The title screen for the game.
Gemcraft Chapter 0 is a prequel to the original GemcraftGemcraft Chapter 1 (The Forgotten), and was released on April 16, 2009. It is very similar to the first game, although there are some minor changes, and a few major changes to the game.
Changes from Gemcraft
A major change from the original game was the use of trenches was replaced with traps. Traps can be set on the path and use 1/5 of the power that a gem would use in a tower, but they attack twice as fast and their special ability is amplified as well.
There are also many different modes you can play each level, which are unlocked after your wizard level gets to a certain point. There are nine modes total, counting the normal mode. You must complete a level on normal mode before any other mode. Three out of the eight other modes provide three times the experience, allowing you to level up quicker on those modes. The nine modes are:
- Normal-Kill all the monsters (start out with)
- Sudden Death- If a monster reaches your wizard tower, you lose (obtained at Level 8)
- Endurance-Survive for as long as you can (obtained at Level 16)
- Heroic- +20% number of monsters, +40% monster hit points, No giant monsters, 2 additional waves (obtained at Level 24)
- Swarm- Only swarm waves, +60% number of monsters (obtained at Level 32)
- Time Seige-Kill all monsters before time runs out (obtained at Level 40)
- Bleeding Edge- +60% number of monsters, +80% monster hit points, no giant monsters, 4 additional waves (obtained at Level 48)
- Carapace-Only armored waves, Increased monster armor, reduced speed, +100% number of monsters, 6 additional waves (obtained at Level 56)
- Arcane- +80% number of monsters, +100% monster hit points, no giant monsters, 8 additional waves, Monsters led by an Arcane Guardian (obtained at Level 64)
Technically, there's also a tenth mode, only available after the last level is beaten in Normal mode. Just like Normal, it never offers triple experience.
Another new thing added to Chapter Zero is the use of shrines. Shrines are like towers with unknown origin, although they cannot be built. A shrine is activated by sacrificing a gem on it. The higher the gem, the more powerful the shrine is. Each shrine can only be activated so many times (which is shown on each level). There are three types of shrines in Gemcraft Chapter 0. They are:
- Charged Bolt shrine- Releases charged bolts that crawl towards the monsters
- Gem Transmute shrine- Changes all pure gems in your inventory to the color of the sacrificed gem. Gives damage bonus to transmuted gems. Only pure gems can activate this shrine
- Experience shrine- Boosts your score gain
- Anger Shrine- Deals damage proportional to the sacrificed gem's grade to every monster in the field and halves available mana
The last change to challenge the player is the use of Beacons. Beacons are objects that are designed to help the monsters and make your job more miserable. They can only be destroyed by a grade 3 gem or higher. The types of beacons are
- Tower Defier beacon- towers cannot be built in the beacon's radius
- Trap Defier beacon- traps cannot be built in the beacon's radius
- Healing beacon- restores a portion of all nearby monsters' hit points
- Invulnerability beacon- shields all nearby monsters from all kinds of damage for several seconds
The game keeps eight gems like the original game, but also includes the option to create prismatic gems, which are combinations of all eight gems. A minor change from the first game is that only part of the map is revealed to start with, and the rest of map appears after getting to a certain point. Besides that, the only other difference is the vast increase in number of and number of . (what?)