with your progress. so being complete may be more worth it?

level 2
gem puzzle--moved them to not touch each other/they started to glow, got em all

spikes--you can move into a spike you know will go down

enemies trying to follow you can get stuck on walls and stuff--haste might let you get away

skeletons - block uses some stamina but if your shield holds up easy to slash em down
same works for orc but they have a lot easier window to hit as they swing
lizard, can shoot down poison, otherwise block and strike

MAP - you'll reach 3 fountains umm
the switch all the way at the end of the longest road opens a gate at the very beginning which leads to a guy
after the statue is the next throne, there's another red potion--the mimics drop random things, you might get something good
throne 2 is 400 and is right near this door that forces you to move only across a + (not a 4-way, like 2 tunnels laid 90 degrees)

SHOP LEVEL 2
crone
partisan 12, hooded cloak 4, lion shield 6, blue potion 3

longsword SELLS for 4

boss is knight, he comes down, cross slash (how to evade?), throws shield and is vulnerable a lot

zweihander can be acquired from the statue room as a random reward. requires 15 str
for boss, try sturdy pot for longer shield. we nearly got there with lion shield

getting ko'ed you lose all essence and gems!

LEVEL 3
*goals, find throne, 3 spells, got bronze plate, didn't find crazy upgrades but there's a few random chests.

Formid Head - shows map, teleport -- but not to a location you do not have mapped (must have vision/stepped there)
there's a slime switch at the start, can we formid head to avoid the slime later?

CRONE
club 5, clothes 3, wooden buckler 2, red potion 4
leather armour sold for 1

red knight is around the bend from the crone
throne top right - 800 essence
3 str added a sizeable chunk of damage

LEVEL 4
pathing:
first switch activates gate
eventually leads you to goo room, search it to go south--goo room has multiple exits!
switch flips goo and opens new paths--you could blow a key for a shortcut back
east corner has a switch that opens a gate
east route: warhammer in chest (like level 2 club, more stamina drain/less damage than longsword) and slime switch -- round 2 chest was a club--so it's just always a weapon?

lizardman drops lizard's bracers. poisons enemies--stupidly good

CRONE
club 5, bronze plate 8, lion shield 6, green potion 3

egg hatches after a really long time into a combat larva. Might be multiple use, turns into combat bug eventually

Throne - after making gate flips, 1400

goo room loot
bone, poison sac, bone, orc tusk, insect egg (last item)

new monster - spore - sits in backline and shoots a cloud, seems real bad. Might suck stamina? might have missed

Queen boss--used longsword (more hits, took 12/10/5 stats) used black potion + the combat larva and lion shield. stun locked the queen!
Fungal cloak - if you go prone/lose all stamina, you get healed while stamina is recharing. seems everytime you defeat an enemy you get HP back

5th floor
new monster - naga -- if flashing/overhead swing it will guard break
jester - in front or backrow can throw a ball - drops bouncy ball, summons a doll as well. you kinda have to wait for him to do his wind up and if you're fast you'll get him
drops naga's bracers -- seems to be some kind of wind up move
doll - kinda treat like rat bat i guess
faster rat bat

routing:
there's a pizza to ride in the NE that lets you flip a gate switch across it
red knight gave me a red coin
giving the knight naga bracers gave me 5 gems
second gate switch: SW corner ride a looping pizza
throne is very near this SW corner
there's 3 total gate switches you need and the exit is in the far left

throne 5 - 2000
crone behind secret door east side
longsword 8, bronze plate 8, wooden buckler 2, black potion 3


6th floor
Crone
partisan 12, hooded cloak 4, dragon shield 14, red potion 4
Red Knight
somewhere south of monolith

wall ruby, i assume it gets used somewhere?
several gate (3 bottom right/SW) switches near the start

hard skull--just like the bouncy item

twinkling monolith is to the east of the start area
the west route has 3 gate switches you probably need to hit
monolith has 3 sockets

sapphire was found via south route through a gate wall (it's south of the hidden wall that leads to lava), right next to the spikes

there is a green throne which costs 0, sounds like a scam
emerald is right by this throne

hand - use pierce to get in on them. i'm not sure what else to do besides equip a shield on this level

abyss boss--seems to have 2 phases, take down the gems to power down the magic attacks. I just beat him down. Pierce very useful to get by guard.

Vertical climbing game in which you scroll the screen upwards as you go.

So here's a lot of tips. The game is hard and to get the cherry is rather difficult.

Each few rows of generated floor is actually all one piece and as you play you'll notice certain formations of platforms occurring frequently. Part of playing well is recognising these and having standard ways of dealing with this.

I cannot stress enough you need to be patient. The game creates a sensation you must go fast, not true. Horizontal movement and just hopping along buys you a lot of time to study your situation. Collecting a lot of coins in level 1 and some in level 2 is enough to get you the minimum upgrades to make the rest of the game less painful. Landing on top of enemies bounces you up, they do work as a temporary platform. Coin blocks on level 1 can get you 3-5 coins each time, allowing high scores. Don't leave your blaster on autofire. Much of the game I'm not shooting at anything, just when I actually need to remove a bat or get through a block. Blaster damages platforms and creates a lot of chaos. Patient progress is how to win this one. You have far more time than you think you do.

There's a variety of upgrades available. If your goal is to beat level 4, I would purchase the following:
Lightfoot 1 + 2 (this makes platforms last longer)
Lightning bolt (almost a necessity for level 4 as it's a lot of clouds and you need time for the boss. It makes it so your shots don't clear clouds)
Gun upgrade 1 + 2 (least important, but useful--especially if you're struggling to get the birds for the keys)
Triple Jump (Quite nice, expensive. More time to think/lightning cloud if your goal is all 4 stages is better to me.)
Heart (lessens the time you are stunned after being hit. Not as important as other upgrades. Really just avoid getting chain stunned or hit in bad ways.)
Magnet (lets you shoot to collect coins. If you can utilise this, great. I never really bought it as I find shooting a lot a problem in many circumstances.)


Coin blocks appear on the first 3 levels. Shooting them will spawn coins. The timer on the block's despawn starts as soon as it's interacted with. I find the best strategy, if you feel the spot is safe is to do your first jump and shoot downward into it. Get 3 coins safely this way, 5 if you're pressing (at 5 it will despawn as that's about how long it's timer is). These coin blocks are critical for the major upgrades you need.
Star blocks appear on the first 3 levels as well. Jumping on them lets you fling up like a rocket (with a parachute!) about 1/4 to 1/3 of the level's distance. I don't like these as it's often you have to panic a bit to find a safe spot when the boost ends and you miss money.
Bird -- after about 1/3 to 1/2 through the level (10-15 of the 30 in the level) a bird will spawn. You need to shoot these birds, one in each of the first 3 levels, and they'll drop a key you collect. All 3 unlocks level 4. They tend to stay in the same horizontal location if you're shooting them or just after they spawn. Gun up helps dispatch them faster, but you don't need it. Find a safe space in the next few (it sticks around for about 4-5 distance then flies away) sections and unload. Be quick, but don't feel rushed to take it down immediately as it spawns.

Level 1
Platforms - Clouds, Wooden Boxes, Bricks. Each respectively lasts longer than the former. Clouds if your blaster shot goes through one, will despawn it.
Enemies - Bats. Bats knock you sideways and every enemy when you get hit steals your first jump in doing so. So as the stun runs out, JUMP--especially if there's no platform to even land on. You tend to get stunned into a corner. Also the bats, like every other enemy in the game, if you can land on top of to jump off them. For bats, this also removes them.

If level 1 goes well I can collect 50-55 coins. Average is probably about 30. Be patient and get comfortable with this level. The game, like every game in ufo50, is a bit of a lie. The game implies and seems to want you to play fast--the platforms collapse, the rolling pin implies you're being chased. I spend a lot of time single hopping--saving my 2nd jump should anything go wrong. Committing your 2nd jump is leaving you without an escape if you miss or something unexpected happens. Also, the pin isn't moving unless you go up! Lots of horizontal movement if you have a lot of blocks to stand on is fine and how you collect nearly every coin on level 1!

Level 2
Platforms - Clouds, Bricks,
Enemies - The primary enemy in this stage are obstacles. The electric field bat has a central part and make a 5 tile wall, horizontally or vertically. Shooting the middle ONCE (it cycles) or hitting the bat causes it to rotate 90 degrees. The general method of dispatching these are to aim up, shoot the middle once and jump through. You will mostly lose on this level when above the bat is a brick you tried to jump into but it's a brick so you fall down--so look before you leap!
TNT blocks -- these blow up one of 2 ways. By jumping on them it'll push down the plunger and they'll shoot a trident-shaped 3 bullet spread upward--sending you flying if you get hit by it just like any other enemies. The blocks also explode upon hitting the bottom of the screen in the same fashion. When you see these blocks, don't be directly above them as they explode.
One of the most dangerous spawns in this level is 4 horizontal bats that force you to line up and pick a path through. You're a bit restricted crossing this, so ideally you'd want to be towards the middle as the edges can leave you stuck to the edge without a lot of spaces to jump to that are safe or a really hard jump.
The Mines, well they look like mines anyway, you shoot those and they will create clouds across that row. Hitting them physically will also create the clouds but stun you in the process. I always shoot these unless I already have way too many platforms (there's one spawn with like 4 of them at once).

Level 3
Platforms - Bubbles, Brickish things
Enemies - octopus, fish, squid
You can jump on top of any of these, but some have consequences now.
Fish - go up and back horizontally.
Octopus - if hit or jumped or shot will split into 2 smaller octopus. Really annoying and adds chaos, avoid.
Squid - a !! symbol will appear on screen and a squid will drop from that symbol and land onto the spikes shortly thereafter. It will remain there for quite a bit. You can jump off the top of the squid/use as a platform while it lasts.
Bubbles are NOT affected by lightning bolt as they're not clouds and you can shoot them.
Most of this level I do not shoot the blaster and do not collect coins unless I'm really close to a threshold to buy an upgrade for level 4.

Level 4
There's telephones that you can still bounce off of but I don't think they despawn when hit or shot now. They just move horizontally.
There's some kind of exploding block similar to the one in level 2. I never really had an issue with them and just avoid, there's enough clouds usually.

The boss is 2 hands and an eyeball. They shoot lightning out of the hands sometimes straight down and projectiles at any angle at you. The Mine object will return and you need those to make platforms to shoot this boss down before you are allowed to finish the level.
The boss spawns about midway to 2/3rds through the level with about 10 distance to go. Upon reaching the top, you have one line of clouds left to finish the boss.
Gun upgrade helps dispatch him sooner but you have plenty of time if you get about 3 good opportunities on the way up to unload into each part. They'll fall off as you go. Beat all 3 and you can jump up to the finish!

This game is essentially the card game Dominion. If you've played that a competitive level, you probably win rather easily once you digest how the game works. If you haven't, it's not terribly difficult to understand sort of the goal.

You have a rolodex (interchangeably referred to as a deck, such as a deck of cards) and each guest (interchangeably referred to as a card) you let into your house until one of the following things happen:
1) you choose to end the party yourself.
2) the house becomes full and you have no actions to take.
3) 3 or more guests that have a red 'X' designating them a troublemaker are in the house at once, without anything to raise the default threshold (each white flag you have increases the allowed trouble guests by 1). This immediately ends your round, does offer you the ability to ban anyone in the house from the next day's party, but it's an extreme penalty to lose a day.
4) any guest who brings a friend by force, overflows your house. Fire marshal shows up and you lose the same as the cops. You still get to ban a guest and get no resources.


General advice:
Losing even a single day is really bad due to overflow/trouble. You need to score every day to ramp properly so that halfway or so through the 25 days you are generating tons of money and popularity. Slowing this puts you under pressure where you need to take risks that generally won't work out or you'll need that 1 extra day at the end to get 4 stars at once.

No matter how you play, the game starts every time with 10 cards/guests:
4 wild buddies - troublemakers
4 old friends - +1P (popularity)
2 rich pal - +1$ (green money)

The strategy I would suggest overall is to take the maximum the game allows you. If you draw 2 trouble on day 1, just end the day and take those rewards. If you're playing for the cherry, you don't know exactly what will be available after day 1. (the scenarios you would, if you've retried them so maybe you have a goal in mind and want to risk but this guide is focused on the cherry/random play. The scenarios teach you the game and are far easier.)
As you finish day 1, analyze the board. Consider several things:
1) What is the most efficient way to generate a lot of money?
2) How can I generate 30+ popularity per turn? This may be climbers, this may be dancers + photographer, a combination, etc.
3) Consider for 1 & 2, what is the most consistent and stable strategy? You don't need $30 per turn and you don't need more than enough popularity to buy your desired star guest per turn.
3b) Cupid, Guards, 'removal' are incredibly strong. Not only do they let you remove a trouble guest, they also allow you to prune your deck down to specifically just your high value P/$ guests.
4) Consider combinations such as climber + grillmaster/athlete.
5) cheerleader and photographer are generally completely busted in any scenario and will likely be part of your win condition. Driver/Private Investigator are likewise busted--a common strategy is to pick your guest, perhaps it's cupid--then with cupid send the Driver/PI out as they're worth next to nothing.
6) Don't start buying star guests until you want to ramp into winning the game.

The first house size increase is $2 and it goes up by $1 per size, up to a max of $12. $24 therefore is the most immediate payoff you can ever worry about having to generate in a day.
Popularity, the most expensive normal guest is $12. Generally any desirable guest you want all 4 copies, so consider many turns in being able to buy 4 things is quite strong.

After analyzing the board I focus on money engine first. If there's 4 auctioneers, I want them all, etc. There's more popularity guests that just exist whether you like it or not, money is rarer. Money also without even attempting to ramp increases your house size by 2x-3x. Because of this house growth, I tend to not take trouble guests unless you simply have to in the scenario.
After securing a strong money engine and 'control' over the house such that you're confident you won't have the cops show up ever, now you ramp up popularity. The larger house lets you fully abuse the various actions available to you. If you can make guests have 9 pop due to a hairdresser or climber + 'send ppl outside' combo, this is when you ramp. If you ramp properly, you should easily be getting 30+ popularity per turn. By around 10 turns to go, I make sure to buy up all the star power I want. Sometimes there are cheaper ones with drawbacks--if you can get 2 in one turn, go for it I suppose but I take the 'good' ones that have powers first unless I'm desperate.

Once you have 4+ star guests, stop playing the game normally. Use all your powers and if you need to--buy things like magicians and drivers/more ways to boot out ppl, to pluck all your star guys.
The game does NOT calculate end of turn resources. If you have 4+ stars in the house, you win upon ending the day, so don't panic if you think you'll get a penalty for running out of money.

That's pretty much it. The cherry is largely just maximising each day like this and playing patiently!

Game consists of 4 levels

The quirk of this 2D / 'rail'ish shooter is your gun powerups if you drift the car. This is done by reversing direction and you'll notice sparks flying off the car. There's no bonus for each bar of power--simply being in the red is the max bullet.

You can use your d-pad to lightly aim the gun such as holding up to shoot upward, it's not ENTIRELY momentum of your car. Of course being stationary for too long is bad. As you play you'll have a good idea how much damage you need to take down a target and sometimes it's more important to take the target out.

Completing a level without losing a car gives you a bonus stage worth a lot of points and it rewards you with 2 extra cars.

Game is 4 stages
1 -- like a military theme
Planes/Bombs to start. If they stay on screen too long they explode or shoot at you.
Cars show up--use your alternate shot to take them out. Points are only awarded if you take out the damaged car that's created after hitting the car enough times.
Chopper - starts to show up with car and other mess, quick up shot or 45 degree angle shot it first as it's the most annoying.
Boss is a 3x turret. Keep your gun at max and take them down one at a time.

2 - Geometry stage
Squares come at you and shooting them also creates shrapnel to avoid
Diamonds have a downward beam that moves inward. Shooting it bounces it back.
Circles - Sort of like PANG! These come from the top
Spinning Cubes - hit with side gun to hit in air, then use the 45 degree shot to throw it further in the air and finish it. You can go under them once you have enough clearance.

Boss is a sphere with 4 orbiting spheres. Knock off the 4 spheres and they go black. You can keep juggling them around as you need to keep avoiding them. Get shots on the main sphere. It will become yellow then red. It requires a pretty high amount of fire, so don't get lazy buying yourself space from the blackened spheres.

3 - Night stage
Skulls - Come at you, pretty easy, no shrapnel. This level is also way easier to see than stage 2.
Ghosts - shoot at a constant 45 degree angle downward. Very annoying and difficult to remove.
Chain chomp ghost chaser guy - These are initially blue and come at you. You have to juggle these a bit. The boss drops 4 of these at once as a move. They turn purple and then blow up.
Random UFO (Campanella) - shoots downward, can get rid of with a lot of damage on a 45 degree angle. Just randomly shows up mid-stage.

Hand Boss
Shoots a 5 spread bullet at where you are. The corner is 'safe' but it's difficult to get shots in.
Fist attack- comes down and makes a sinusoidal motion (up and down but really low to the ground) that you just drive under.
Fly across screen and spawn 4 chain chomps -- you have time, just clean the 4 of them quickly and he will go back to shooting the 5 spread.

4 - Ocean/Vapourwave vibes
This level uses a really neat effect of background + foreground.
Orcas will jump out and create waves that move towards the screen. You need to avoid the waves. This is a constant obstacle the entire level.
Spaceships - They come down to the ground zig-zaging. They will then come after you.
Octopus - scoot across screen and shoot 3 bullets behind/below them.

Boss Octopus
Hitbox is middle of its face. It has 6 active tentacles that will slam into the play area and their colour will change to indicate this. The middle of the face will also shoot a 3,4, or 5 spread ink blob. The ink blobs have a rather generous hitbox in your favour, so avoid tentacle and you'll probably get away with it if you cut close to the ink blob. Getting in with the straight up shot was most effective for me. Made paying attention to the tentacles coming down + aiming + avoiding the ink that spawns right there all central. When it gets too hot, dodge and recharge.

Cherry -- take out nearly every enemy + get the bonus stage with all the points in levels 1 and 3 is enough. The final boss is 40k. Practise will make perfect on this one as all enemy patterns are exactly the same everytime. Getting something down before it causes trouble is a critical element to having consistent performance.

Randomly generated adventure game.

Cherry requirement: Get all 3 pieces of map and return to your ship before 20 minutes, before your overstay your welcome on the planet!

This game is pretty fun to figure out and that's a large part of the puzzle. Once you know all the below information, it takes a lot of fun out of the game. I'd recommend playing this one unspoiled.

Resources
There are 4 of them and they are random each game in their relative value and what items require what. It seems each item generally won't require the same item, so you'll likely need 2-3 if not all 4 of the items in some quantity to win.

Enemies
There are several different enemies. Their behaviour and drops are random. Some enemies will spawn acid on kill, some explode. The explosion can hit ice and cause it to shatter, damaging everything on screen!
Any enemies that appear docile, can be talked to. One random alien will require the translator to talk to. Talk to each individual alien on screen as each may have different interactions. Some will trade resources between one another, sometimes this may be the only way to get a resource. Also some may sell items, even a treasure map.
Snails are special--bait them with meat to get them to move. This is the use for the meat printer as there's typically going to be one pathway blocked by them.

Items
meat printer - uses a random resource to print a meat for you. Moves snail.
transformer gun - can turn an enemy into a harmless mini enemy. Can also make you harmless and small to get through caverns. Melts the ice off the crystals, rendering them safely bombable.
Bomb - plants a bomb, can take out enemies and some 2x2 walls. Sometimes an alien will give you a clue where to bomb. If used on an acid pool, creates a warp.
pulse generator - use to take out every enemy on screen + sometimes opens secrets. I've had more success with bomb opening secrets. The blue buildings/walls with a red circle on top go down when you use the pulse generator.
nail gun - can take out crystal walls without exploding them. can also sometimes take out walls/find secrets.
hazard boots - does not need to be the active item to work. allows you to walk on acid without damage. Also stomps on transformed enemies.
Boomerang - just like zelda, you fling it and it will damage enemies and pick up items. Sometimes needed to get a map item i the middle of a island.

You cannot bomb dirt but you can bomb many other things. Transmog crystals with the gun otherwise they'll explode.

bombing a poison pool makes it a warp (still harms you to walk in)

Each game seems to have a temple with a map at the end
Usually there will be a hidden map either requiring the boomerang/bomb to get to somewhere on the map
The 3rd map may be tradeable (faster usually if you're hoping to win under 20 minutes) or hidden by a hidden/item required to get by something path on the periphery of the map.
Nearly all the interesting stuff on the map will be at the periphery.

That's pretty much it. Very cool game.