Beginners' Guide

The beginning of the game can be a little confusing for new players.  This page will guide you through the early game and offer tips for new players.

## **Setting Up**

### **Important Tip for Kongregate Players**

If you would like to use a cloud save account to sync your game save on other platforms like mobile or the Steam version, don't start your game on Kongregate! Due to Kong's Terms and Conditions, players who began on Kongregate cannot use cloud save anywhere other than Kongregate. Even if you try to manually import your game to another platform and make a new cloud save account there, it will not work.

Instead, start your game somewhere else: on mobile, the standalone PC/OSX versions or the Steam version. Sign up for a cloud save account on that platform. You can then open the game on Kongregate, sign into your cloud save account, and your cloud save will be loaded there without any restrictions on where else you can use your cloud save account.

### **Settings & Save Games**

After reading the first part of Tapps' tutorial dialog, ignore his instruction to tap/click on him for the moment. Your first port of call should be the menu. This can be accessed by clicking on the grid icon in the top left corner of the game. You then have a choice of six icons on the left side of the menu. The first is Achievements, the second is Info (statistics for your game and a link to the Update Notes), the third Help, the fourth the Save Games menu, and the final two are settings pages.  Choose the fourth icon to get to the Save Games menu.

#### **The Save Games Menu**

Here you can:

* **manually export or import your save;** a code will be copied to your clipboard, which you can then paste into an email or text file to save, or import on another platform (e.g. from Steam to Kongregate)
* **Export the Optimizer Export**, which is used with some Online Optimizers  (calculators which tell you where to spend your Infinity Tokens).
* **Hard Reset**; nuke *all* your progress including achievements, statistics and purchases. The only things that carry over between Hard Resets are Infinity Gems, a very rare currency which you won't begin to find until Level 201. Any Infinity Gems you earned in your previous game, even if you spent them, will be available to you again after Hard Resetting.
* **Enter Promo Codes:**Promo codes are currently only used to restore progress to those who lost their game save or experienced other bugs. They are one-use only so there's no point asking other people for promo codes. You can only get them directly from Scarybee.
* **Sign up or Login to Cloud Save;** a system that automatically backs up your save to the cloud every 30 minutes to protect you in case your local save is deleted. It also enables you to easily load the same save on multiple devices/platforms.

It is **highly recommended** you sign up for a Cloud Save account. It is free and only takes a few moments to sign up. It will protect you from accidental losses or erasures of your save, and you will be able to log into your cloud save account on other devices or platforms in order to sync your save quickly instead of having to manually export and import a code on a different device every time you switch.

Bear in mind the Cloud Save username and password fields are case sensitive.

#### **The Screen Settings Menu**

The settings are spread over two pages, Screen Settings and Game Settings. Depending on what platform you are playing on, the settings available to you might be different. Screen Settings contains mainly superficial settings which will have no effect on gameplay, so feel free to adjust them to your preference.

It's a good idea for new players to have Show Tooltips activated, as the tooltips will give you useful information when you hover over an icon or button. They are particularly useful in PC versions of the game, where they will tell you keyboard hotkeys for that button, such as M to open the menu. (All current hotkeys are listed on the Tips and Tricks page.)

#### **The Game Settings Menu**

The Game Settings menu is more important and has some settings which can help you play the game more efficiently.

* **Scientific Notation:** This affects how numbers in the game are displayed. After K (thousand), M (million), B (billion) and T (trillion), the game begins using a different system to represent larger numbers. The default system is Symbolic Notation, which starts with AA, AB AC, etc., then after AZ it goes to BA, BB, BC, and so on. Meanwhile Scientific Notation looks like 1.24E+19. You can see a comparison of the two systems on the Numbering Systems page. Pick whichever one you think you'll be more comfortable with!
* **Highlight Hero with Top DPS Gain**: This is a very useful option which will compare all the Heroes you can afford to level with your current buy amount, and will then color a Hero's panel a darker purple if they will give you the most DPS for your money. It is highly recommended to have this on at all times, unless you don't mind comparing the numbers yourself. Especially potent when used with the Buy Max amount and Round Hero Level Buying to 25s setting.
* **Round Hero Level Buying to 25's**: This setting will round to the nearest 25 when you're buying levels on your Heroes. This is a good idea because Heroes get a x4 DPS bonus every 25 levels, and greater bonuses at levels that are multiples of 1000. However, **it is recommended for new players to have this turned off**, as at the beginning you will not usually be able to buy 25 levels at once.
* **Skip Game Dialog** (not shown in screenshot): This option will allow you to skip all the dialog from Tapps and other bosses. This setting is primarily for people who have already beaten the game. If you are new, it is recommended to have this setting off so that you can see important story and tutorial information from bosses.

Now you have your settings and cloud save ready, return to the game by clicking/tapping outside the menu, or pressing Esc on PC.

## Tapps & Chompy

Level 1 contains the boss Tapps. You will be instructed to tap or click on him in order to defeat him.  When he is defeated, you will unlock the ability to hire him with gold. Hiring and levelling Tapps up increases your tap damage. Level up Tapps until you can't afford to anymore, then continue onto the next level, tapping monsters and levelling up Tapps as you get the gold.

It's worth noting your first run will involve quite a lot of tapping to kill anything quickly, and your progress will be slow even with a lot of tapping. You'll probably have to stop and farm gold to upgrade your Heroes before you can beat some bosses. Fortunately, tapping will become less important soon enough, and your pace will begin to pick up after a few runs. If you're finding it slow, you can always idle or close the game for a while. The game has offline progress so you'll come back to a pile of gold to spend.

### Getting your First Hero Skill

The row of sword icons on Tapps' info panel are his skills, and the numbers on them are their cost. You can click on each skill to learn what effect it will have. When you get Tapps to level 10, his first skill, Strike, will become available for 38 gold. This increases your base tap damage by 50%. (This is a constant 50% throughout the game, not a 50% increase at the time you purchase it; in other words, there's no point delaying buying it because you won't get more benefit from it by buying it later.)

Hero skills unlock at the Hero levels 10, 25, 50, and 75. Some Heroes also have a fifth skill that unlocks at level 100, and Tapps alone has a sixth skill which unlocks at level 200. For now, buy Tapps' skills Strike, and his next skill if you get him to the appropriate level, but focus on getting to level 5 so you can fight the next Boss.

### Hiring Chompy

Hiring Chompy will contribute to your DPS (damage per second), which is done automatically, allowing you to stop tapping or idle if you want to. However, your taps will probably still be doing a lot more damage overall, so continue tapping if you can. Keep burning through those mobs to get to more bosses,  spending your gold on leveling Heroes as you do so. If you need to stop to farm for gold because you can't beat a boss, farm on the level immediately before a boss. Farming normal levels is usually more efficient than farming boss levels because the monsters are easier to kill and there's a chance for chests to spawn.

## How to prioritize leveling Heroes and buying Hero skills

In general, it's a good idea to pay attention to the Highlight Top DPS Gain setting discussed earlier, where Heroes which will give the best DPS gain will be colored a darker purple. On level 12 you will unlock the Multi-level Buy Button, which is set to "Buy 1" as default - tapping the button will cycle through x10, x25, x100, x1000 and Max options. Using the Max option along with the Highlight Top DPS Gain setting is a very easy way to see where your money will give you the most DPS. If a Hero is highlighted, it's usually worth buying levels for them, even if you can't yet afford to get them to their next skill.

Otherwise, you should try to only level up a Hero to the level necessary to unlock their next skill, *if* that skill will increase your tap damage or DPS significantly. Some skills are higher priority than others. Some you should skip for now, spending your money on getting more DPS on later Heroes, then go back and buy later when the skills are comparatively cheap.

You can use this table to gauge roughly how important a skill is, i.e. whether you should prioritise getting it over other skills or levelling other Heroes.

## Your First Spell & First Token at Level 30

    As you defeat monsters, you earn experience. The higher the level you're on, the more experience they give - but you need more and more experience for each rank. You also gain 1/200th of a rank each time you beat a level for the first time on that run. At Rank 5, you'll get your first spell, Tapps Attacks!, which will tap for you 4 times a second for 15 seconds. If you use it, you have to wait 15 minutes to use it again.

Spells will be a very important part of your arsenal. You can see all of the Spells you will unlock by clicking the spellbook icon in the bottom right corner. Click on each icon to learn more about them.

They're weak at first and don't last long, but later you'll be able to upgrade them to increase their power and length. The first upgrade will cost 100 Infinity Tokens, so it's not something you need to worry about for a while! You'll also be able to reduce the cooldown by spending Tokens on Guardians, too.

(By the way, ranks have another purpose too - they give you a 2% DPS bonus per rank. Much later, when you're rank 500, you'll be able to Ascend - pay tokens to reset your rank, but each rank will then give a bigger DPS bonus.)

### Infinity Tokens

On level 30, you will receive your first Infinity Token. Tokens are arguably the most important currency in the game. Now Tapps will whisk you away to the Edge of Infinity to meet the Guardians. Each Guardian has four powers, and spending Tokens on these powers will give you passive bonuses which will make it easier to progress through the game. However, you can't spend your token yet - you need to *go infinite* first to activate the token. Going infinite will send you back to the first stage with no hired Heroes. Don't go infinite yet - click again on the infinity icon in the top right corner and continue fighting monsters and bosses.

**For your first run, try to get at least 5 to 10 tokens.**

Tokens only drop from bosses, which appear every 5 levels. The higher level the boss is, the more tokens they will drop. But the base chance of tokens dropping is only 25% - you can raise this with the Guardian power Lucky Roll. Fortunately you'll also get +20% chance of token(s) dropping if the previous boss didn't drop any. If two bosses in a row don't drop any, you'll get a +40% chance, and so on.

### Mystery Gifts (from level 40)

Once you have reached level 40, Mystery Gifts may begin to spawn. These are little gift boxes that are sometimes dropped by monsters or bosses. You can only open 3 Gifts every 30 minutes, though, and there will always be at least 1 minute between each Gift dropping. They can contain a number of things which are detailed on the Mystery Gifts page. It's common for them to contain gold, Infinity Tokens or ranks, which will make a big difference to new players, so be sure to look at the game frequently to check for Gifts.

## Grid Mode, Inspire and Spell Tactics

    On level 51, you'll unlock grid mode. Unlike the list, grid mode fits every Hero onto the screen at once, which will save you a lot of scrolling - but it also means you won't be able to see their skills anymore; the only way to buy skills in grid mode is the "Buy All Skills" button. Grid mode will be more useful later, but you'll probably want to stick with list mode for now until you have bought all Hero skills or you don't need to worry about the order you're buying Hero skills in anymore.

### Inspire

At around level 50 or 55, you should be able to afford to get Tapps to level 200. This will make his final skill, Inspire, available, and it'll also net you an achievement for getting a Hero to level 200. Continue to go back and level Tapps when it's cheap to do so. At level 75 or so, you should be able to get him to level 500 for another achievement.

### Spell Tactics

At rank 15, you'll have 3 tap-related spells. Naturally you should use all 3 together to get the most out of them, particularly on hard bosses. They'll be a lot more effective if you have bought the Hero skills that boost taps.

## Going Infinite For the First Time

    If you're reasonably fortunate with token drops, you should be able to get 5 to 10 before reaching level 100. Once you've got that many or more and feel ready to go infinite, press the infinity icon in the top right corner, then press it again and choose go infinite.

**Important: If you go to the Edge of Infinity when Infinity Tokens, Valor Points or Gems are still lying on the ground, you will not receive them and they will be lost forever. You need to pick them up before clicking on the infinity icon.**

**Less Important:** Before going infinite, you can switch to Max buy amount and spam level all Heroes. This will give you extra levels to contribute towards some achievements. Once you've earned every achievement of that type, you can stop doing this.

Now, after going infinite, you're back at level 1, but the tokens you earned in your previous run are now active. Unspent active tokens give you a 10% DPS bonus per token, but it's a lot better to spend them on Guardian powers. Click the infinity icon again to return to the Edge of Infinity.

### What should I spend my first tokens on?

Firstly, you have the option of using an Online Optimizer. These will attempt to calculate which Guardian powers you should spend your tokens on to get the most benefit. Which optimizer is best is a matter of debate, as they all have different features and different results, but for new players I would recommend MPMSLC's optimizer or  Pzratnog's calculator. Instructions and a list of features for all calculators can be found on the Online Optimizers page.

Of course, some people prefer not to use an optimizer, and some people just use one occasionally to check they're not extremely unbalanced, but otherwise make their spending decisions themselves. Do whatever suits you best. For those who would rather not use an optimizer, here is some advice.

### Guardian Powers guide for New Players

* **Banking and Conquest** are a very high priority - they'll give you bonuses for being in idle mode, which is activated when you haven't tapped for 5 seconds. Buying these two skills, especially Conquest, will reduce your need to rely on tapping to make any decent progress.
* **Train Heroes** is also a good idea. TH will increase your DPS by 11% per token (so it's 1% better than just holding an active token). Train Heroes is the only Guardian power which doesn't increase in cost; every level costs 1 token.
* **Any gold-related power, or token-related power,** is also a pretty good idea.
* Star Shine and Prism are likely irrelevant for your first couple of runs - you can't get Valor Points until you reach level 105, so don't bother investing in these powers before that. Valor Points can be very powerful though (each one increases a Hero's DPS by 1%) and they can also be used to do VP Upgrades once you have 100 on any Hero, so after you are starting to reach stage 105+, Star Shine and Prism will become quite useful.
* Speed isn't a good idea for at least another 1 or 2 runs. However, it is a very valuable skill that will save you a lot of time soon enough.
* Time Crunch isn't a good idea until you're at least Rank 50 or have started upgrading your Spells.
* Wormhole should also be skipped until you're making more tokens.

An important thing to know about Conquest is that it increases in cost per level, and the DPS bonus it gives per level will actually begin to decrease. Train Heroes doesn't do either. So you might wonder why it's worth buying Conquest later on - Level 6 Conquest costs 6 tokens for 25% DPS, but putting those 6 tokens in Train Heroes would get you 66% DPS. The answer is that Conquest is a multiplier for all your DPS and so has a greater effect on your DPS than Train Heroes. However, it is possible to level Conquest too much and actually decrease your overall DPS by doing so. Keep an eye on your DPS when leveling Conquest. If it goes down, you should put tokens into Train Heroes instead for a time.

## Settling into a Routine

Now you've gone infinite, you'll be doing pretty much the same thing as before - tapping until you get Chompy, buying Hero levels and skills, trying to get tokens. But hopefully you'll notice things are a little faster. And, if you invested in Banking and Conquest, you should notice idle mode kicking in if you stop tapping for a while. When idle mode is active, your DPS will turn green. However, as you haven't had many tokens to spend on idle mode, you may still find it beneficial to break idle mode to tap, especially on bosses or when you have your tapping spells on. Tapps Attacks! will break idle mode.

### Token Targets for Further Runs

* 2nd run: at least 7-10 tokens
* 3rd run: around 15
* 4th: 20-25 tokens

As you progress, you'll get a feel for when it's a good idea to reset - usually when things are getting very slow or you can't beat a boss without farming for a long time. It's more efficient to go infinite instead of grinding for a long time, so bear this in mind when progress begins to slow.

### Upcoming Milestones & Advice

In terms of levels, you've got a lot to look forward to.

* **Level 100 will yield the last hireable Hero, Aidith.** After you've bought all her skills, you may find yourself hitting a wall where you can't get enough DPS to progress. Once a Hero gets to level 200 (except for Tapps), they'll start getting x4 DPS multipliers every 25 levels, but this often isn't enough to make much difference - though it does mean it's a good idea to only level up your Heroes in multiples of 25. The first big multiplier comes when you get a Hero to level 1000 - they'll get a x10 multiplier, so it might be worth grinding gold to get Chompy to 1000 if he's close! All the DPS bonuses for certain levels are detailed on the Heroes page. Otherwise, if you've hit a wall, you just need to keep going infinite and investing your tokens until you can get past it.
* **Level 105 will give your first Valor Point,** and any boss from level 105 will have a base 25% chance to drop Valor Points**.**Each Valor Point gives an extra 1% DPS to the Hero that dropped it, and when you've got 100 VP on a Hero, you'll be able to spend those Points to upgrade that Hero's skills. You can read about VP Upgrades on the Valor Points page.
* **Level 201 is the first Guardian boss.** They appear every 100 levels from level 201 onward. The first time ever that you defeat a Guardian, they're guaranteed to drop an Infinity Gem. Infinity Gems can be spent in the Gem Shop (the cart icon) or on any Tier 2+ Valor Point upgrade. You can read more about Infinity Gems, their drop yields and uses, on the Infinity Gems page.
* **Level 500 is the first Superboss.** Superbosses also drop Infinity Gems.

Your rank will also continue going up, unlocking new spells.

* **Rank 50 will give one of the most important spells, Endless Focus**, which increases your XP gain, therefore helping you progress through the ranks faster. Endless Focus should probably be the first Spell you upgrade - consider doing so when you've reached level 300 or 400. Use Endless Focus as often as possible, but it will have the most benefit if you use it when you're defeating levels very quickly (for the 1/200th rank you get for clearing a level) or when you're using Boss Rush. It can also be a good idea to use it when you're a high level and your XP bar is filling every time you kill a monster - but only if you're killing those monsters quickly.
* **Rank 150 will give the last standard spell, Boss Rush.** This Spell is a favorite with many players because while it's active, you'll skip all normal levels, only fighting bosses. When combined with all your other spells, it can be very powerful and help you get through a lot of levels in a very short time! Newer players won't be able to get far with Boss Rush because they're not very strong yet, so you should try to use it early or in the middle of a run. If the bosses get hard to beat, you can go infinite during it to avoid wasting the end of the spell.
* **Rank 500 will unlockAscension.** It will take most players at least a week to get to rank 500, so new players need not worry about it for a while. However, the first Ascension costs 100k tokens; if you want to ascend straight away (which is fine for the first few Ascensions), you should start saving up tokens at about rank 400-430.

## Tips

### Wormhole

Once you're reaching level 300 or so, upgrading Wormhole for the first time may become a good idea, especially if you hate the tapping-only levels after going infinite. For your first time upgrading WH, it's advised to raise Wormhole to level 5, which will cost 122 Tokens. This will mean Chompy will be available to hire immediately so you can idle straight away.

After this, you should always leave Wormhole on a level ending in 4 or 9 so that you immediately begin on a boss level. For your second time upgrading Wormhole, you should raise it to 29 so you start on the first boss that can drop tokens. Later on, getting it to 104 will drop you off on the first boss that drops Valor Points. Next you can raise it to 199 which will let you immediately kill a normal boss and then a guardian (for a chance at a gem drop). After that, it's recommended to always upgrade your Wormhole to a level ending in x99 so you'll get a boss and guardian boss as the first two levels you fight. If you upgrade it to 499, you'll start your run with a superboss and a guardian boss, both having a chance to drop a gem.

Aside from chances of drops, the thing to bear in mind when upgrading Wormhole is how long you want your runs to be and how long you can instakill for. There's further advice about optimal Wormhole level on the Tips & Tricks page.

### Run Length

For very new players, runs will probably need to be at least an hour or two to get enough tokens to make resetting worthwhile. However, as you begin to invest tokens in Guardian powers, things begin to get easier and you can begin doing shorter, more efficient runs, around 30 minutes long. However, your highest level will continue to grow quickly which will mean you need to do longer and longer runs. Ultimately, one or two hour runs are a good target so that you can use all your spells at the end of a run and go infinite when you stop instakilling.

One hour runs generally require a lot of investment in Wormhole and also require you to pay more attention to the game than 2 hour runs. In the early game, your highest level grows too fast for you to be able to keep Wormhole high enough for exact one hour runs. However, moving into the mid- and late-game, you should be able to catch up on Wormhole as it becomes harder to reach new levels.

However, it's recommended to do your own experiments to see what works for you, as there are many factors that go into optimal run length, such as how much attention you can pay to the game. The same is true of spell tactics - what works for someone else may not be the best option for you, so try different things!

### Spell Tactics

There is advice for Boss Rush tactics on the FAQ page. Generally, it's most potent to use Boss rush toward the middle or end of a run in combination with your other spells.

If you close the game overnight or for other long periods, try to quit after using Boss Rush, without going infinite. You'll then be able to amass a lot of gold overnight from farming high levels, and then you can return to use Boss Rush again immediately and then go infinite.

Most spells are best saved for bosses because they have more health than normal monsters and better rewards. This is especially true for a spell like Liquid Infinity. If you're using Liquid Infinity without Boss Rush, wait to activate Liquid Infinity until you're killing the last two enemies on a normal level immediately before a boss level.

### Gems & VP Upgrades

If you are Free to Play (i.e. have no intention of buying Gems with real money), you are going to find Gems are quite scarce. You're only guaranteed 467 Gems over the course of the one game (as listed on the Infinity Gems  page), and will earn some more from Mystery Gifts and random gem drops, depending on how active a player you are. As such, you should be very careful about where you spend them. For new players, the absolute priority is to spend Gems on VP Upgrades - specifically, on only a handful of Heroes. The VP Upgrading Guide covers the optimal setup for VP Upgrades.

Only toward the very end of the game is it worth it for F2P players to consider buying Infinity Tokens with their Gems in the Gem Shop. The other boosts are not worth it if you are F2P. Do not even consider buying the Power Reset. It's virtually impossible to mess up your Guardian powers and upgrades in this game, because every power and upgrade is important to some extent! If you think you have spent your Tokens in the wrong places, ask for advice from other players (such as on the game's Subreddit) or use an Online Optimizer. You can simply spend some time investing in the powers and upgrades you have neglected and you will soon notice an improvement without having to waste any Gems on a Power Reset.

On a side-note, it is very much possible to do well in this game and reach the final level without spending any real money. This game does not cripple F2P players.  However, if you do decide to support the developer by buying Gems, it will ultimately mean he can keep adding to the game for longer, which will help keep the game fun for everyone.

## Further Advice

* Exploring the rest of the Wiki may yield a good deal of useful advice. The FAQ and Tips & Tricks page are especially useful.
* Checking out the Subreddit may also help you a lot as people post questions and tips.