Gameplay and Achievements

Overview

Some basic gameplay information and achievement tips. Difficulty settings, characters and weapons overview.The guide covers pretty much everything there is in the game.

Difficulty

The difficulty setting only affects how much hits your character can sustain:

• Easy — 7
• Normal — 4
• Hard — 2

Falling of the cliff or on the spikes will result in death on Normal and Hard difficutly, but on Easy it will count roughly as 1,75 damage point and the character will be returned to the previous position (except Stage 7).

Enemy HP, cakes, drops, firing rate, bosses etc. are not affected by difficulty setting.

Characters

Clive

Abilities

The main character of the game.
Can shoot while moving.

Ms. Johnson

Abilities

The damsel in distress.
Can’t shoot while moving, moves slower that Clive, jumps the same height as Clive, after jump can hover in the air for a bit.
She looks taller than Clive but it doesn’t have impact on the game.

Duck

Abilities

Unlocks after beating the game for the first time.
Can’t shoot, only can fly, moves the same speed as Clive.
Sized as a regular game duck, so it can’t be shot by a regular standing bandit, hovewer they will aim you if you fly above them.

Weapons

There are 6 types of weapons, sorted by rarity:

Weapon

Icon

Description

Screenshot

Regular gun

n/a

Shoots straight, up to 3 bullets in a burst

Triple gun

Shoots 1 bullet in each direction: straight, slightly up, sligthly down
Up to 6 total bullets in a burst

Big gun

Shoots 1 big explosive bullet
Slow rate of fire

Bubble gun

Shoots bubble that seeks nearest target, but not necessarily find it,
up to 3 bubbles in a burst

Laser gun

Shoots blue lasers, that move through the whole screen ignoring obstacles,
no cooldown

Square gun

Shoots purple squares that bounce off the floor,
no cooldown

The latter two can only drop in World 4.

Achievements

There’s a separate achievement for finishing the game with each character:

The End
Complete the game (with Clive)

Feminist
Complete the game with Ms. Johnsson

For the birds
Complete the game in Duck Mode (unlocked after you finish the game with Clive)

Apart from regular completion achievements, there are 6 special achievements for specific stage completion:

One Credit
Complete the game without dying

A bird in the hand
Complete duck mode without dying

The simpliest way to obtain these is to start the game on Easy difficulty, that way you won’t die by falling. Au contraire on Normal and Hard difficulty falling off will lead to death right away, which makes getting the achievement MUCH harder.
However, falling in Stage 7 on any difficulty will lead to death, so pay attention, especially in Duck Mode.

Speed runner
Get a ★ clear time on every stage

Early Bird
Get a ★ clear time on every stage in Duck Mode

The ★-timings are the same for all difficulties, though on Easy you can just pass by enemies which are hard to avoid to save time. I recommend getting these achievements first, because you’d probably get a lot No Damage levels if you do everything right (since receiving damage slows you).
See Appendix A for the list of my ★-qualifying timings (completed on Easy).

No Damage!
Get the No Damage bonus on every level

Don’t touch a feather
Get the No Damage bonus on every stage in Duck Mode

These achievements are not so difficulty dependent, and the best deal here is not to rush. If you’re attempting this achievement on a fresh save, start on Normal or Hard difficulty, since HP doesn’t matter here, but you can easily restart level by falling off (so you’ll be less frustrated for not having a restart button). Some levels are much easier if you have specific weapons, for example I don’t recommend you having a big gun at all, the best choice would be triple gun or laser gun (rare). You can get the No Damage bonus playing both Clive and Ms. Johnsson.
The Duck Mode achievements is obviously much harder because you can’t shoot, and require some advanced dodging techniques and timing.
See Appendix B for a YouTube video of No Damage Clive run.

See Appendix C for boss tips on achievements.

N.B.: both No Damage and ★ achievements must be completed throughout one save slot (each). The bonuses aren’t summed up across saves.

Appendix A: ★-timings

Appendix B: Clive No Damage run video

Appendix C: Bosses

The bosses are quite easy as the game itself, but here are some tips if you’re attempting achievement runs.

Boss 1
Jump when he aims you, move away when he jumps, duck when he sprays from top to bottom.

Boss 2
Stay near the box and spam triple gun, the top bullet will git the boss. It’s quite safe, but will take a lot of time.
Stay on leftmost top box, duck when he hits with his arms. Bombs which fell down will not hit you with fire. Jump down and hide behind boxes on fire spray (it’s bugged and sometimes can hit you even there).
For ★-time you should get big gun and just jump and spam fire, hoping to defeat him before fire spray or bomb hit.

Boss 3
Stay very close and spam fire, the hand will not reach you if you’re close enough. When he swings, duck directly underneath him.
★-time is quite high here and requires a bit of luck so that the boss don’t jump a lot across the room. If he performs his regular gun/hand attack 2-3 times in a row and you just spam him with triple gun you should make it.

Boss 4
You’d probably get both ND/★ in a regular playthrough as this boss is very easy.