Game Info The Cruz site offers instructions on how to play, a complete list of game objects, playing guides, and much more. Sub-topics Basic Information Controls Item and Terrain List Strategy Guide Scoring Guide Differences from Kroz Miscellaneous Terrain List Appearance Name Notes Solid Wall Impassible. Breakable Wall Can only be passed if destroyed by your whip, a bomb, or some other means. You can also crash enemies into these walls to destroy them. Water Impassible to you, but not impassible to enemies that can swim. Tree Can only be passed if destroyed by your whip. Invulnerable to bombs. Forest Can only be passed if destroyed by your whip or a bomb. It is easy to destroy this with a whip. Beware: some forest terrain grows over time! Lava This hot surface will not block you, but it will inflict heavy damage (10 gems!) if you cross it. Watch out for lava that spreads! Bottomless Pit Avoid! Tunnel If you enter a secret tunnel, you will emerge from another tunnel somewhere in the level. Some tunnel openings move around the level! Locked Door These tempered doors will not yield one inch to your whip. Either find keys to unlock them, or blast them open with explosives. Boulder This giant rock can be pushed around. It can even be used to crush certain enemies. You can destroy a boulder with your whip, but not easily. Ice Block A huge chunk of solid ice, which can be pushed around much like a boulder. These can be destroyed like boulders, but their slick undersurface makes them fly away from you if you whip them. Can be used to cool and harden lava. Also a useful missile in a pinch. Electrified Wall This high-voltage wall will give you a nasty shock (and take 1 gem away) if you try to cross it. If you must cross it, try shorting it out with a boulder. Some of these walls have unreliable power supplies and will wink out randomly. Others have the ability to move. Rope Some levels are displayed with a sideways perspective, requiring you to climb ropes to get to higher areas. Ropes are sometimes tucked into balls and must be unfurled via special drop-triggers found elsewhere in the level. Confusion Mist If this mist surrounds you, your directional inputs are reversed, making navigation more difficult. Note: The mist will limit mouse movement to one-square-at-a-time instead of reversing input. Stairs These lead to the next lower level. Item List Appearance Name Notes Gem Basic treasure. Gems protect against damage, so you should always collect as many as possible. Gem Pouch Although rare, this is a wonderful find: it contains 25 gems! Pouch of Mystery There is no telling what's in the bag. It could be treasure, or it could also be a bag of tricks--yielding a dangerous spell. Whip A whip allows you to eliminate nearby enemies, and shatter walls or other items. Treasure Chest These chests contain an assortment of both gems and whips. Teleport Scroll A teleport scroll allows you to randomly teleport to another spot in the level. Key A key lets you unlock a door. Most keys in a level must be collected in order to proceed. Note that some levels require you to save your keys from earlier in the game for use later in the game. Be sure to budget your keys! Golden Nugget This treasure gives you a lot of points. Power Ring This handy item increases your whip power! Everything, from walls to boulders, will become much easier to destroy with each ring obtained. Slow Time Spell The hourglass reduces the speed of enemies to a crawl for a short time. Speed Time Spell The speed orb greatly increases the speed of enemies for a short time. Watch out! Freeze Time Spell The freeze marker stops enemies dead in their tracks for a short time. Blindness Potion Although valuable, this potion temporarily turns you invisible, making it much harder to navigate. Unfortunately, it doesn't make you invisible to enemies! Bonus Letters Collect these letters in order to receive a huge bonus! Tablet These valuable artifacts contain important messages from an ancient civilization. Some of them even contain spells with unpredictable effects. Magic Spear If touched, this spear will fly in a line, cutting through enemies like a laser! Magic Bridge Caster Spell This spell lays bridge tiles over hazardous terrain, allowing you to cross. Creature Zap Spell This slick spell eliminates several of the enemies on the current level, no matter where they are! Magic Bomb Activate this to blast away a nearby block of walls, enemies, doors, and items. Note that some objects are immune to magic bomb blasts. Be careful not to destroy treasures that you wish to collect! Illumination Spell Activate this to uncover nearby hidden areas in a flash of light. Obscuration Spell This spell shines anything but light on the current situation--everything nearby is instantly shrouded in darkness! Teleportation Trap If you step on this, you will be teleported to a random location. This will forfeit both your current position and a few of your points. Pyramid Spells Many spells have significant effects on the level's terrain, but are disguised from view. Whipping key areas might reveal them, but most of the time, you will have to search the right place in order to discover them. The spells include: Quake Traps: These dump walls, boulders, and sometimes other miscellaneous things all over the level. Enemy Creation Traps: These traps actually give you quite a lot of points if touched, but at great cost: they fill up the level with lots of red enemies! Reveal Gem Scrolls: These are valuable (but often invisible) spells that let you spot many gems that you were not able to locate previously. Exploding Wall Spells: These cause several of the weak walls in the level to break apart, revealing a passage. Wall Vanish Traps: These especially frustrating spells obscure parts of the walls, making navigation more difficult. Pentagram Spells These are some of the most valuable spells in the game, having the power to construct or take apart many solid structures in the level. The effect of a pentagram spell is rarely predictable--it might be required to finish a level, or it might release a deadly trap. Caution is advised. Surround-spawn Triggers Several types of triggers exist. A trigger will magically generate items or walls if you walk into it. Depending on the context and the type of item spawned, such an event could be helpful or extremely dangerous. Enemy List Appearance Name Notes Red Enemy Red enemies menace you in large numbers, but they move slowly. If you touch one, you lose 1 gem. Creature Generator A generator periodically spawns red enemies in the level. The only way to stop them from generating more foes is to destroy every generator on the level with your whip. Bug-Eyes Green bug-eyed enemies are faster and deadlier than red enemies. If you touch one, you lose 2 gems. Blue Fighter The blue enemies are dangerous, moving fast and inflicting much damage. If you touch one, you lose 3 gems. Permian Mosquito These guys really suck--they suck 4 gems away if you touch one. They are the fastest enemies. Volvox Pod Volvoxes don't attack, but they defend themselves very well: a whip strike or collision will cause the pod to split, spawning several angry off-shoots. Giant Alligator Gators are as fast and dangerous as bug-eyes, with some notable exceptions: they don't suicide, they prevent your passing over them easily, and they can swim across water to get at you. Tip-arble (Nasty Tree) This is like an ordinary tree...except, it's alive. Your whip normally does not eliminate them with one strike, and bombs are completely ineffective. Don't get cornered by these trees! Moving Wall Moving walls pursue you constantly, but are not overtly hostile, seeking just to entomb you. Like trees, these walls normally cannot be killed with one whip strike. They are, however, vulnerable to bombs. Blaster Germ While innocent-looking, these monocular creatures go out with a bang--a damaging bang with a wide radius that hurts you for 5 gems. Iron Golem A cousin to the moving wall. Of course, this one wants you dead. And your whip has no effect. If a golem corners you, you had better have a teleport scroll handy. Your only advantage is that they move rather slowly. Whipper Snapper These are similar to blue fighters. Their weapons, unfortunately, are much more deadly. They wield twin whips, with which they can effortlessly tunnel through breakables to get at you. They are also a lot more skilled with whips than you are, requiring one strike where you require many. If you are lashed, you lose 5 gems! Salamander One is bad news. A pack of them is a nightmare. A salamander chases after you, leaving behind molten lava in its wake. If a salamander touches you, you're toast--literally! 10 gems lost. Statue These stationary edifices take your gems continuously, no matter where you are in the level! Remove them quickly if you can...they are very hard to kill. Purple Worm These worms are a lost branch of evolution, and you really don't want to find them. Their favorite foods are volvox pods, but they are always willing to sample new and exotic foods, such as you. They move fast, digest their prey progressively, grow with each bite, and worst of all, each segment has a life of its own! The only way to destroy a worm is to completely destroy it--every segment. Splitting them down the middle will make a bad situation even worse. Cruztacean Mage The masters of the blue fighters have the unique ability to teleport past obstacles to reach their targets. There is no effective way to hide from these mages. If you don't beat them, you must keep running. Acid Blob This strange, acidic pool might not seem too threatening, but it regularly expands and dissolves its prey, consuming it. You can destroy a blob with your whip, but the splash from its destruction will damage everything around it, you included. This is preferable to walking across it, though--a blob takes 5 gems away if stepped on. Mind Corrupter Most enemies are cautious when approaching you. However, special mind-control devices are present in some levels, which enrage all monsters in the level and cause them to charge. Be especially wary of golems and tip-arbles who charge--their blows are much more powerful if they hit you while charging! Special Item List Appearance Name Notes Quest Artifacts Your ultimate goal for most adventures is a special item or location. The rewards are plenty for finding these, but the hazards are numerous. Once in a while, you might also find additional artifacts. But beware: many of these are merely illusions designed to trick you! Compensation Items Sometimes you can get stuck in a certain area without any whips or teleports. If you are desperate, your prayers just might be answered and you will receive a set of whips or teleports to extend the game. But the red-circled items do not come without a cost: picking one up will wash 50,000 points down the drain. Stolen Keys The enemies will battle not just for your life but also for the treasure. Unfortunately this also includes keys you will need to unlock doors. If an enemy has filched a key, the only way to obtain it is to eliminate the thief.