Search for Game Mechanisms Guide

After some time playing this game I’ve found an issue for new gamers like me, which is lacking a descent guide for game mechanisms, such as keywords like Gems Exploding/Destroy, Splashing Damage, Mana Burn, etc. What exactly happens in such mechanism? Any resource about such guide buddies?

Only found this on Help Center.

As for your question, you can see it in tool tips on the game, in the back box on your right side when you read each spell. This is a small summary.

Gems interactions

  • Explode gem- take out a gem, and 8 gems around it. (3×3 grid), then take 50% of their mana.
  • Destroy gem - take gems out from the board, and gain full mana from them.
  • Remove gem - take gems out from the board, but didn’t gain any mana from them.

Main damage dealing

  • Damage all enemies/Full AoE - deal damage to all 4 enemies based on the magic and boost of your spell
  • Scatter/split damage - divide all your damage, and deal them to all 4 enemies. The damage amount on each troop random, but it can take out troops if their life is less than 1/4 of your total spell power.
  • Splash damage - deal damage to single enemies, and half of it to troop on both sides.

Other forms of dealing damage

  • Mana Burn - one form of Full AoE damage, but also boosted by the amount of mana enemies have. Deal no damage to troop that immune to it. (Impervious/Mana Shield trait)
  • Devour - remove a troop from enemies’ side, then take its life/armor/attack as your own. (No magic gain)
  • Lethal Damage - remove a troop from enemies’ side, but take no stats from it. Other words that got meaning similar to “destroy” will also work like this one. (Destroy/Kill/Slay etc.)


We actually have a problem with the consistency of some keywords in the game. Some effects that destroy a troop will be called “Kill”, “Execute”, “Slay” in different cards, but if anything you could check Lyya’s website: http://gowdb.com/
which provide a lot of information regarding troops and the effects on spells and traits.

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Yep I see those tips but still some confusing there. e.g. “…then take 50% of their mana.” as an example, 50% of what mana? The exploded gems and all gems around it? Does any 4-5 gems effects counted in this procedure? etc. Anyway thanks for your great response I’ll check the resource you linked :slight_smile:

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Yep gowdb is great but I didn’t see much explanation of game mechanism there…

For example, I’ll explode the middle blue gems.

:gem_skull::gem_green::gem_purple:
:gem_purple::gem_blue::gem_yellow:
:gem_blue::gem_purple::gem_purple:

I will get…

  • Purple = 4÷2 = 2 purple mana
  • Blue = 2÷2 = 1 blue mana
  • Yellow = 1÷2 = 0.5 → round down = 0 yellow mana
  • green = 1÷2 = 0.5 → round down = 0 green mana
  • Skull = 1 = dealing 1 skull damage (exploded skulls’ damage don’t get cut in half)

As for cascades that followed, it’s not a part of explosion anymore, so you will gain full mana from them.

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Thanks! Very clear! Maybe we can set some page for such clarification of game mechanisms :+1:

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I’m sorry to raise it up again but when exploding multiple gems (the common case), is the calculation separated to each single exploding gem or added altogether? I used to think it’d be calculated altogether but feel that I was wrong recently…

I’m not so sure myself, but I think they just count all gems affected by the explosion, then cut them all in half.

It seems to make more sense than counting each one and also considering the overlapped issue. I don’t know…

The problem with multiple gem explosions is that they do NOT overlap.

Let’s take as an example TimeKnight’s 3x3 gem block. If you duplicate it, and have 2 gem blocks next to each other, and explode the middle blue on first block, and the skull on the second block. It will not remove 18 gems.
The first explosion, the middle blue, removed the whole first block. The secone explosion, the skull, removes the skull and the 3 connecting gems. So 13 gems removed, instead of 18.

So if you have troops like TDS, that explodes 9 random gems, the actual ammount of gems removed is wildly variable. Sometimes you can clear the whole board with his 9 explodes. Sometimes you can clear like 17 gems. And the mana gain follows the randomness ofc.

I also feel that there’s a complicated myth here…

Also note many mechanics require ancestral knowledge.

For example, when Anu’s Sceptre says “a chosen color”, it means “a non-blue color”. The best way to find out is to post a bug report.

And I’ve also found that I can choose doomskull in some spells and cannot in others :grin: