I thought the letter R not typing in the highscore submit box was fixed? My guess was that this was due to the fact that the R key is a keyboard shortcut for the "Remove Rock" feature. It's been ages since I posted a high score, but I thought I remembered it being fixed. In any event, you can always copy the paste from elsewhere-- the submit box will accept pasted R's even if you can't type them. Fwiw!

Only lvls 50, 100, 150, 200,... have stun immunity.

In the Javascript version, does stunning not work after level 150 anymore? I had loads of DEs and Jades that stopped working at 150. Also for some reason I can't type the letter "r" in the highscore submit box

Universal speed hack browser extension? Hi guys, I had been using this extension to speed up gtd: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/html5-universal-speed-hac/eckionmoiajpjncecfebdmmbcboblkja But there is a limit of 3x speed. I tried downloading the source files and replacing 3 with 20 and then adding this is a local browser extension, but that didn't work. Has anyone figured this out before? thx

@216 Oh yeah you're right, that's way better. I died to wave 26 this time. Got perfect opal + BO so it was a good run but I don't think there's any strategy because they just come too fast and I can't get enough money. I don't think it got submitted to the leaderboard for some reason but I have a screenshot

I put malachite to cover the most of path, but I wouldn't complain if uranium got malachite kills. I upgrade malachite after 110 upgrade (in NMC, in normal runs even after 80 ussually), why 140?

I got to level 25 twice in the No Maze Challenge. I put a malachite to the left and I try to give it all the kills. After paying the 140 for luck, I save 280 to fully upgrade the malachite. Since the enemies go so fast, I think it's good to make sure you have sapphire and emeralds. A jade is probably necessary to pick off individual guys. I got a Uranium too early and it stole too many kills from the malachite, so I still lost at 25 even with a perfect opal and dark emerald

you put on the field: first, second(1), second(2), third jem. Then you combine second (2). In this case the special is melded from second(1), second (2), third, leaving first on the field. If it is perfect then here you go.

Can someone please remind me how the special combo glitch works again? I was doing my no maze challenge again and I somehow made a uranium without using my perfect topaz. I haven't played gtd for a long time so I forget all of the metas and tricks. Thanks!

I meant 2x FA* ( =PA and gold, had FA,fD eariel)

lost in 25, some luck: got 2x PA in lvl 19 -> gold, with BO would be possible few lvls more. min. speed is cruel in this challenge!

No maze challenge: I beat survival level 20 without placing any gems on the path, so every level is like a bat wave. It's really tricky!

Easiest to fix is 4-combine bug (double upgrade requies now 4 OTHER same gems = 5 total instead 4)

@216 @infinite Sorry is there a very annoying bug that I can easily fix for all of you?

All of those gems slows even after 30 - but by very little(~5.5%) due to MINIMUM SPEED BUG. Intended min. speed was olny ~70% of max.

Just learned about the bug to not need flawless gems, gonna try that out. But about the slow effect. Does that go away after lvl 30? Seems that neither saphire, emerald or even uranium give any affect then. The mob speed stat reduce but the actual movment is unaffected, is that a bug or intended?

To anyone interested, I uploaded a js script in the file I posted on my github, allowing you to display a GRID or MAP TEMPLATE of choice, overlaying the game through js injection. It works for me, but if you run into any bugs, you can let me know! Maybe I'll fix it. The MAP TEMPLATE needs to be an image of 520x520 pixels, that you may create and edit yourself, stored on your PC. You may use the filechooser in order to load that image. Remember to clear out the filter input before uploading, otherwise you'll set a 20% transparent pink image covering the entire map by default, unless some parts of your image are transparent. Maybe I'll make the gui more user-friendly during the next days or weeks. Maybe. Also, although it injects js code into the page, it just changes the DOM not the game itself. So its not a cheat. Its more like a decoration.

@WGW: I had a two runs in the mid 1200s crash on me in the last month. Not gonna lie, it bummed me out pretty bad after basically wasting weeks of effort. However, I'm still motivated to beat my high score since I'm playing early game runs still, similar to how you've described. I have done some experiments with skipping the initial malachite and instead going for flawed sapphire but it hasn't proved fruitful. Any tips you'd like to share? I'm basically playing for early cashflow, i.e. lucky asian jades, then pivoting towards enchanted emeralds with the occasional egyptian gold. Trying to optimize EE/EG placement to aim for a pre-level 200 switch into paraiba tourmalines for the rest of the game. I usually won't quit a run until around 100-120 if there's still no great opal, but that's probably just because I'm stubborn lol

Of course, I understand. My comment will be lost in time during the following months/years. I hope that the google engine (or... bing?) shows my file link when someone is attempting to search for the related info! That reminds me, I'll leave some keywords here just in case someone attempts to find it in the comments section: tutorial, instructions, javascript, js, info, wiki, link, how to play, uberstone, bug, armor, weakness, wave, tower, score, difficulty, gem. If anyone is interested to put my essay into the wiki, feel free to do so. Bye!

@WGW I played the GemTD mod from Dota2, it was in 2016/2017. A few months ago, I had urge of playing it again, resulting in me finding this site. What motivated me to write that essay? I wanted to come up with a strong build myself to beat this game. First, I thought that the enemies (dwarves), had indeed a weakness against every tower type, and it was implemented on the game. Instead of manually going for each wave, writing it down and taking notes, I decided to open a file, download and inspect the script myself (as the wiki didn't had all the info), putting every piece of useful info in there. The file on my github is just that. But then, everything shattered, as I discovered that enemies only had weakness/resistance when it came to Amethyst tower. So, I just wrote about stuff I was indeed curious about, instead of coming up with a strategy. I mean, the game doesn't explain what is armor, and how its used. I went from there. The game doesn't explain that certain towers have only one tower damage type. (Example: Gold always deals Amethyst damage; Silver always deals Sapphire damage). In my head, it was probably a combination of the 3 gems used on the recipe. But it's not! What were all the stats from each tower? Upgrade costs, range, damage, cooldowns? Which one was the strongest tower? Wait, is there a UberStone? What's that? See.. those were all stuff I saw only by inspecting the code. The wiki doesn't have that kind of info. Nor did I found it here (not denying that it isn't here, but for a noob, its really hard to find the info in the comments section. There's just too many comments!). So, even after I was not able to come up with a strategy, I just wanted to share what I found. Maybe someone else will not waste their time redoing all of this again.

@CarlHR: Very interesting info. I bet @216 would have more to say on the specifics, since he's made so many comments referencing the game code over the years. I've only really just glanced it over for now, but you might want to take a look at the comments here about game bugs to incorporate in your work here. E.g., I noticed your description of damage buffs: "Damage auras (BlackOpal, StarSapphire) don't stack. There's no need to place multiple of them nearby." It's worse than that-- whichever tower you build most recently overrides the prior buff. So if you build a Star Sapphire after making a Black Opal, you lose the 40% buff for a 5% buff. It makes the Star Sapphire an absolutely worthless tower that should really never be built, not even if you're handed one in a single turn. They can wreck your game. There's lots of relevant comments on this page if you do a text search for "bugs", but I also put together a pretty long list of bugs which you can see at "WGW - 2022-07-27 3:32:27.114045" I'm curious what motivated you to do this? Another player, @lement, whom I haven't seen around in many years, had started a gem tower defense wiki a long time ago: https://gemtowerdefense.fandom.com/wiki/Gem_Tower_Defense_Wiki

@G: Well, you've proven your endurance with that level 1256 run that you didn't get to even leave your name on! That would have sent me to the emergency room. Planning on ever playing a run that long again? I still play every now and then, but usually bail around level 200 when I do manage to have a good run. And a "good run" is rare now, considering the extra restrictions I now put on what I consider to be a good run. Like e.g., now I'm trying to get a good run going without building the first turn tower, to save two whole turns. And I need to get an upgraded jade before fully upgrading the first malachite (which, again, I don't even build on the first turn anymore). And of course, I have to get a great opal by level 60, or it's a waste of time. But one of these days. . . I'll get that almost perfect RNG, and can possibly squeeze just a FEW more levels out of this game. In the meantime, it's more "fun" doing the shorter failed attempts at a near-perfect run than playing out any run to level 1200 again! In the Flash version, I had no problem grinding out one level 196 game after another, cause that only took around 10 to 12 hours. In any event, congrats (sort of) on joining the small club of folks with far too much patience and/or time on their hands who've gotten such a high score. Blank text or not. :)

Hey there! To anyone interested, I passed my entire day today gathering info about this game and posted it on my github profile. I wanted to post it here on this site, but I have no way to confirm right away if this site's db supports more than 20k characters per post (there must be a limit right?). So, instead of posting incomplete data, or attempting to crash the site, I'll just post the link here: https://github.com/carlHR/GemTDdotcomInsights

@Steve: Gem Tower Defense is now a game of endurance

Can we get a button that speeds up the enemies for each round? Maybe a toggle, 1x speed, 2x speed, 4x speed? Many of my favorite tower defense games have that option, and it helps when on upper levels and it's taking forever for everyone to die off. Thx for keeping it going after all these years!

Good to see people are still playing! I've gotten back into the game recently but struggling to break free of the 80-120 range albeit with terrible GO luck. My puzzle is (I think) solid and investing heavily in Lucky Jade, EE, and Egyptian Gold, with the occasional blood stone and paraiba. Thinking I may just need to commit to double digit Jades (I usually use 6-10) if unable to get a GO?

I remember, @_mmkay! But beat me NOW. I dares ya. ;)

Hi guys. I was just reminiscing on playing the flash version of this game in 2021. I was one of the only people to get past 195 https://imgur.com/a/mmkay-first-success-may-28th-lE7WWkN I also recorded a video on my old phone of wave 196 and my reaction. When I fly back to my home country, I might try find that video for archiving purposes. I was trying my best to copy 212's emerald placement when he beat 196 without a GO: https://imgur.com/WuLVc8I

@G thanks, and np. That great topaz was a result of thinking it might be fun to keep whatever great gem that happened to come my way instead of going for a high score, but I later changed my mind to see how far I could push the maze instead.

@SCGmeister: appreciate the tip, that's definitely what happened. Congrats on the 1200+ run! We've basically got the exact same final maze, so I feel a bit validated in how I'm doing it now. Why the Great Topaz? Just an early game necessity due to RNG?

@G If you fail a run (health goes down to 0), make sure to close out that page and re open the page in a new tab when you start a new game if you want to ensure your name gets recorded when submitting a high score. Either that, or make sure to reset the game before your health goes to 0.

I recently upgraded my computer due to some of my older hardware not being officially compatible with windows 11. Anyway, I decided to come back to this game with my upgraded hardware, to see how my new build handles this game. It ended up being a huge time save (with the help of the universal speed hack addon that still works, though you have to jump through a few extra steps to accept the risks and enable it after it's installed). As a result, I was finally able to fully fill the board and reach level 1246 in a reasonable amount of time (took about a week of grinding total instead of about a month of grinding just to get to level 1100 on my old build) Anyway, here's my final maze: https://imgur.com/a/QSZBQKV

I just finished a run to level 1256 but it (once again) did not record my name on the high scores

Hey, I'm looking for your feedback on my Gem TD inspired game: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3324380/Gattai_TD/ It includes weaving paths between waypoints, slates, and all that good stuff. (sorry for the promotion, but this seems like the most active Gem TD community)

andddd for some unknown reason, my tab just refreshed...... I still gotta do the math, but I think I would've beaten my previous 1096 record... https://imgur.com/a/801-still-going-wS3bN60

So cool to see folks are back! I haven't checked in for a while. I see, as usual, @216 has "giving good advice to new players" well in hand. :) Cheers all.

801 and still going https://imgur.com/a/801-still-going-wS3bN60

It's been a while but I've decided to come back to GTD! Just finished a run at level 1111. I probably could have made it to around 1200-1250 with that map layout but I decided to end it early to lock in the fun level number on the high scores. I didn't get a GO until level 1058! I ended up with 4 MBO at the end because I used 3 perfect opals to cover the maze with the cooldown bonus, plus 1 MBO for the damage bonus. No GO most of the game meant I had more LAJ and EE than I would have liked, which meant less levels in the late game. I'll probably start a new game this week and go for 1400+ because why not

Thank you for the tips on EE positioning, and this time my luck on opal is better. Only leak 4-6 air with your positioning, that's amazing. Despite 4 leaks on 150, i made it through 200 and gaining gold since 160. I think this could be my first success run without GO. https://imgur.com/a/yKLlXBk

8 air leaks is too much.. ofc 9th jade would give you gold to survive 100, but dont go that way.. Uranium is generaly weak gem(can be fun early, but BS better anyway), so yes, building 2nd is bad choice.. (unless 1-turn maybe). Forced to take 2nd fO? (in early lvls) - reset game (1st fO sometiems reset too - risk of geting next.. and better no uranium at all). I thought its obvious that all EEs MUST be in opal range - here 2 wasn't. About EE positions: lowest EE REALLY should be 0.5 gem higher, then it would perfect place! but if no, it dont hit at all, untill flyers are near c6. Your maze dont allow to build there, but it can be moved little letf/right Upper left 2 EEs: generally good, tactical place. but: 1. opal must range here. every EE must be buffed or it works too bad 2. consider adding few jades here, if that 2 EEs aren't stunning efficient enough ( but too long stun here means they wont stun on other side later) 3. might be too early to build here (not a mistake, but there are little better places) Upper-right: not so good at this point, that position is a little bait - "range 3 fragments", but its basicly 1 fragment of path(single-role EE, like that lowest). However after you have ~15 well placed EEs, this position becomes best(for a 2-3 EEs)... assuming opal range! where you missed EEs: - below c3 (that range flyers near exit too), most underesitated place to make stunzone, very effective. Need EG(s) here too -left (max 3.5-4 gems left) to your lowest EE, but at least 0.5 gem higher - near that empty space. -(as mentioned before), near that lowest EE but, again 0.5 gem above :) notice that all 3 places are on same "height" (though EEs below c3 can be little higher). Builing full line here was important part of my stragey leftmost EG - why so far? And generally could be few more EGs + upgrade your lowest BS. ABS on long stunned target is doing more than EG. Also 1 RC is enough (if central placed). But i guess the thing that ruined that run was having EEs outside opal range + bad RNG maybe. Notice that only middle stun+ burst zone nearly guerantee to kill 2 flyers( first stunned, then next when they come form c5), so leaking 8(unlesss visible very bad RNG) is a bad sign.

On the previous run I misunderstood EE and EG. This time position of EE is better? No ground leak, leaking 6-8 air after 48, and still died at 100, too less LAJ? Right most uranium was a bad choice? https://imgur.com/a/6zHIrOM

Its probably depends of order of placing gems, but i saw replacing 40% buff with 5%. Also SYS had 180 base dmg (blue dmg, it WAS matter), 800 cd in flash version

omg i never paid attention to SYS until you mentioned it. so if some gem is in range of both SYS and BO, the attack is only +5%, not +40%?

Really no BO at 128? +40% dmg helps a little.. But definitelly NOT too many EEs! only 8 and mostly not in "tactical" places. EE is a specific gem, if it had more range it could be .. worse (in most cases). The point is we want to stun different flyers at same time without having an option to set "random taget" on EEs. Looking at screenshot, imagine that 1st flyer get stunned (due to bad RNG in first shots) just near the middle , over that jade - it will take "attention" of all 8 EEs, while other 9 enemies will pass untouched ... unless its killed fast enough. That why you want to spam EGs that range middle (and more spread EEs, try limit EEs that can hit same point to 6) so, 1. avoid middle EEs (1 maybe ok if its first, here are 3), that 2 lowest placed EEs lets say dont count as "middle" - they have other roles too. But they could be placed 1 gem lower - which is ideal Y-position for such EEs - it would force those 2 to hit different target (at c2-c3 path) 2. That rightmost EE is too far - do not range c5-c6 path at all, after enemies pass c3 its useless. Avoid such single-role EEs (few exceptions, but after you have ~15EEs ). 3. all EGs should range mid or importat stun zone. (avoid upper EGs like that 2). Armor reduction is not needed on entire map (same for RCs) 4. Avoid junk gems like SYS(most bugged gem), star ruby,2nd malachite, silver (unless 1- turn and notihng else to take). 1 paraiba may be enough, can have 2 or 3 for lvl 150. Keep in mind it takes 4 turns to make and helps to kill faster olny grounds, so i recommend olny 1 (rarely 2) untill 130-140. 5. more dmg in middle, i would upgrade that BS near opal ( no good aoe here anyway) Some good places for EEs: -5 gems above lowest possible places (with not too far left/right position ofc) . The ones below middle can range mid and its ok - above/little below your leftmost EE - sometihng between mid and c3 EE positioning can be little not intuitive, but I hope it will help a bit (but its not all :)

Does this count as "putting EEs into tactical places"? https://imgur.com/UnolPyL This run failed due to gold income not catching up with air leaks, and ran out at 128. Too many EEs and too little LAJs at this stage for sure. ..

I'm still able to get the universal speed hack to work. While chrome did initially disable it "to keep you safe" as it doesn't conform to Chromes new policies or something, it gave me the option to reenable it so long as I agreed to accept the risks associated with running older extensions.

GO makes game much easier and faster, but its not mandatory to reach high lvls. GOless runs require more jades to survive. With more optimal stategies you can survive with 5-7 jades, if less optimal... maybe need 20-30. Note that total chance of getting GO depends of jades ( more gold = more repicks). Problems with 152 suggest ground leaks in 150 (which rarely happens to me, mostly because EGs amount). losing lives at 150 is almost as bad as before 44 (but at 150 you dont want quick restart) General tips to reduce leaks: -concetrate damage gems (mainly EGs!) in middle -don't concentrate EEs in middle, put them into tactical places (that range 2 completly different fragemts of flyers path) -work on lvl 150 (i extend maze before it) VN: Sadly kills aren't transferred. But, at least stay on gem that you combine special.

Is GO mandatory? I can't get pass 152 without GO. The only two runs with GO got 220ish and 320ish, both ended due to chrome update... Chance to get a GO per repitch is like 0.16%. Any trick beyond luck?

Is the kills from the small gems not supposed to be transferred when combined into special gems?

Is there a new browser hack to speed the game up? previous one isn't working

Since my last comment i did much speedrun attempts (50?, i give up at 50-70 if no GO) and... only 1 GO. Many other Great gems. At least that GO run had decent times (despite some imperfections) - 1,9k in 60, 4,1k in 100. Breaking 4k seems possible, while i had problem to break 5k some time ago. Did screenshot in 90, can upload, if someone want (and read those comments) @WGW: before my comeback in 2019 generally i was a GTD noob. Also, jade performed a different role in flash version - there was rather enough gold (from other sources) for (super cheap) lives, so jade gold was for repicks. With non-bugged minimum speed jade's slow was crittically important as well. Now jades provides over 5x more gold, but you have to split gold between repicks and lives, slow (almost) no matter cause bug (only 1% stun effect is similar important in both versions) So, my 1JC success is not really related to not knowing about jade's gold in past :) How was my gameplay in past? - First time was playing in 2007 or 2008 (was 10 or 11 y old) on other webside, without special gem recipes. for some first runs i didnt even know that i can place gem on fly path to make maze and i was losing in easy mode :) note: maze in not needed to win in easy, but i was playing so bad. When i moved to survival mode my strat was: start from silver, absurd long maze and i was trying to keep 1 of each flawed, normal, flawless gems, and when got combine special, was trying to realize which gems dissapears. often was losing about 20, but i could get to about 100 sometimes, with many air leaks. I was coming back to this game in 2008-2015(?) several times, every time figuring out (or trying at least) spcial gem recipes (then forgetting them :) Some motivation to coming back to game was that i was really curious what would happen if i get 4 same perfects. but i knew the chances. I had few years break before 2019, then i found (fun fact: found just after figuring out almost all special gem recipes) this website, comments, wiki, sandbox. Started looking for more "serious" strategy (started to carrying about what flawed gems at start i take and i knew that EE are needed form comments), but i didnt have much hope for breaking 196 - i though it require super luck. Really helpful for testing strategies was sanbox - had to find out how to force EEs to stun different targets. One of first ideas (but very good) was builing line of EEs at max distance that range path. With some other ideas, it took me 4-5 months of rather hopeless runs ( wasn't much leaks, but 2x flyer stacks was a problem and i had no idea of solving it - somehow i made it to happen less likely later) to frist, unexpected succes - was nothing special run, but got GO (about lvl 80) and it started going well (also luck in some dangerous situations), then on my next run, 2 days after i broke 196 again, before even WGW relized my first score :)

@216, took me a long time to answer, just preoccuppied with other stuff, but I wanted to finally comment about how amazed I am that you didn't know jades earned gold until so recently-- no wonder you were able to manage a "one jade" challenge run-- you were used to playing without counting on jades for gold at all! You're right, that the Flash version did have a problem displaying the full text of the jade's description. I know it did correctly scroll when I first started playing, but I don't even what browser I was using at that point (back in 2010 or so). I did notice at some point that I could no longer scroll the description, but I didn't need to since I already knew what I needed to know. So I guess due to the text scrolling issue, there must have been lots of people who played the Flash version who also didn't know that jades earn gold. I think it's even more important in this version, considering how fast the cost of buying lives skyrockets, and the inevitable leaks of air troops and on no-stun levels.

@StarLion, sometimes quite a long time. I haven't been playing much for a while, but I do still try a run every few days and I haven't gotten a good run going in months. But. . . Part of that is because of self-imposed restrictions that make getting past level 150 much, much harder. E.g., using a sub-ideal maze layout in order to enable filling in the maximum possible number of spaces; not taking any single-turn tower except the first malachite and a single great opal (because each single-turn tower you build reduces the number of possible turns by 3); not building as many bloodstones and egyptian golds as I'd like to (so I can build mostly paraibas); etc. These restrictions, which serve only to make it possible to play out an ungoldly long and boring 2 week long run filling in every possible space and taking the maximum number of turns. Even playing in a looser style (as I have been lately, since I'm no longer interested in any more runs over level 1250), my first good run maybe since the start of the year was just this week, which I lost due an automatic Windows Update reboot. Getting past level 150 is far easier with a great opal. But of course you can't force a great opal pick. One of the big problems I've been having with so many runs lately is that the game is refusing to give me any decent opals, forget about a great opal. If you can't get anything better than a flawless opal by level 50, the run is hopeless. I've been getting lots of runs where I don't even get a flawless opal by level 50. Very frustrating-- except that it spares me having to play out another two week long run!

@WGW, how much time do you spend restarting before you get a viable run going?

I didnt know about jade's gold untill 2019 (!) Idk if from comment or wiki. In flash v. you had to scroll jade text to see gold chance, which was reported to not work in some browsers. Now there is (at least) yellow text over jades when gold drops, so it's more likely to realize it. ### Flash vs current version? flash had bugs and horrible lag. But v0.6.2 is just an unfinished game, without goal. Beating 196 was hard enough (little RNG based, but MUCH less than you think!), for first time it was really satisfacting (but very stressful too). Maybe even more than game itself, i liked disscusion and helping others to beat 196. Only @mmkay succesed, but nearly sure @lement would too...if stronger PC - lag was causing projectiles were relative slower, affecting average leak amount (stunning later). More specifically, he has a GOless lvl 196 run with SIMULATED ~52% chance for 0 leak (in 196) , but changing projectiles speed to looks like his run (he posted a gif with lvl 196) dropped chance to about 20%. (That run inspired me to do few 196+ GOless runs, which was much more possible than i expected). ofc, lives mechanic in flash (autocliker need) was a joke... So in GENERAL i liked flash more ... but NOW i prefer JS , cause i play olny to beat my 60,100,200 times. Remeber bloodstone lags? (and fact it had impact of actual times). There is counless things that i hate in JS version, but flash wasn't for lvl 200 speedrunners (extreme was ok) IF lvl 100+ game would be balanced, that some players can get to 200, better to 300, without clear max - it would be great. Anyway, i play rarley, basicly only comment activity is inspiring me to do osme more (speed)runs. Sadly 0 competition for that. Time score even no work btw, olny lvl counts + 1 point every killed enemy. Ah, and never again 1JC (very limited repicks was a disaster)

I'm curious, for folks who have played GTD going back to the original Flash version, which version of the game do you prefer? I don't think this has ever been directly discussed here yet, but now seemed like a good time to ask when there's a new flurry of comment activity (which is great to see!) Worth noting that noth versions have very big bugs that fundamentally alter the designer's real intentions. E.g., Peter H. is on record in comments here that he did not intend it to be possible to play survival mode until you literally run out of room. But I'm asking about preferences for the game as it actually plays, bugs and all, whether you enjoyed the Flash or Javascript version more. For a whole bunch of reason, primarily that Flash GTD runs took 10 hours or so, now it takes literally weeks to play out a stable run, and it's just a slog for 800+ levels. I didn't love that the Flash version was nearly impossible to get past level 196 (only a few folks ever managed it, including @216-- I never did). And that having any shot of getting past 196 meant building endless amounts of enchanted emeralds. But man, oh man, do I miss the days when I could play through a whole run of survival mode in about a DAY. But there were also some much more annoying bugs in the Flash version, e.g., opal cooldown buffs getting overridden by whatever is the most recently placed opal.

@Emmie, yes knowing that jades earn gold is an absolutely a game-changer. Survival mode past level 100 is practically impossible without the gold earnings from jades mitigating the cost of escaped air enemies. (Although @216 did manage an insanely difficult self-imposed "One Jade Challenege" run a while back!) I've said many times in comments here that I don't know how anyone new to the game gets anywhere in survival mode without knowing that jades earn gold, it's a central game mechanic that isn't noted in the jade's description anymore (where the old Flash game's description for jades did note that they earn gold). So folks like me who have been playing GTD since the Flash version days, well, we already knew, so it didn't matter whether the current game's jade description included this info or not. :) But for a newer player? Literally the only way to figure out that jades earn gold is to either (1) carefully observe a pattern of your gold amount going up when jades are hitting but never with other towers, or (2) read the 153 million lines of comment history and see where somebody talks about jades earning gold. I can't imagine how frustrating survival mode would be for someone who has no idea about jades earning gold!

I didn't know the jades drop gold! That's a total game changer. thanks! I will try to focus more LAJ early for the extra gold

Even if u leak 7 every flying lvl 44-76 (63 leaks), you need to buy 54 lives survive 76 (51579 gold). LAJ at lvl 60 has 5% chance to gain 35 gold, assuming perfect opal(227.5 cd) makes ~7.7 gold per sec. My best lvl 76 times are about 3k s (and its with GO rather), while 44 times are about 1.1-1.5k s. I assume jades can hit enoguh efficient for over 1k sec So every LAJ should make nearly 10k gold ( or more if killing ground slower) untill 76, which means 5-6 jades allows you to surive with 7 flying leaks every time If u leak average 6, requied gold drop for lvl 76 to about 30k. Its very important to not leak anything before 44. lvl 12 is often an issue (but only without fully upgraded malachite, which i ussually do). Also, jades should be able to hit an enemy most of time

Interesting! I only leak 4-7 flying guys every flying round but i seem to never have enough gold to buy lives after lvl 72. Long time lurker, been playing for like 8 years, recently started following @WGW 2022 guide, hope to get a good as you all soon! :)

Sanbox doesn't even work since year or more... Reaching 100 is really not hard if enough jades (with 0 IS very hard).

Wait so everyone reaching 100+ is this in survival or sandbox mode?

thanks for the explenation. i was afraid of that so i didnt really think about the possibility too hard. yeah i guess that's it for me then. maybe another run to use the combined special bug from the start and maybe try to get a score entry in but i probably wont be up to tinker with low amount of special gems and shortening the maze during the run

1. VERY short maze (can start with longer then reducing) 2. Spam of paraiba gem (4 parts in recipe) Max possible lvl (if infinite gold) is 1341. Having a Great Opal reduce it by 3. Every 3-gem special reduce it by 1. The only person who got over 1300 is WGW, and its really hard to beat it ( maybe possible get very few lvls more). Also it takes weeks to get as far (so i wont even try).

@216 there are people who made it to LV 1300 or something, how did they get there when space runs out?

Sadly after lvl 250 there is nothing fun/challenging in the game - the only limiting factor is space for gems (and patience). So you have to lose intentionally to submit score. Instead of going highest lvl possible i suggest improving time score (i can beat lvl 200 in ~13k seconds) or reducing total amount of leaks. @WGW: The combine bug was first reported in septebmer 2021 by Chr3y (i was suprised of that bug!) and it took little time untill we learned how to exploit it (little correction of "exploiting bug since JS release". If i got what u meant). Anyway, if u are still curious of more exac bug mechanic ( lets use EG example): Each time u select gem, the game is checking for combine special ( to display button or no), let say u selected fD. Then, the game loads list of gems needed (fs,FA,PA in this case) and searching the towers, naturally form first build to last. Let say the first build was PA. After finding PA its looking olny for FA + fD. Let say 2nd find was fD. If all 3 are found combine special is displayed. After click if selected gem is one of 3 found (1st PA, 1st fD, 1st FA), those gems are consumed( no chance to bug in that case). But if not - selected fD wasnt first fD , one of found gems is replaced by selected gem - due to bug its ALWAYS first. so it will be (selected fD, 1st fD, 1st FA). Bug reason is really stupid - copied similar line of code and one variable not changed (i think it was even looking similar, maybe "1" instead "i" , but i checked it much time ago so not sure)

uhmm..... so what do you do when you have 0 space left where you could place a gem but you have only placed 4 out of 5 gems this round...... looks like i'm stuck https://i.imgur.com/nkTrIMd.png

@WGW oh and i made an embarrasing mistake. the EG next to the MysticBlackOpal in the middle should have ben one space to the left and one space down. at some point i misplaced it and didnt notice until i turned it into the gold and now it cant be moved again. it slightly shortens the groud units path but at the current level that is completely meaning less since the one that makes it farthers barely gets passed the 3rd checkpoint. sometimes no one reaches the 3rd chekpoint. yeah leaking 3 - 7 fly units every 4 levels but i make so much gold that i always make more than it costs to heal back up to 11 (so even if i dont pay attention during the waves where they are immune to stun and all 10 flying units get through i dont lose the game)

@WGW heeey, so many thanks! great explanation and it makes sense now that it did happen to me a bunch of times unintentionally because i was preparing multiple batches at the same time so i had duplicates of any given ingredient. also fun fact: i'm currently on a game that's been going on for 3 days. i lucked out and got a great opal slap bang in the middle. currently LV330 and going strong through the power of luck. 2/3 of the uraniums i throw down in a single round so i picked them because you dont turn down a gift like that. the fire star i built and yellow star sapphire i built because i felt bad leaving them out. im going to build another black opal over the yellow star sapphire. can't wait to try out a run with the detailed knowledge on the CSB though so thanks again. lets see how far i can take this run. https://i.imgur.com/mxZsSRP.png

HOW TO EXPLOIT THE COMBINE SPECIAL BUG: I will use as an example building an Egyptian Gold, but the same pattern applies to building any special tower. 1: Pick a perfect amethyst. VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: this must be the FIRST gem on the board that is a part of the EG recipe. If you have, e.g., a flawed diamond gem already on the board when you pick the perfect amethyst, this will NOT work. 2: Keep playing till you pick a flawed diamond, and a flawless amethyst (the order doesn't matter) 3: Once you have all three necessary gems (the first pefect amethyst, and the subsequent flawed diamond and flawless amethyst), keep picking until you get EITHER a flawed diamond OR a flawless amethyst. Place this where you want the egyptian gold to be. For the sake of this example, let's say you pick a second flawed diamond. 4: Combine special on that second flawed diamond you just picked in step three, and voila, the game will consume the two flawed diamonds and the flawless amethyst to create the egyptian gold, and leave the perfect amethyst untouched. As I said below, there are a lot of nuances to how this works, which I'm avoiding explaining to keep this at reasonable length. But you'll probably be able to puzzle out some of this yourself once you get a basic handle on how the bug works without my blathering on about it. :) I hope this helps!

@Aris, yeah, unfortunately the comments page has very quiet lately (it was also not working for a while recently), which led me to not check as often. Nice to see that folks are still playing and getting hooked! I'll try to explain how to exploit the combine special bug one more time. Probably your difficulty is because there are SO MANY comments on this page to digest, and the bug itself is more than a little confusing in how it works (there are nuances I still don't fully understand), but if you follow these steps, you should be able to use it. I don't think it's absolutely essential to exploit this bug to get a long run going (meaning a run that will go past level 150), just as it isn't absolutely necessary to get a great opal. But survival mode is already hard enough even *with* a great opal and exploiting the combine special bug. I really never continue runs past level 100 unless I get a great opal anymore. And I've been exploiting the combine special bug shamelessly since the Javascript version of GTD introduced it (the old Flash version didn't have this bug). fwiw, I think you're doing very well, good maze layout and good placement and choice of gems. I could suggest some minor tweaks, but you're not doing anything majorly wrong that I can see. EXCEPT. . . you should not upgrade the bloodstones. Getting a bloodstone early (by level 30 or so) is a HUGE advantage as it will rack up tons of kills and get a huge a damage boost as a result. The upgraded bloodstone, with the flame attack, is only good once you have a ton of stun power via dark emeralds. Usually you should leave the bloodstones (which should be near the center of the map) unupgraded until level 100 or so. If I hav e a ton of dark emeralds, I will maybe upgrade them as early as level 80, but usually not. And remember too that even if you do everything right, there's RNG in this game that can screw you over beyond what gems you pick-- primarily, the effect of dark emeralds on flyers. If they don't get stunned effectively in later levels, which can happen even when you have a ton of dark emeralds hitting them all along the air path, they escape anyway and you're screwed. This is, to say the least, often an extremely frustrating game. :) This is a very long comment so I'll leave a separate one with instricutions on the combine special bug. Cheers!

LV108 yesterday. i still dont know how the CSB Exploit works but i got to keep a flawed emerald and a normal aquamarine by accident haha. i just dont know what i need to do differently so i don't have a mid game phase where leak ground units. i could get so much further if i didnt have to spend lives on ground units. i got a great aquamarine in an almost perfect location pretty early in the run and it did some HEAVY lifting especially with the black opal, perfect opal und parabia up. i also got a great topaz late in the run but that didnt do much i think. https://i.imgur.com/7OiSaGZ.png

Whelp, made it to LV100, without understanding the Combine Special Bug. i got lucky in some regards. dropped a complete Gold and a complete jade and got 4 perfect opals in total, sadly never together for a great opal. the blood stone took forever though and i was leaking a few ground units in the early 80s before i finally got it. without those leaks i probably would have made it to level 104. dunno if i could get even further with a different distribution of EGs, LAJs and DEs.... though i am convinced that my BO, Paraibas and BSs where really really good. for a brief moment during LV99 and very early in LV100 i though it could make it through 100 and could rebound and build up lives again until LV104... alas it was not so... also not sure about the GPD but i always seem to have a bit of a ground crisis at some point and i feel it would always be worse without the GPD.... sad that apparently im the only one visiting the comment section regularly... guys where are you? i need someone to explain the CSB Exploit to me like im 5yo xD https://i.imgur.com/1fDjP0J.png

made it to LV76 without CSBE hehe. dunno how far i could have made it if it had been with a great opal instead of a perfect one, maybe even more LAJ for more gold to buy more lives or repicks but i i dont think that would go very far. the bats just start leaking hard at some point. https://i.imgur.com/56wz8fs.png https://i.imgur.com/WOqY2O4.png

so, i made it to LV68. lost some fly units early on and nearly restarted. i still dont understand how combine special bug works but i actually lost a perfect aquamarine due to the bug.... guess that's why someone said to not make duplicate gems hehe. got kinda unlucky with the dark emeralds, the first one was pretty far into the run as i just wouldn't get a perfect emerald or would have another higher prority gem dropped in the same round.... man i really do like this game and survival mode i just wish it was a tinsy bit easier so one could get further with a bit less luck and without the combine special bug. https://i.imgur.com/pvkWZ6C.png

can someone give a detailed step by step exlenation on how to do the combine special bug exploit? ive read through the comments but maybe i need an explenation a 5 year old could understand because i don't get it. i have had it happen to me but i don't understand what conditions i created for it to happen

man i love this game but its so frustrating. i only got over level 50 once and i got so very very lucky and had 2 perfect opals in a single drop to create the highest tier opal and it was even in a good location where it was able to buff a bunch of special gems and some other perfect gems...... i feel like my maze is pretty damn good so i have no idea what i could do better apart from just getting insanely lucky with drops and locations

this is quite off normal topic but important for you to know my computer is currently hacked but will be fixed tommro afternoon until the do not trust any word I say also have a great day yall

@brad, if you do a search on this page for the phrase "combine special bug", you'll find lots of comments discussing/explaining how it works. @s is correct that this bug applies to ANY tower you build, not just Golds. But what at first seems like a bug that only screws you over (e.g., by consuming two perfect gems when it shouldn't), once you understand how to properly exploit it, the bug actually makes the game SIGNIFICANTLY easier. If you exploit the bug properly, you can build towers off of a single perfect gem endlessly without ever consuming the perfect gem. Also. . . hi, @s! :)

your right i think

@ brad that does tend to happen from time to time but it could be for any thing not just gold so you know

ive noticed when i make gold by selecting a perfect amethyst and upgrading it, if I happen to have a second perfect amethyst on the field it also gets consumed

thanks you @peter I figured that something was up but I thought it was only on my part @wgw. And cheers to you as well