Hungry Slimes User Guide

Hungry Slimes is a physics-based time-puzzle game. This is what the Google Play description of Hungry Slimes says. But there is much more about it that you can see in the description. Throughout the lifetime of this game, we have made various improvements and added so many features that has made the game big enough to be explained in a more detailed way. This page is dedicated to describe out the different aspects of Hungry Slimes in enough detail that you can use to play it the most efficient way.

You can use this page as a guide or reference. It is structured as follows:

• Basics
  • Game Units
    • Slimes
    • Obstacles
    • Spheroids
  • Additional Features
• Advanced Game-play
  • Instant Power-ups
  • Perks
• Game Modes
  • Survival Mode
  • Time Challenge
  • Star Hunt
• Slime Shop
  • Slime Points
  • Shop Sections
    • Perks
    • Trophies
    • Extras
• Achievements and Rewards

Basics

The game-play is quite straightforward. Regardless of the game mode, the objective is always stopping the Hungry Slimes. When you start the game, you will see some slime balls slowly sliding down the screen. If those slimes reach the dashed bottom line, you will lose points/time/stars based on the mode you are playing. In one word, it is bad! What you need to do to stop them, is to use an explosion to destroy them before the reach the bottom. The game uses a sling-shot style control. You will have to stretch another slime ball and release it. Once released, it will start a timer after which it will explode (the time is normally one second).

Once exploded, your slime ball will cause a shock wave and a small explosion. Every other slime close enough to the explosion will be destroyed. Those further away will be kicked back by the shock wave. The challenge here is to blast as many slimes as possible without kicking some slimes closer to the bottom line. It is all about timing the explosion and positioning the ball. You will get familiar with the physics of the game once you play a few times.

Recently a direct-hit zone has been added to the game. While playing the initial levels in Survival and Star Hunt modes, you will notice a green zone. In this zone, your slime ball explodes once it hits other slimes. This is to avoid losing early on in the game. The direct-hit zone shrinks as you proceed. The rest of the game just builds up on top of the basics explained here.

There are different kinds of objects you can see in the game. It usually starts out with only slimes, and as you go on you see different obstacles or other features added to the game. Here is a full set of things you may see in the game.

Game Units

Slimes

Slimes are the main things you will see in the game. There are a few kinds of slimes present in the game, each of which have to be treated in their own ways.

• Normal Slimes: These slimes are simply just green slime balls which slide slowly down the screen. They have no special abilities and are usually not hard to deal with. They will explode the first time an explosion happens beside them.
• Shielded Slimes: These slimes are like the above with one small difference. They have a shield around them in the form of a blueish bubble. The first time they are near an explosion, they won’t die. Instead, the shield will fade away. So you will need another explosion to eliminate them. This makes it tricky as sometimes it might be too late to blast the slimes two times.
• Hungry Slimes: These slimes are dangerous because they can eat any slime that is smaller than them. You should take extra care when dealing with them. If you through your slime ball directly at them, they will simply eat it and there will be no explosion. They can even eat each other if they collide with enough speed. Each time they eat they become bigger and heavier, and it causes them to slide down faster. If they become big enough, they are effectively out of control and will for sure lose you a point.
• Shielded Hungry Slimes: They are Hungry Slimes, but shielded! So apart from the eating part you also have to break their shield before killing them!

Obstacles

Once you proceed to higher levels, obstacles will be added to the game at various places in the screen. They make the game more challenging but blocking your line of sight or impairing your movement.

• Bar: This is the first and simplest obstacle you will see. It is the one in the middle in the above picture. What it does is simply blocking some part of the screen and all you have to do is just to go around it.
• Moving Bar: Moving bars look the same as bars. But they move across the screen. So you have to plan your shots to be able to go around them.
• Spinners: The left picture above shows a spinner. They have freedom of spinnign around the center and are usually harder to deal with them. Slimes falling down or your charged slime make them turn and sometimes their positioning makes it impossible to play.
• Spike Strips: The thrid picture shows a spike strip. They are like bars. But they have spikes! It means that any slime that touches them will be blown. While this is good when other slimes touch them, it is not good when you lose your slime ball to them. And they are usually situated in locations where it is easier for them to catch your slime ball than others.

Spheroids

I didn’t know where to mention Spheroids. They could be considered as obstacles, but the way they are is as if they have an independent existance! So, I put a separate section to explain them. A spheroid is a ball with a bumpy rubber strip around it and a face with a spiral pattern. They constantly move around and crash into walls and other slimes. They have no harm in essense. But sometimes they can cost you a lot by violently kicking slimes towards the bottom line or kicking your slime ball away when it is just about to explode. They are just a pain!

Additional Features

Apart from different game units you will see, some features are also added at the very advanced levels. These features are there to make sure you have what it takes to complete a full set of Hungry Slimes levels.

• Stones: If you go high enough in levels, at some point you will see falling stones. Heavy pieces of stone will fall down randomly, impairing your game-play. Playing with stone-fall can be challenging.
• Wind: This is one of the last features you will see and it is indeed the last thing you want to see. The wind redirects the motion of your slime ball to one direction, so you should be very good at the physics to be able to play against the wind.

Advanced Gameplay

With all explained above, you should be able to play for a good while. However, you are not yet prepared to go very high in the level stack with only that amount of information. In this section I will explain how power-ups and perks can help you.

Instant Power-ups

Playing Hungry Slimes is not all about killing slimes. You can have more control on what you do in the game. Power-ups are an example of this. Whenever you kill more than one slime with one blast, a progress ring appears on top of the screen showing your progress towards getting the next power-up. Once this ring is filled, you will get a random power-up. It will show up as a small icon on top of a green circle at the same place the progress ring had been showing. The icons are displayed below.

Power-ups are of two kinds. Active and passive power-ups. When an active power-up is on, you will get the “TAP” message on the screen whenever you launch your slime ball. This means that you and only you can trigger the effect of the power-up with tapping the screen. Passive power-ups are the other way round. They activate on a certain event and you cannot tap-control them. Hence you don’t get the “TAP” message when they are on. Currently there is only one passive power-up in the game.

I will explain the meaning of the power-up icons above, from left to right:

• Freeze: Tapping the screen will cause your slime to freeze and hold its position until it explodes. This can be very helpful in terms of controlling your slime.
• Trigger: Tapping the screen will cause your slime to explode regardless of the timer.
• Hit-Explode: Your slime will explode once it hits another slime. This is specially useful when some slimes are close to the bottom.
• Float: Tapping the screen will cause your slime to get free of gravity and continue at its current speed. Tapping when your slime is moving fast is usually a misuse of this power-up.
• Time-warp: Tapping the screen will slow down the game, giving you more time to decide between launches.

A final note on power-ups is that when one is on, the explosion timer is slightly slower (1.25 sec normally) to give you time to plan using your power-up. But you should keep this in mind not to be confused with the timing difference.

Perks

Unlike power-ups, perks are not earned during the game. They should be chosen before you start the game. They can be viewed as persistent power-ups which are usually much more effective than instant power-ups. You can choose to buy perks in the slime shop. Slime shop is covered in a later section. For now we will just explain what perks are and what different perks do.

A perk is an ability you install on all your slime balls. A game that starts with a perk will have that ability for all launches with no exceptions. These abilities can be one of the following:

I will explain the name and the function of the perks shown above from left to right:

• Carisma: This perk is what I find the most fun perk in the game. It does make the game easier for you in one sense, but what I like is the laughter it brings to me. With this perk chosen, all the slimes follow the slime you shoot. The closer your slime gets, the faster they follow, as if you have put a slime magnet inside your slime ball. This can make the game easier, but keep in mind that when you fall down, they also follow you to the bottom line. So you should be a bit careful with that.
• Power:When I added this to the game, I was afraid this makes the game too easy. It actually does, but not enough to make it boring. It is like having a rest after having played it for a long time. Choosing this perk will make your explosions more powerful. Powerful enough to clear a whole level with 10 slimes with one blast in some cases.
• Laser:This perk actually makes your game harder! That’s why it is much cheaper than the others. It replaces the explosion with just a beam of laser. Each time you shoot a slime, instead of exploding, it emits a horizontal laser beam. It only blasts the slimes on the laser line. You can imagine how frustrating it must be to clear levels this way. And you do not have the kick-back effect you have with explosion, meaning that you cannot kick them away with a low-level explosion like you might do normally when they get close. But if you are looking for the achievement “Laser Tag”, you have no other choice but using it.
• Shield:This is a blessing for all who hate the big hungry slimes who eat your slime balls. You simply cannot hit them except indirectly. But in Hungry Slimes 1.5 there is an option B, and that’s choosing this perk. It makes your slime shielded, and you know that shielded slimes cannot be eaten by anyone. So by choosing shield, hungry slimes are like normal slimes for you, with no special powers. Except they can still eat each other of course!

Game Modes

The game has three different game modes. Although the basic game-play and the goal is the same for all three, the mechanics of survival and progress is different. The game modes are available in the main menu and are displayed with the following icons:

Time Challenge

This is the most relaxed game mode. In time challenge you run against the clock. When the game starts you have 6 minutes (8 with an achievement) and you should get as much score as you can during this time. Each slime that passes the bottom line costs you 5 seconds. This is not bad at all because you already have plenty of chances of failure compared to Survival Mode.

Here you can also earn some extra time by getting score. Each 400 score gives you 30 seconds of time. Perks are disabled for this game mode as it is easy enough so you shouldn’t need them.

Survival Mode

In this mode, you have a limited number of “lives”. Normally you only have 4, but you can raise it up to 6 by getting an achievement. Regardless of this number, the lives indicate the number of slimes that may pass the bottom line before you lose. Each slime that passes takes away one of your valuable lives. Once it reaches zero, an alarm icon will appear in the place of lives, which suggests that any single slime that passes the bottom line will end the game. This mode is a challenging mode and is usually intended for more advanced players.

There is also a way you can earn lives. Each 400 score that you get earns you one extra life with the maximum of 4 (or 6 if you have the achievement). This number is 600 if you are using the “Power” perk, which is a very powerful one. This is to keep the balance of the game.

Star Hunt

This is a recently added game mode which is something slightly different from the other two. In Star Hunt, each time you kill multiple slimes (even two at a time), a star will float in place. You have to hit stars with your charged slime to get them. Floating stars clear each level, so to earn them you need to keep at least one slime in the scene.

Each star does give you an extra point, but it’s more essential than that to collect them. Because each level takes away two stars, and each slime that reaches the bottom, instead of time penalty in Time Challenge and a life in Survival Mode, also costs you 2 stars in this mode. You start with 10 stars and zero stars is game over! So you must keep them above zero. So the challenge goes beyond just stopping slimes. You should earn stars too if you want to continue.

Unlike the other two game modes there is no other way to earn stars, which makes this mode more challenging that survival mode. But at the same time it is a more colorful and fun game mode. Note that this game mode is locked and you must buy it at the Slime Shop.

Slime Shop

Slime shop is one of the amazing features that makes Hungry Slimes an enjoyable game. You can tweak your game in wonderful ways in the slime shop. There are three main sections in the shop, where you can either select, or buy paid stuff to amend your game. You will NOT have to pay for the stuff in the shop with real money though! In this section I will explain different things related to the Slime Shop.

Slime Points

This is the currency used in the slime shop. Slime points are mainly earned by playing the game. Each time you kill a Hungry Slime, you will get one slime point. A game that gets you to around level 32, earns you around 50 slime points. You can either collect these slime points for achievements or bring them to the shop to buy stuff!

Your current slime points are displayed on the top-right corner of the screen once you enter the slime shop. You have the option of buying more slime points if you don’t have the time to earn them through playing. All you have to do is just to tap that number and you will be able to purchase slime points through Google Play’s in-app billing service.

Shop Sections

As I said before, there are three main sections in the shop. Each of these sections offers you a different kind of amendment. Some work like subscriptions and some are one-time purchases.

Perks

This section contains all the perks you can use in the game. I described perks in an earlier section. So, here I will just explain how you can use them from the slime shop. This section looks like this the picture below.

You can scroll through different perks. But you should be careful. Each perk that is currently in the center, is the selected perk and will be used in the game! You can see the cost-per-play tag on the bottom-right. This is the amount of slime points that you will pay each time you play the game with this perk. So be sure to select “none” whenever you want to play without any perk, so you don’t lose your slime points.

Another indication of a selected perk is when you want to choose game mode. If you see the small perk icon under the game mode icon, it means that the perk will be used. If the small icon is blinking it means that you don’t currently have the slime points to use that perk and the game will start without the perk as a result. But if it’s not blinking, you will be charged when you start playing, and the perk will be effective. Yet another indication of this is the cash register sound when you start the game.

Sometimes it might happen that despite the indicators, you start the game with a perk by mistake. Does this mean you lose some slime points? The answer is no. The game has a 12 second grace period, during which you can quit the game without losing any slime points. So, if you hear the cash register sound and realize you have chosen a perk while you didn’t want to, simply just exit the game immediately.

Trophies

Trophies are not an essential part of the game. They are just luxurious assets you can buy. There are achievements assigned to each trophies and these achievements usually unlock advanced levels in the game. However, you won’t need them in your everyday playing. Trophies are pretty expensive. The least expensive one in the game is 1000 slime points. This means that you should play 20 times up to level 32-33 to be able to buy it.

To buy a trophy you should tap the shopping cart button on the bottom-right corner of the screen. This button only appears if you don’t have the trophy already and if you have sufficient slime points to buy it. Trophies are purchased only once and them you will have it for the lifetime of the game. Of course you will lose them if you uninstall the game.

Extras

This section of the shop will hold any other thing that can be sold in the game. Currently it has only one item in it and that’s the Star Hunt mode. But more items might be added to it in the future.

Achievements and Rewards

When you get bored playing the game the ordinary way, you might want to do something more. This is where you might consider getting some achievements. Achievements are earned whenever you do something extraordinary in the game. If you go to the corresponding screen through the main menu, you can scroll through them and see what you have to do in order to get them. Icons corresponding to earned achievements are colored yellow, and those not yet earned are black.

Some achievements also have a reward associated with them. For example the picture above shows the achievement “Slime Juggler”. If you manage to do the criteria of this achievement, you will have two extra minutes in Time Challenge game mode. You can browse achievements and see what rewards they have and how you can get them. Some are fun and truly rewarding challenges!