Overview
Basically every tip and trick I could think of that a player might find helpful/need to know. NOTE: I have not reached evil mode yet, and the game has frequent updates so while unlikely things may change, or I made a mistake and is inaccurate. If so, please let me know and feel free to contribute! I’ll add any information that may be helpful. I’ll try to update this as soon as I notice a new post, or discover things.
Before you read:
This is purely something I have made in bits and pieces, things will not be 100% accurate and all things in this guide are about the game NGU idle. This guide is purely for recommendations – play the game how you want to play, dont let this guide ruin your fun! I will remove information if requested by 4g, legal stuff is somehow involved, or whatever else that may happen.
Still MISSING INFO? >> ASK QUESTIONS TO GET STUFF ADDED i don’t know what to write anymore…
P.S. there is a fandom for this game, and a link to the official DISCORD in the info-and-stuff page in-game (top right corner) and it’s much better than this guide for details/help.
Getting started.
Basic training: Hovering your mouse over things, and clicking things, will generally cause prompts or numbers to move (e.g. energy to be put into your basic training) just follow the tutorial and it’s fairly clear. At the time I started playing, 4g didn’t say that R+clicking energy into the training will fill it with enough energy that ALL the bars will be maxed out. Rebirthing after training your basic training bars will cause the total amount of energy needed to train at MAX EFFICIENCY to lower – so whenever you notice the hover text for new cap goes green, it’s generally worth rebirthing. This speeds everything up. You lose all progress in training on rebirth.
Experience: Ignore the adventure boosts that you can buy, its a trap there only for rich people. Buying energy in this order: get all the speed you can (maxes out at 50), and some energy cap then keep a ratio of 1 energy bar, 40k (or 400k when it feels too fast) energy cap, 1 energy power. The buy custom in top left is only really useful later on, for start just buy it separately. Magic is similar, but you don’t need much until the first titan which unlocks NGU which gives permanent boosts . One of, if not the most important things in the game. it is your foundation to everything. Prioritize EXP gain via short (~hour long rebirths[?]) rebirths at the start.
Other stuff in exp shop: There are a few other windows that you can see/will get. Buying the basic loot filter can be useful, and I recommend it at around the cheese cave, while the item daycare I recommend getting around the sky. Accessory slots are always good. But general rule of thumb, if it takes you over 24 hours to get that much experience, it’s worth buying energy/magic over those things.
Bosses: Eventually, you have to tear yourself away from those numbers though, and look for new number… in the form of a boss fight! The training you have been doing until now is to be able to improve your numbers so you can beat the living daylights out of… a fuzz ball. Congrats, your as strong as dust, but not quite as strong as a baby yet… you’ll get there. Once you have beaten a boss, on rebirth the NUKE option will allow you to auto-kill anything weak enough that you would just be spamming fight on. Bosses drop experience – something that you use to purchase permanent boosts, and which sticks around between rebirths. You go back to boss 1 on rebirth.
Rebirth: Rebirthing gives you something called Number. Number is made of multiple things, such as time this rebirth, boss number, and later blood magic (more detail on-page). Number seems important – and it is! it helps you get farther faster… but it’s not the be-all end-all. In fact, pretty early on in the game, as the first challenge, you will have it reset… and that will be a common theme in challenges. Why? Because number is easy to get back. Number is less important than things like Experience, NGUs, PP perks, and gear.
Rebirth continued: With rebirthing, early on it is better to ignore number and focus more on getting the cost of your basic training down (green text = lowest it will go the next rebirth when hovered over). Generally speaking, each rebirth should at most be 30 or 60 minutes. Also remember: keep duel training (put energy in attack, matches for defense) setting ON and right click the + symbol to AUTO fill for ALL the bars (e.g. when all 6 are down to 1, it will put 6 energy in each section, or essentially 1 energy in each as the ENERGY AUTO ADVANCES IN BASIC TRAINING OVER THE CAP).
Settings: you’ll find some options that are interesting in the little gear symbol’s (bottom left) area. peruse them, and turn on Sync training (recommended). Main area to look at is the button right next to it though: the “Info ‘n Stuff” section has a lot of math, numbers, tool-tip log (the hover text) and free stuff! (hint: if your wanting a boost, choose the AP – but lets face it, adorable devil daycare cat image is the true, and permanent [not helpful] reward here)
These are the main screens for the time being, and I highly recommend you actually read the in-game guides that 4g provides (the boxes that say “WTF do I do”), as there are a LOT of details in there, essentially everything listed here and then some.
Post-tutorial zone
Congrats, you beat the tutorial! THE LIES ARE REAL! there is another two tabs unlocked now, the adventure and inventory tabs.
Adventure: basically, you beat up the things you beat up again… and again… and again.. why? for loot, of course! You might need to sit in this tab for a while when your not fighting bosses or managing your inventory in order to fight things, but generally you’ll leave it on IDLE mode most of the time. Shortcut keys for attacks are keys w-y, and a-h for defensive (and buff) options. You unlock more options with basic training.
Manual adventure: Assuming you have all basic trainings unlocked, the best way to ‘manual’ an area is to activate ULTIMATE and OFFENSIVE boost, followed by a CHARGE + ULTIMATE ATTACK to START THE BATTLE then when they are almost 30s cool down (about to deactivate), enable defensive boost. Once defensive boost runs out, there will be a few seconds without any boost. use your block here. Otherwise, just go down the list using your strongest attacks (parry is a 50% damage reduction, not a true attack, but still useful) Make smart use of HEALING as well, better to use it as sooner than later.
Inventory: This is actually fairly important. Hover over the in-game guide button for some shortcuts, and ALWAYS KEEP AN ITEM UNTIL IT LEVEL UP TO LEVEL 100!!!! there is a little button called “item list” that has a list of items – found items are visible, while items that you have had (at any point) at level 100… the prior just tells you info, while the latter will give you permanent boosts. Later on you will be able to get an “item filter” (and/or buy an advance version of) that will let you avoid picking up certain items. This can speed up some things. oh, p.s. forest pendents can be upgraded so keep them, as they take forever to level up through the daycare…
Daycare: This is a sub-area of the Inventory. Basicly, you toss in an item, and the adorable cat (the cuteness is a lie! It is a monster! You’ll understand later) will care for them, causing their level to go up, online and offline. Each item varies in time needed for level up. Buying this is useful when you get somewhere around the cave area. Don’t worry about it too much though.
post ‘A Very Strange Place’:
Once you get to this point in the game, ignore the gears, rush to the MEGALANDS. This is because you will be able to unlock the Megalands before completing most of the sets that come after the sky, and will have plenty of time after it to grind the sets. It is better to skip ahead to ‘snipe’ (manual attack) for the megalands set than maxx out all the sets. This is because Megalands offers a much better buff to you (expecially for capacity) than other sets prior to this. You’ll have plenty of time later to grind/maxx out the remaining later. Things will be slow for a while. If you do plan to maxx out any sets post-sky before, it should be gaudy (for aid in sniping) and ghost set for the maxx buff. Ghost set perk is the idle damage goes from 1 to 1.5x base damage, which will help idling as soon as possible.
If you have gears you are still working on, ignore or trash them unless there nearly complete (or if they are the titan gears). To achieve the megalands (a.k.a. mega **** wall) you will generally take at least fully boosted level 0 gaudy set (I did it), and a 3+ day adventure stat grinding. For me this just meant a normal run as I’m not that active, just with a little more energy in advance training power/toughness boost. It takes about 250k power, and 125k toughness to idle the area, and about half that to manual. (Note: the gear will likely double your stat so you can idle upon obtaining full set if you can manual it)
The unmentionable titan (WHY AM I MENTIONING IT?!?) requires a ring of apathy to even damage after his first attack. This ring can be found rarely in the forest in adventure mode dropped by… Droop the goblin! Get this as soon as you beat boss 100 (which unlocks it as a drop) and dump it in the daycare. Once you beat this titan, you get beards!
Beards: Beards use energy or magic bars to gain levels. Having two ‘energy beards’ or two ‘magic beards’ active causes each beard of that type to increase slower so it’s better to have a mix of each. Beards give effects when being grown, and ONLY active beards will transfer over their effect to become permanent
Do challenges at this point. Even consider 100% completion of the basic for best results. The boost to stats helps.
The Beardverse: Congrats! You are now in a constant hell of exactly what you experienced with MEGALANDS all over again! This is probably a recurring theme here… Anyways your stuck either a. grinding the titans, or grinding stats (and STILL grinding titans). Enjoy.
Oh, and the beardverse has ~1% drop rate on the set items. So go crazy on the lucky charms and drop rate boosts in blood and gold section. every iota of increase helps. Only do the lucky charms once your confident in manual mode (hint: Start by blocking charger toupee then parry the next massive strike, so you can block the third. otherwise it will hit before cool-downs end) and have at least 1k toughness is what I recommend.
P.S. for grinding stats, don’t forget that you have per-rebirth consumables that are in the boost section of the AP shop. Complete sets have granted them before, and with how long these rebirths will be, it might be a good idea to start using them. There helpful to use.
P.P.S Dumping a mixture adventure NGU training (sometimes just taking a day doing nothing BUT that will make the difference) can make all the difference if your really hurting for that little step up in stats.
Your general rebirth resetting farms
As stated above, (unless you have ITOPOD perks which keep a few levels) you lose these on rebirth. There important, but only because it aids in pushing forward towards more experience… which is to say everything but wandoos (sorta joking) is great.
Time Machine and augmentations: Two things that take money and energy to upgrade, but which boost things. Time Machine is an adventure-mode based gold farm, using your highest gold drop from there, and increases in speed and multiplier based on the level. Math details in-game. Worth dumping energy into basically always. Augments are a power multiplier for your basic attack/defense, and help you mow through bosses faster. Your general go-to energy dumping grounds.
Blood Magic: Basically a number multiplier (temp) and adventure stat booster (perma). the iron pill is the real purpose of this page, with the other things being useful but minor things. Takes money to make magic as those ritual basins or whatever are expensive to get. Your general magic (and gold) dumping grounds.
Wandoos: Ignore until a fair while later. I’m at the third titan from accounting and I am just now starting to dump energy in there… it’s not worth using early on. I’ve only really touched it after getting a level 100 OS, (which translates to only a few levels in the wandoos itself) which was also around the third titan.
Note about Wandoos recommendation: Wandoos advice is assuming you are more ‘active’/rebirth frequently – if you are afk, as noted by liarcake can be very useful if you farm it given that you are a less active player. Do note that farming wandoos it is highly recommended that you use a merge slot, as it will quickly fill up the inventory outside it and it will take a lot of time to make any appreciable difference after the first few copies. Just keep in mind that it is ultimately a temp boost, and consider what other things you can be doing with the energy when farming it
Challenges
When you unlock challenges, I recommend doing the basic one immediately/close to immediately. It’s basically resetting your NUMBER to 1. Why would you want to make your number go down? Because it’s actually not that important… it takes a bit of time, but it’s well worth the initial/first completion bonus. Do the basic challenge a second time when you have confidence in being able to do in in under 24 hours for a new challenge.
Challenges (generic): There are various challenges throughout the game. The two ‘main’ rewards from them are the first completion reward, and the final completion reward. Generally recommended is do the first run on basic and 24 hour challenges (24 is unlocked by beating basic in 24 hours) before the fourth titan, and do the rest while waiting or right after at the the mega ‘******* wall’ (as community calls the mega-lands). If you have poorly drawn armor, it will help greatly to finish or start them if you haven’t touched the challenges much.
Troll challenges: The name is very apt… Only active while playing (as with many other challenges), these challenges will make you hate 4g for a while, as well as curse the daycare kitty (the monster revealed!). Long story short, don’t do these unless you have a LOT of free time and are confident enough to spend (in all likely-hood over 24 hours) it playing NGU. I beat the first one before going insane I even reached the second titan, so it IS possible to do it when you get it, but….. I don’t recommend doing that… It was pain. Save scum will be your friend for you maniacs that do this early.
100 level challenge: I personally recommend doing post beards (attack/defense perma boost is easy to get). at minimum wait until gold diggers are unlocked if you want to do it earlier. For distribution I did doing the following. *Warning this is not optimized*
Augments: 3 shoulder mounts (first rebirth only), 10+ energy buster, 5 charge shots.
Time Machine: 10 speed, 20 multiplier.
Wandoos: magic dump. (will end with under 10 in five minutes)
Gold diggers attack up only, maybe wandoos.
P.S. Dump your energy into NGU – this should only take ~15 minutes tops if you have have obtained Poorly Drawn armor.
laser challenge: does a regular rebirth (keep number) – you just also gain a bonus if you get 2/2 or whatever the requirement for laser sword upgrades. Good to start before long AFK sessions, whenever you think you can reach the target.
Everything else. Why? Because I’m too lazy to sort everything.
Titans: The titans have various drops that offer quite the boost. Once you beat them once manually, you will be able to auto-kill/farm them for their drops in the future… provided you have high enough stats and the setting to do so on. You don’t even have to leave the adventure mode on the titan page, you can farm another area instead, and still kill them.
Gold Diggers: Pay careful attention when you unlock these… If you do, you will notice that each gold digger is different. The second page, top left gold digger I believe is an NGU energy efficiency % increase – meaning you can increase NGU speed – for example. GOLD DIGGER LEVELS ARE SAVED BETWEEN REBIRTHS, so keep that in mind as well. At this point you should have a decent grasp of the game and catch on pretty quickly to most things.
Sellout Shop: Buy the golden heart as soon as you can, as your first, or as close to first as possible, purchase. It increases the AP you get – and at level 100 will give a PERMANENT AP boost as with all the hearts for their respective buff. Well worth a daycare slot for a while. second choice on is up to you, though I personally recommend infinity cube filter for inactive people, and improved loot filter for all.
Yiggdrasil: Harvest the fruit, upgrade them, at least until you can afford the pomegranate which gives a large number of seeds. That will take a few upgrades (~5) in Gold fruit and unlocking Power a fruit. After you have the pomegranate unlocked, which is your main seed yeilding plant, I recommend either:
a. if you make a lot of experience, unlocking as many plants as is reasonable, and purchasing their auto-start (prevents power/magic drain when it auto-starts). This is what I recommend for more active players. OR
b. Buying as many pomegranate (or any fruit you want) to the most you can, and being idle, checking infrequently. While this may not increase yields (unless something like first harvest bonus is in-play) It is a good way to quickly increase seed count, and unlock more fruits.
Money Pit: spin the wheel daily (and save manually) for free AP, and dump in your life savings to the endless abyss of greed for buffs. It has a money counter that counts across rebirths for a larger boost here and there, and you get smaller boosts for each dump. More money, better boosts.
ITOPOD: Whenever your going offline, just hit optimal floor. Go for the newbie perks, then the energy and magic boosts that are first-second row. As always, up to you where/what you do as it’s all useful, just avoid the rich persons PP dump adventure boost up for a long time.
The ITOPOD (Infinate tower of ****ed-off dudes) grants PP at levels 100, 200, 300, 400, and 500. The tower also grants more PP on higher floors so it’s always worth going higher, up to the “optimal” floor were you (nearly) always 1-shot enemies.
NGU: Numbers Go Up. Basically just a massive energy pit for permanent boosts, which you should have a few million energy to dump in to by the time you get to it. Worth it 100%. Power level and respawn time are my main recommendations for focus in energy here early on to speed up progress.
Achievements:
Achievements: First off, I’m going to leave this section fairly brief as it’s all fairly straight forward and visible. An in-game achievement list exists in the info-and-stuff section. Achievements provide a boost to AP gains.
The goblin: There are two things tied to him. 1. hitting him between the legs (clicking) 2. Killing him 3 times in under 30 minutes (I suggest doing this upon unlocking basic challenge). Kong also had a bronze something-or-other achievement but this is Steam so who cares. I think that was mentioned in the wtf page if you’re who.
OCD: Bottom right corner of the advance training section is a curse! (and 4g made into an achievement for clicking rather than being fixed)
Bosses/Titans: a lot of achievements for defeating bosses and titans, as you probably realized.
Energy/magic: Higher caps bars and power.
Rebirthing: do it alot.
Evil mode: reach it, enter, then feel free to exit again as it is evil.
Contributers
The_Game_Machine (Author) – so far pretty much everything in this trash-pile of (what I call) information! Hopefully changes soon.
Saffron – suggested clarification on rebirth timing, and expanded on Yggdrasil’s tier importance/effect.