Achievement Guide & Walkthrough

[Craphex]

Achievement Guide & Roadmap by Craphex

Overview:
- Estimated achievement difficulty: 3/10 (If following walkthroughs)
- Approximate time: 4 - 6 hours
- Offline: 200
- Online: 0
- Missable Achievements: None
- Minimum number of playthroughs needed: 1 for each difficulty (can repeat each level)
- Glitched achievements: None
- Cheats: None
- Does difficulty affect achievements?: Yes

Introduction:
My first guide, with hopefully more to come.
Enjoyed the first game, so bought Swarm on day one. Currently priced at £2.29/$2.99.
There are 3 difficulties to play with 10 levels per difficulty, the last level of each having unlimited waves. You can also play any level at any time.

Step 1a:
Go into Help & Options and click on Hardcore Mode so that it now says Novice Mode. This will make the game much easier!

Step 1b:
You can go Here for the best setup for each level.

Step 2:
Play through the levels. It is best to start on Easy 1 and work your way up. You get an achievement for completing one level of each difficulty, then the 9 levels of each difficulty, and again all 9 without losing a life. The 10th level of each difficulty does not count as it is endless. A green tick next to each level means you have completed it, a gold star means you have completed it without losing a life.

You can knock out the miscellaneous achievements during the easy levels, an achievement for each tower being upgraded to max(7) exluding the Thump tower. The Vortex towers appear on Medium already placed which can be upgraded, dropping one of each tower on this level will unlock the Turret Happy achievement. The x50 multiplier will come natural without even trying.

These achievements won't unlock until the game has ended! So don't worry if it doesn't pop as soon as you upgraded a tower to full, placed all the towers or got x50 or higher.

Easy Start 1
As the achievement says, beat any level on Easy. Does not have to be done without losing a life, and the last endless level does not count.

Beat Easy 2
As the achievement says, beat all 9 levels on Easy. Does not have to be done without losing a life, and the last endless level does not count.

Easy Owned 10
As the achievement says, beat all 9 levels on Easy without losing a life. Again the last endless level does not count.

Medium Start 5
As the achievement says, beat any level on Medium. Does not have to be done without losing a life, and the last endless level does not count.

Beat Medium 10
As the achievement says, beat all 9 levels on Medium. Does not have to be done without losing a life, and the last endless level does not count.

Medium Owned 30
As the achievement says, beat all 9 levels on Medium without losing a life. Again the last endless level does not count.

Hard Start 7
As the achievement says, beat any level on Hard. Does not have to be done without losing a life, and the last endless level does not count.

Beat Hard 15
As the achievement says, beat all 9 levels on Hard. Does not have to be done without losing a life, and the last endless level does not count.

Hard Owned 85
As the achievement says, beat all 9 levels on Hard without losing a life. Again the last endless level does not count.

Green Machine 5
As the achievement says, just upgrade the green Blaster tower to Level 7, the highest level.

Blue Thunder 5
As the achievement says, just upgrade the blue Laser tower to Level 7, the highest level.

Red Menace 5
As the achievement says, just upgrade the red Missile tower to Level 7, the highest level.

Shock And Awe 5
As the achievement says, just upgrade the yellow Shock tower to Level 7, the highest level.

Flux Vortex 5
As the achievement says, just upgrade the multicoloured swirling Vortex tower to Level 7, the highest level. You cannot place this tower, they start appearing already placed from Medium onwards.

Close Call 5
For every kill your multiplier goes up by 1. After 50 kills in one level you should get this. Killing enemies closer to the red exit gives you a higher multiplier.

Turret Happy 5
Just place one of each turret down in one level. The earliest you can do this is on the first Medium level.

[Racxie]

Nice guide and thanks for the video tutorial guide, only problem is the videos only have the easy levels (so far?). Bit of a shame that most of the achievements are pretty much the same as the first game, could have done with a bit more variety e.g. reach 50 waves in an endless level or meet a certain score.

But oh well, at least it makes them easier to obtain

[Craphex]

Heh true, and cheers dude!
I'm sure the list had them all on this morning, anyway got the same videos on the youtube channel, all of them there.
I will update the guide with the new link ^_^

[Racxie]

Thanks very much for that! I'll be sure to take a gander when I get stuck on some of the levels that I just end up getting completely stumped on. I finally managed to do the first medium level!

[Trikke]

Great road map so far, but 2(-4)hrs completion time, is a bit too optimistic IMHO (even with a guide). I'd rather say 5-8hrs depending on skill.

Achievement guide is a bit short though

[Racxie]

Originally Posted by Trikke

Great road map so far, but 2(-4)hrs completion time, is a bit too optimistic IMHO (even with a guide). I'd rather say 5-8hrs depending on skill.

Achievement guide is a bit short though

It is a bit short, but that's because it doesn't really need any more. Sure maybe OP could flesh it out a tiny bit for new players to the game e.g. to upgrade a tower just tap on it and then then tap the upgrade button 6 times once you can afford to and then finish the level, but tbh the game explains upgrading to you anyway.

But on that note maybe OP could mention that you need to finish the level for the achievements to unlock, whether you win it or not (e.g. I managed to get a 50x multiplier and then just let the creepers kill me, which counted as me "completing" the level netting me the achievement (only with a green tick though), so that might be easier for some people.

[LanEvo]

Nice work, thanks for the guide.

The first game was very good. Had I noticed it, I would've bought it day one.

Edit:
I also agree that 2~4 hours is very unlikely. I'd say 4h with a guide, 8h without one. I'm working my way through medium, and had to restart several times already to perfect a strategy through trial and error.

Also, for the close call achievement, the solution is wrong. It's not cumulative, you have to kill a creep very close to the exit to get a 50x multiplier in a single kill (hence the name close call).

Keep it up! Thanks again.

[GIitch]

Are there any better video guides? I'm stuck on a level and the guide doesn't help at all.

[Repo]

Which level?

Originally Posted by LanEvo

Also, for the close call achievement, the solution is wrong. It's not cumulative, you have to kill a creep very close to the exit to get a 50x multiplier in a single kill (hence the name close call).

This.

[bob101910]

Originally Posted by GIitch

Are there any better video guides? I'm stuck on a level and the guide doesn't help at all.

Yeah the video guides are outdated. Those video guides are not for the Windows Phone 7 version. In some levels the creeps move differently than in other versions of the game. Would be nice if they went for perfects as well

[neeker75]

The Mahalo guides are pretty useless. Anyone could pass the levels. It's just passing without losing a life that's important for the achievements. As mentioned above, the creeps also move differently even if you follow videos on youtube. There's a guide for Y Me? (possibly the hardest medium level) on youtube that has a perfect, but the creeps never ever moved down the middle when I followed it. Ended up I had to build several greens to "cup" two "Ys" to force them to go down the middle. Over 10 attempts, with trial and error eventually helping me to get through it perfectly.

Google "David Such" and you may find some image guides for some medium levels. Most of them work, but some aren't perfects as well, and it's incomplete. But still, more helpful than Mahalo videos that's for sure.

[Arsenic 17]

Originally Posted by bob101910

Yeah the video guides are outdated. Those video guides are not for the Windows Phone 7 version. In some levels the creeps move differently than in other versions of the game. Would be nice if they went for perfects as well

Originally Posted by neeker75

The Mahalo guides are pretty useless. Anyone could pass the levels. It's just passing without losing a life that's important for the achievements. As mentioned above, the creeps also move differently even if you follow videos on youtube. There's a guide for Y Me? (possibly the hardest medium level) on youtube that has a perfect, but the creeps never ever moved down the middle when I followed it. Ended up I had to build several greens to "cup" two "Ys" to force them to go down the middle. Over 10 attempts, with trial and error eventually helping me to get through it perfectly.

Google "David Such" and you may find some image guides for some medium levels. Most of them work, but some aren't perfects as well, and it's incomplete. But still, more helpful than Mahalo videos that's for sure.

You guys are narbs. Make sure you change the setting in the options from Hardcore to Novice, that is what setting the video guides are on.

I used every Mahalo guide and only had to play each level once. Each solution worked perfectly. The swarm always followed the same path as in the videos. Before knocking the achievement guide and video guides, pay attention.

Thanks for the guide BTW! I agree on the 2/10 difficulty, but no way anyone is completing that in 2 hours. Using guides as efficiently as possible (I literally do not think you can beat the game any faster than I did), it took me 4-5 hours to complete the game. I would adjust the time to say 4-6 hours.

[Avenged Remains]

Originally Posted by Craphex

Turret Happy 5
Just place one of each turret down in one level. The earliest you can do this is on the first Medium level.

You can also do this on the 9th easy level

[zszaiss]

Originally Posted by neeker75

Google "David Such" and you may find some image guides for some medium levels. Most of them work, but some aren't perfects as well, and it's incomplete. But still, more helpful than Mahalo videos that's for sure.

I ended up using this for Hard Lvl 4 (Crazy Ivan) because it was missing from the Mahalo video guide. I didn't follow his guide exactly, but he called out that the sparkly monsters that only appear on this level are more resistant to the laser tower than the missile tower. That swapped my strategy around.

[master_shake_350]

Originally Posted by neeker75

Google "David Such" and you may find some image guides for some medium levels. Most of them work, but some aren't perfects as well, and it's incomplete. But still, more helpful than Mahalo videos that's for sure.

Thank you for this, I too found the Maholo guides good for just passing the level, but the David Such pics are better IMO.

[Arsenic 17]

Originally Posted by master_shake_350

Thank you for this, I too found the Maholo guides good for just passing the level, but the David Such pics are better IMO.

Did you change the difficulty to Novice? I used all the Mahalo guides with no issue on Novice.

[Kairi]

Congratulations!

This Achievement Guide and Roadmap has been reviewed by Guide Team Staff member TemporalWizard and has been published as the Official x360a.org Achievement Guide and Roadmap! The link to the Official Guide is here:

Official x360a.org geoDefense Swarm Achievement Guide and Roadmap

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[Rusty Nail zh]

Having a hard time on the Hard level "Looking Glass". For the first 13 waves I have no problems at all. But the last wave with the stars is causing damage all the time...1 to 3 stars always hit my base. I followed the guide above and the difficulty is also set to novice. Did some variations, but nothing helped. Anyone got a solution to beat the level without losing a life? Appreciated! Cheers!

EDIT: Right after I posted this, I got it. More shock towers ftw!