Hello, this is my guide on my favorite arcade minigames. Right now my best record is in the top 5% of player (probably because a lot of player dont even think about play this game) but It still a fun way to spend your time in game. I havent gone far but still wanted to make a guide and I spent a lot of time doing this, I really hope it helps.
Short Intro:
Soul Hounds III is one of the Arcade games at God Finger, Where you play as the Soul hound and use you vaccume to dig soul blocks and go deeper into the abyss. We will be going over the single player mode as opposed to the 4 player group hunt mode.
(this will be from depths 0-500)
Basics:
You have you basic controls of either Arrow Keys or WASD to move left or right or to aim up or down
You use J to attack soul blocks and K to jump one block high
Click ESC to quit out (or you can sit at the quit confirmation screen as a pause menu)
The things you will have to manage is your
- Energy level
- Lives (you start with 3)
and the two Score you'll get are:
- Depth
- Score
When you attack/dig down on soul blocks they will be removed and if you get crused by a falling soul block, You will lose a life.
There are also to variations of the soul blocks, one witha purple flame in the middle (It will be known as harden soul blocks) which takes 5 hits to remove and scores no points, and the blue ones that are none attackable and cannot be destroyed and will not fall.
After reaching a depth that is divisable by 100, you will fall and be in the next level (every 100 blocks/depth is a level)
soul blocks comes in white, blue, purple and red and when 5 or more soul block of the same color are connected and NOT in a falling state, they will be destroyed. If you destroyed a soul block that connected to another one of the same color, both soul blocks can be destiyed (usually how people get massive points when destoying large chains of soul blocks).
What Does This Mean?
Your Energy levels start off at 100 and drains at around 1 Energy per 0.50 Seconds. When you reach 0 Energy you lose one of you 3 Lives. To regain energy you must collect Pomegranates (that spawns randomly among the Soul Blocks) to regain 25 energy. If you lose a life, when you respawn, you will have max energy.
The Depth how many blocks downwards you are, and is how the ranks are decided.
The Score is caculated by how many powerups yout get and blocks you clear
(1 soul block is 10 points, one Pomegranates is 250 points, a Sliver powerup and a Gold powerup is 1000 points)
(we will talk about the powerup in a different part)
After reaching a high enough score, you will gain another life at 60,000 (and most likly another at 120,000 and so on)
Advance:
This is the things after the first 100 depths
New blocks:
After reaching 200 depth (or second level) you will see Unbreakable Blocks which will stay in place and not fall, but also can't be destroyed. (could also come in bigger sizes and different shapes like a line that can vary in width hight or unique shapes, more unique shapes can be found further down)
Small one by one Unbreakable Blocks
Unique Unbreakable block Example
After reaching 300 depth, you will see Spike block which are blocks with a spike on either one of the 4 directions that will activate after a delay when you are right next to the spike (spike is one block big). Obvious to say that the spike will take a life. This will be like the Unbreakable Blocks in the terms that it will not fall and not break
Spike Blocks
Other Hazard:
When you reach depth 400, lazer will start shooting from the top to bottom that will take a life, these lazers will also be from left to right on depth 500
Power ups:
Pomegranates: They restore 25 energy and give 250 points
Pomegranates
Sliver powerup: They cause all the block on screen to be one color and gives 1000 points
Sliver coin
Gold powerup: make you take no damage and go faster (left and right) and gives 1000 points
(side note: can also give you a shield? which is basially a extra life. When shield is broken, it will act a a tranparent block that you can be inside and be safe, and blocks will treat this as a regular block and stay on top)
Gold coin
Guides or notes:
- depth 300-400 seems to be a minigame where it a easy way to get alot of points and Pomegranates. To be more presist, it only had blocks of 2 different colors and Pomegranates around the stage
Depths 300-400
- try to take your time (if nothing falling on you) and don't rush downwards without care
- if something IS falling on you, try to match it next to a bloc of it same color, it will connect and sometimes stops falling in itself if the block its connect to is stationary
- Try to stay alive, dont risk you limited lifes on a powerup
- try to go above blocks that are in a massive chain or group for more points and to go down faster
- use the safe side of Spike blocks to proctect yourself agaist falling blocks if back into a corner
- In the first level, there seems to be cluster or red soul blocks in horozontal lines with a width of 3-4 and its a great way to get to depth 100
- don't forget you can jump (it can be a lifesaver at times)
- You can be hit mid air by falling blocks (I lost so much runs to this)
- There a lot of repeating pattern that can be spotted on each depth (It would take WAY to long to go over all of them with just picture, buyt try to remeber certin pattern and remeber ways to get pass it or use it to help you, like depth 300-400 for example or the 0-100 clusters or red soul blocks)
Werid Things That I can't really explain:
- when you are in the falling state for a certain amount of time and hold down, you will accelrate and even have enough force to destory harden soul blocks in one attack
- when a block fall but you are inbtween two blocks and only half hits you, it looks like you take damage but a life will not be reducted
- If you time in correct, you can aim upwards and destoy a falling block before it hits you
Fun Fact:
- This seems to be based off greek myths of hades (or just greek)
- Pomegranates was known as the "fruit of the dead" and it what keep Persephone bounded to the underworld, kinda like how its keeping you energize to keep heading downwards
- The dog could be a refrance to Cerberus
- The coins has a img of grain, which is use alot on greek refrances (idk why, but you see it alot when things refrance greek myths or hades)
- The powerup have a little emote to say that there more then one type for each color (like how the gold can give shield or invincibility, found this out just recently tho)
Closing statment
This is the end, I hope this help you to start off, and I hope to see more people on the leaderboard, because this is really fun minigame and more people should try it :)
I only used my own (probably poor) knowlage and gameplay for this guide and if I should add anything or something new, comment it and ill try to change what I put, I also love learning new infomation about this that I havent figured out (a lot) or comment if this helped. also, if you want comment your high score (mines isnt far, but its 506... would have been higher if I didnt accudently quit out on depth 600)
anyways have fun and
stay digging
