Main strategies

Castle is the best spell in the game for killing most, but not all monsters. However, there are numerous situation where you need to build up your castle. You can raze your castle again by pressing Shift+L.

Sufficient mana must be gathered before starting mana gathering missions (see bug note). Planning on which mana to get and optimizing balloon routes (at least on the earlier levels) is crucial. (And no, there is no way to control your balloons.)

When the mission objective is to kill all monsters of a particular kind, it usually cares about all monsters of that kind that are alive at the moment. There are often ways to spawn new monster of that kind, which will then be included in the objective, so try to avoid that as much as possible.

Level strategies drafts / hints for casual running

Note: These aren't the actual level names, I just made them up.

1: Moon Island

Take a couple of building around you in the starting location, you are interested in the more complicated buildings (they give roughly double the mana). Head into the town, kill the guards and take the spells. When your mission becomes to build a castle, it is possible to build it on the very spot (out on the ocean) where the fireflies spawn. It’s hard, but if successful, some, or all of them, will die immediately. If you don’t pass the mana mission immediately, you didn’t take enough buildings at the start. Probably should take the scrolls before quitting the map also, the +6 points to castle are hard to catch up with later.

2: Watcher’s Island

Start off straight forward to pick up the spell. Head straight through that area and turn 45 degrees to the left. Make sure to possess one of the approaching mana balls on your way out, it in turn will possess all the others. Somewhere around the small island, you should run into Nyphur, who should be an easy kill. Next, kill the bees with your castle. This is the most volatile part of the map, it's possible to get all bees with just two castles. When done, build your castle near the next mission point on the island side before taking it. Once the two buildings appear, upgrade your castle and the buildings should be destroyed immediately. There are 80 exp of scrolls in the tree circle that might be worth taking.

3: Nyphur’s Island

On this map, “north” is the direction from the opening of Nyphur’s castle to it’s center. Build the castle near the shore. Go across the water to the backside and to the 4 stones, these 4 mana gives a total of 10.240, so possess them. The other groups of stones give 2048 (in the west), and 1536 (in the east). Upgrade the castle, and kill the clumped up skeleton archers. Hopefully their mana clumps into one big ball (you really want the balloon to pick this one up.) If you get the chance, use one line of trees to kill a dragon (put them on fire and let the dragon fly through), but this is hard to set up. A few high buildings can also kill the dragons if they fly over them (the dragon can get squished between the building and the sky. This game :). ). Possess the large balls of mana from the dragons but not the small ones, you want maximum balloon efficiency. Luring the flying dragons to the castle and killing them there could also be preferable, since it significantly shortens the balloons flying time (Inspired by einokeino303 ‘s run). When the mana gathering mission is starting to round up, you can either level your skills (like mashing speed up) or possess buildings (which's mana goes directly into your castle). When Nyphur’s castle opens, go in and lure the bees out, and kill them in the other line of trees by putting them on fire.

4: The Spider Caverns

This map starts out with a (not entirely obvious) mana mission: "You must find the star that fell". Just put mana in your castle. The difficult but fast way is to hit a lot of fireflies with your first castle. If you get a good hit, you can reach the required amount quickly. Then raze your castle again, head to the meteor room (with three spiders) and kill them with your castle. Then kill the other spiders, also with your castle. Never venture into the tunnels, it'll wake spiders you'll become forced to kill.

For the record: The ball of mana in the final room worth 4600 mana. The city is only worth 1559 mana.

5: Islands Battle

The start gives you 10240 mana straight up. A "war zone" will appear on the bridge in just a few seconds, head over there and plant your castle smack in the middle of all the archers. You'll get lead on the others and should be able to finish them quickly. Fireball level 2 should be enough. Whenever possible, you'll want a similar scenario in all wizard-battle maps.

6: Zombie Trap

Kill the first zombie with fireball (level 1 for efficiency). Then kill the gang with a castle, then raze it again. Travel backwards (!) through the teleporter and fire your castle spell immediately, to hit all or most of the zombies.

7: The River

Kill the worm, and then kill the wizards while they are collecting its mana. Perhaps.

8: Spider Trap

Kill the spiders with your castle. Make sure you build level 4 castle once you are out, so that you’ll get two balloons. Don’t pick up rebound, heal instead if you have to. Tornado works surprisingly well in the imp room, but its mana requirements are most likely too high. einokeino303 ‘s strategy of building the castle in the zombie room is probably the best one. If you kill a flying dragon over the obelisks, the obelisks may instantly destruct. They might also be a good opportunity for leveling upp the lightning spell, just camp the runestone in the corner to refill the mana quickly.

9: The hunting grounds

There are 5 zombies in the starting area. Learn to find the holes in their mana drain fields. Kill everything with your castle and build in the starting zone to have the mana nearby. The mana on the other side of the map doesn’t seem worth taking - your balloons will spend too much time picking it up. Make sure you get enough mana in your castle to unlock meteor (slightly more than to get level 4). Kill the other wizards with meteor. Kill the two initial dogs, the wrong one should automatically find your castle.

10: Cymmerian Lands!

Get enough mana to be able to build level 2 castle, 3 worms or 2 worms + 6 tents should be enough. Build your castle next to the 2 buildings, and upgrade it to destroy the buildings. Raze your castle and rebuild next to the other ones (while killing monsters), repeat and do it with the last two buildings. You can also do this on the side with three buildings, the buildings are razed faster but it’s hard to hit the Cymmerians with the next castle. When all buildings are razed, there will be lots of Cymmerians. You might want to raze your castle and rebuild it on top off them once more. Killing them and the crabs is a good opportunity to level a spell of your choice. The mana-mission-test can be failed with 4 pixels of max remaining, but can be passed with 3 pixels remaining. There is roughly 160.000 mana before the test-mana-mission.

11: The Tiny Island

Gather some mana, killing spiders with your castle might be easiest. When ready, build castle level 2 with at least fire on the back of the island. Take the checkpoint, and upgrade your castle to destroy all the buildings. Be ready to re-upgrade, and even rebuild your castle over and over as it engages in a war with the imps.

12: The Ancients Trial

Travel forward to the last large crater and build your castle on the stalagmite in the center. Kill the imps, raze your castle and carry on. In the next room, go straight through to the opposite wall. Turn around and either face up or down and build your castle. (It’s possible if you find the sweet spot.) If successful, you will have managed to dig through an impenetrable wall. Raze your castle, and continue to dig out to the small room. It should unlock the secret exit. Don't play the secret map, it’s not worth it. If you take the normal path through the level, make sure to find all the places where the castle can be built to improve healing/mana recharge time.

13: Winterlands

Find the spiders and build your castle them. All the spiders should have enough mana for you to get meteor. If you don’t have teleport yet, kill Jark to get it. If you have upgraded lightning, now is the time to start using the cloud against the castles.

14: Night Valley

Kill something close to the water and “the blue room”, and gain castle 2 and mana possession level 2 quickly. Go into the blue room and let the imps fight the sentinel, take a mana and let them all bunch up to one. Upgrade your castle, and go back in and kill the zombies (worth it?). Possess buildings if you are marginally close to the limit. Use meteor, and optionally, shield, against the moon dwellers. Kill the Cymmerians close to your castle but let the castle take care of the crabs, while you kill the remaining Cymmerians far away.

15: Lava Lake

Kill the Cymmerian with the fireflies and build your castle on it’s mana. There should be zombies nearby the castle, and a mana worm to wake. Focus on filling up your castle’s mana until you get Crater. Once you have Crater, dig yourself into the room. Kill everything and use mana magnet if you have it. Kill the Troglodytes with earthquake.

16: The Factory

Go get the appearing mana in the circle room (getting one is enough) to have enough mana to cast castle repeatedly. Go to the target building and destroy it by building a level 2 castle next to it, then proceed to kill the enemies with the castle. The later buildings can be destroyed by trying to build a level 2 castle near them, but that takes time. It’s unclear if the best strategy is to let the castle be in the original place, and wait for mana to build up to gain fast clear spells, or if it’s better to rebuild it to destroy the buildings. If you get enough mana in your castle to cast earthquake, it’s efficient both against the troglodytes and the sentinels.

17: Elyssia’s Castle

Kill the dogs.

18: Wyvern wilds

Should be clear where the intense zone is, build the castle there.

19: Four Lakes Battle

Find the dogs and kill them.

20: Hydra Lake

Don’t build an aggressive castle initially, you don’t want to anger the Wyverns. Once you get meteor, you can start killing them, refill at your castle when needed but don’t lead them to it. The’re easier to handle when they’re not circling a building, so try to catch them when they’re not. Use Meteor 1, it’s more mana efficient. Make sure to catch the Hydra when it spawns and lead it to your castle. The hydra is really hard to kill without Meteor 2.

21: Troglodyte Caverns

(The first troglodyte can be lured into the lava near it which will kill it instantly.) Kill the troglodytes on distance to avoid spawning more. Use meteor against the zombies, earthquake against the Sentinels.

22: Hydra River

Build your castle in the earth quaked zone, along the line of mana next to the building. Upgrading your castle to level 2 should raze the building and kill some of the spiders. The level can be completed as you kill the first hydra. The mana in the castle need to be filled until there are at most 4 pixels left. If this is true when the hydra dies, the mana mission is immediately completed. You can start fighting the hydra before your balloons have collected all the mana, but be careful around your castle, if the hydra kills your castle then it will spread it’s mana and your balloons will have to gather it again.

23: The City

Kill the spiders and raise your castle. Kill the wizards, preferably one of the stronger ones to get an early mana boost. Fill up the castle mana until the pointer no longer fits in the grey-mana area, that is between the mana in the castle and the edge of the meter. (It should be 11 pixels or less remaining. The cursor in total is 12 pixels wide.) Then quickly destroy the mission buildings with gravity well. (It’s super effective!) Might be useful to build a moat around your castle to protect it (4 quick earthquakes). Make sure you get all the mana worms, around Jark’s castle there seems to be two of them, one that is almost always stuck in a wall. Use earthquake to “unlock” it (Crater or Gravity well does not work! Even though the walls disappear the mana worm will still be stuck in it, Earthquake must be used.) It’s a good idea to get these as late as possible, since they are accumulating mana as long as they are out.

Missions on this map

“Destroy the war council tower.” This mission is very buggy. The building can be destroyed or damaged to pass the mission, but the marker seems to be in the castle facing the barracks. Completing this mission spawns:

• 10 Zombies near the barracks
• 30 Zombies near Rahn and Nyphur’s castles
• At least 4 moon dwellers.

“Good. Now reduce the barracks to rubble.” Completing this mission spawns:

• 30 Bees, it spawns over the barracks ruins and easily dies in the fires.
• 12 Sentinels
• 14 Imps

“Make sure that not one spell ever leaves Vissuluth’s apothecary again.” Completing this mission spawns:

• 17 Cymmerians

“Bring down this temple of evil” Completing this mission spawns:

• Nothing at all

“Smash the weapons vaults” Completing this mission spawns:

• 5 Wyverns
• And a hydra?

“Clear the netherworld of the evil spawn.” The mana mission, which, surprisingly doesn’t seem to spawn anything. Or does it spawn the hydra?

Autospawn: This might spawn, perhaps if completing the first or second mission takes too long:

• About 30 imps near the barracks and 9 Archers near those imps
• 30-35 spiders near the castle facing the barracks
• ~30 skeleton archers near Rahn(or Nyphur?)’s castle
• Cymmerians

-These don’t trigger if you don’t have a castle

Buildings moats and volcanos around your castle may be helpful if you’re about to lose a level of it: the mana will bunch up much more, making it much faster to pick up for your balloons. Also leaving some yellow mana helps (if using magnet). When destroying the last buildings, make sure you use Gravity well.

Try to destroy all other mission related buildings before destroying the current target, if you have enough mana you’ll pass the mana mission before the monsters will spawn. Get enough mana, destroy all other mission buildings, and then destroy the barracks (assuming the war council mission has been passed).

24: The Gate

Go forward once the map starts, and then turn around and kill the zombies with your castle. Don’t make the wyvern spawn. Volcano is useful against the Cymmerians. Try also lightning cloud and tremor.