World of Horror is a spooky rogue-like that can drive you mad with frustration. Half the fun is seeing all the weird ways you can die, but sometimes we just want to conquer the Elder God and save the world for once. If you’re aiming for a victory and just can’t figure out how to make that happen, here are 10 simple tips you can use to win. I’ve played (and rarely won) enough to share my experiences with the world.
In World of Horror, your goal is to investigate five randomly selected mysteries each run. Some mysteries lead to inevitable battles against strong opponents, while others can be resolved peacefully if you know exactly what to do. Figuring out each mystery, and the optimal path through, is super important to your survival. Avoiding combat, getting a good weapon, and building up your stats is the only way to win. Luckily, there are a few ways you can do all that.
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#1: Get a weapon ASAP. You can purchase a Hammer from the Seaside Hardware Store for 2 FNDs, or find a weapon in your adventure for free. ‘School Scissors’ has a free Baseball Bat in the lockers, for example.
#2: Don’t fight every monster you encounter. Run away! Especially when you’re just starting out. Whenever you encounter a random monster, it’s better to just run. You’ll lose DOOM, but it’s only a fraction of the time you’ll waste healing.
#3: Select the ‘Eerie Evolving Eels’, ‘Abnormal Arms’, or other safe scenarios as your first mysteries. These accounts don’t have final boss battles, and they’re easier to navigate without a weapon. ‘Evolving Eels’ is especially good, because you can gain Kana as an ally — she gives you +1 damage reduction!
#4: Allies are useful! Get an ally from the school once you’ve completed your first mystery. Tell them a scary story for +5 XP and they’ll join you. You can use allies to distract enemies, give you a buff, or you can sacrifice them. Just make sure to check their stats and let them go if they give you -1 modifiers.
#5: If you play as Aiko, you can deal insane damage with the Hammer — which you can purchase from the Seaside Hardware Store. As Aiko, grab the Fast Swimmer perk and you’ll be able to defeat most enemies fast.
#6: Struggling to learn the mysteries? Figuring out which mysteries end with challenging fights, which ones give useful rewards and which ones you can avoid entirely is important. If you’re playing with Custom Rules, write down your seed from the briefcase passcode input menu. Then you can replay the same seed over and over.
#7: You don’t always need to do the side-missions. Some side-missions are useless, and only serve to waste your time. The ‘Eels’ mystery, ‘Abnormal Arms’, or ‘Morbid Mermaids’ have no benefits. Skip them!
#8: Unlock the ‘Wait For It‘ achievement to add the Pocket Knife to your repertoire of items. This incredibly useful item allows you to escape a battle with no DOOM penalty — save it for tough bosses you can escape from, or use it in the Lighthouse. To earn this achievement, just use the ‘Prepare Attack’ move in combat without using anything else in your combat queue.
#9: Unlock the ‘Ashen Contract’ spell by sacrificing a follower. To do this, play until you get the ‘Paranoia’ event, and you’ll be able to click on the follower and kill them. You can also play the ‘Household Hell’ mystery with a flashlight and encounter the monster. This incredibly helpful spell costs -7 DOOM but kills any non-Eldritch monster instantly.
#10: Don’t give up! World of Horror is still a Work-In-Progress, and sometimes you’ll just get bad RNG. The trick is to learn all the mysteries, and figure out how to avoid taking too much Stamina / Reason damage while minimizing your DOOM. Learn how to resolve mysteries without fighting monsters, how to get useful items / masks, and you’ll be well on your way to a victory.
