GK1 General Strategy
This is general help on how to get through levels, without any information about specific levels. There is the mildest of spoilers in that we talk about a capabilities and game elements introduced in the first ten minutes or so of gameplay.
All the Time in the World
There are no places in the game that require quick reflexes or fast completion of challenges to progress in the game. Although character speech and some story elements happen in real-time, the game elements that affect your progress through a level move in "step-time". This means that moving game elements pause until you press a key. Even a creature that is chasing you will pause until you move.
Erik: Other people like to call this sort of game control "turn-based". Phooey! I demand that games like The Godkiller, Addlemoth, Deadly Rooms of Death, and Wonderquest get their own genre as "stepping games". Or maybe "steppers" for short.
Presents
Every level has exactly one present that you can strive to collect. But that's optional. If you make it to the level exit, it counts as a win. You can always come back for the present later.
Also, if you grab a present, you need not exit the level for your collection of the present to be marked permanent. That said, we found that players compulsively sought to exit levels after collecting presents. So we tried to make it possible and not tedious to get to the exit after finding a present. It just doesn't feel as good to restore away to a different level after you have the present.
The main puzzles have a fairly smooth difficulty curve. The present puzzles, less so. Don't be demoralized if you have trouble reaching a present in an early level. You may discover it's much easier to solve a present puzzle after you've made more progress through the main levels. There are no items or power-ups that make the presents accessible - you'll just have more knowledge of how the game works in your brain.
Unstuckability
The levels are designed such that you can never be blocked from a solution. There is no "undo" button in this game. Why? We want you to push forward in a positive, playful spirit. All mistakes can be corrected without restarting a level. Feel the weight of consequence lift from your shoulders. Be bold. Try things. Frolic, don't grind. It will be okay.
- If you die, the level will (mostly) remain just as you left it when you are reborn. We won't spoil the exact mechanics, but just... don't be afraid to die.
- If you push a block into a corner, you can smash it. It will be reborn at a blockpad.
- Later in the game, you'll encounter axles, which are resettable as well.
- Flinging allows you to move quickly around. It's rare for a level to require more than 10 seconds to return to a point you were at previously. So go ahead and jump off that cliff.
You can restart a level by using the "Restore Level" option.
Story is Ignorable
If you don't like listening to the characters talk, you can ignore or completely disable this. On the Settings screen, there are options for turning off speech, subtitles, animated faces, and music.
There are three places in Chapter 1 where you must remain in one area until some dialogue or song is finished (shown in the spoiler block below). But these "wait-for-talking" places take less than a minute to complete.
Progression through the game never relies on knowledge of story events. Even if you enjoy the story, it might be a relief to know you don't need to pay close attention to it.
| Spoiler: "Wait-for-Talking" Locations in Chapter 1 |
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| In Paradise, you must wait for God to say a few things before you can enter the chamber with the Apple.
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Levels are Self-Contained Puzzles
Everything you need to solve either the main puzzle or the present puzzle in a level will be available to you regardless of actions in other levels. This may not always be true as future updates and titles are released. But at time of writing, it definitely is.
From a story point of view, levels are not self-contained. Actions in other levels or even other titles (Chapter 2, etc.) can affect what characters say and do inside of a level.
Experimenting with Game Elements is Good
You can use this wiki to get specifics of how game elements work. But...
It's probably more fun to put on your scientist's lab coat and run your own experiments. Blocks and blockpads have a number of discoverable behaviors. Combined with letter gates and letter bridges, there's even more Laws of the New Universe to discover. Particularly in early levels, spend a bit of time fiddling with game elements to see how they work.
It's not an accident that there are no tutorials in the game.
Erik: The only thing I hate more than tutorials is cutscenes. And the only thing I hate more than cutscenes is tutorials.
Pure Trial and Error (Node-Searching) for Solving Puzzles is Bad
The levels were designed to be fair, even when difficult. And that means you should be able to solve everything without trial and error.
There won't be a secret passage that requires you to push against every wall in a level to find it.
Blind flings into the unknown aren't required for solutions either. Often, observation and a little square-counting will show you the right place and direction to fling.
Some stepping games like DROD use the movement order of creatures as part of the puzzle. The Godkiller doesn't rely on esoteric, deep-in-the-engine knowledge like this.
The puzzles do get quite hard. But there should always be enough information provided for you to deduce or make educated guesses on next actions.
Narrowing Possibilities
The Godkiller presents puzzles that have a large state space. There are seemingly too many options at times. You are often trying to narrow down your possibilities for a solution.
- Do the things that you must do first. For example, if you begin in a small room that contains just one exit, you probably must go through the exit of the room. So do that first and see what your situation inside the level looks like next. Sometimes, there are a number of actions that you have to do, without any real choices to make. It's easier to see more interesting decisions after you've done the simple things leading up to them.
- Rule out the things that would prevent a solution. For example, if you know pushing a block west would move it to a location where it would be stuck and not help you, then remove that action from consideration.
- Often you've done the things you must and resolved not to do the things you mustn't. Yet the space of possibilities in a level remains uncomfortably large. In this case, try forming a plan without knowing its results. The game will not always present enough for you to know with certainty that the plan will work. Example plans: "look for a place where I can fling across a chasm", "move all the creatures into one area where they won't hassle me", "get all the blocks onto a lower platform so I can spell a word there".
You might notice a contradiction between the advice to "avoid trial and error" and "try a plan without knowing its results". It's a balance thing. Players who aren't used to puzzle games tend to get discouraged when trying things quickly yields no progress. And hardcore puzzle players are often disturbed by an inability to confidently deduce the correct path in a large state space with hidden information. In this game, you want your guesses to be at the "plan" level instead of the "command" level.
Some Other Tips
- Explore the level as completely as you can when you don't see how to progress.
- Use the view squares. They don't all have utility. But some do.
- Expect a lot of lynchpin solutions. The level designer has a penchant for them. A lynchpin is a key insight that makes a puzzle easy once you've hit on it.
- Don't forget about verticality. If you've played many grid-based puzzles, you might have a bias for seeing puzzles in 2D. In this world, blocks stack atop each other. You can drop down into spaces. There might be whole half of a level hidden above your head.