Official The Madness of Little Emma Beginner’s Guide

Overview

I am the author of this game and I have created this guide to aid those who want to skip the ‘learning’ part. It contains information on basic tricks which let you get more loot, access side levels, and not get hurt as often. The guide assumes that you have played a computer game before so the very very basics are not here.The guide also contains a few spoilers on the end game (how to get each ending) for those who just want to try get them instead of figuring out.

Basic game concept

The Madness of Little Emma was originally mostly inspired by The Binding of Isaac, however with recent updates it has moved a little bit closer towards the original roguelike games such as Nethack or Adom. What it means is The Madness of Little Emma has lots and lots of little stuff which takes time to figure out (while BoI was much more straightforward). This guide is meant to help you start easier. Also I want to point out that all of the important secrets in the game are figureable by oneself and it just takes time to do it (probably around a few hundred hours).

Starting out

Bombs – Emma can plant bombs using right mouse button. Bombs serve multiple uses in this game and are a very important resource – you can never have too much bombs!
Coins – Coins are mostly used for buying stuff in shops and/or using active items
Madness – This, more or less, represents the “danger level” of monsters that you are going to meet – the higher, the more dangerous the enemies. It is usually increased by collecting items (not small pickups, just special items) or shooting at hanged girls. There are only a few ways of reducing your madness
Attack Power – Shows how much damage your bullets deal to most enemies.
Fire Rate – The higher, to more often you can spit bullets
Luck – Affects pickup drop rate, their quality, chest quality, herbs’ effects, and a few more things.

Common Chest Types

This is the most common chest type, you can open it by walking into it and it usually contains a few pickups (and sometimes another chest[s])
Grey chests are opened by exploding bombs near them and on average contain a little bit more treasures than brown chests
Golden chests are always nice to find and they are guaranteed to contain at least one power herb + a few more treasures. They are opened by exploding bombs near them.

There are a few other chest types, but these are less common and usually don’t appear in the early levels.

Herb types

Herbs are the stuff which increases (usually) your stats. There are following types of herbs:
Green herb is the most common type of herb – usually their effect is good.

• heal 1 heart container
• Increase/decrease attack damage
• Increase/decrease fire rate
• Increase/decrease luck
• hurt for 1 heart container worth of health, this never happens if you are at 1 heart or lower.

Each increase stat effect is more common than the corresponding decrease stat effect

Black herbs have usually bad effects and usually it is a bad idea to pick up them. Usually they hurt you for 1 heart worth of health, however if you are at 1 heart or lower they will heal you instead. They also have a range of bad effects, but from time to time they give you something good.

The following are considered power herbs and always increase your stats when picked up
Golden herbs increase your attack damage and sometimes luck as well. Also they can potentially heal you to full health.

Silver herbs increase your fire rate and sometimes luck as well.

Red herbs give you one extra heart container and sometimes they increase your luck as well. They can also heal you for 1 heart (or sometimes full health)

Purple herbs (aka ‘boss herbs’) are always dropped after a boss fight and they increase one of your stats (attack damage/fire rate/luck). There is always 1 guaranteed boss herb after a boss fight, but you can get 2, or sometimes 3, if your luck is high enough.

Rainbow herbs change your stats randomly, you are guaranteed that at least one stat will be increased. On average they increase your stats, but sometimes you can get unlucky with them.

Handling spikes

Spikes are usually very threatening to new players, however if you learn how they work, you can greatly reduce the amount of damage you take from them.
Basically spikes take an indefinite short time to stick out, so if you jump immedietally after you land you will not get hurt (you can just hold ‘jump’ while falling down).

Secrets

Secrets are super important in The Madness of Little Emma and they are the reason you can never have too much bombs. Secrets, more or less, are present once every 3 or 4 rooms. Detecting them is easy once you learn the trick – whenever there is an explosion in a room, there is a chance that there will be a puff of smoke in the place the secret is located. Now all you need to do is plant bomb in that place and voila! a free treasure! Secrets pretty often contain golden chests so it’s definitely worthy to get them.

Knowing how secrets work can help you if you are one coin short to buying something or are low at health before a boss fight. As long as you have bombs, you can plant them in cleared rooms and look for that puff of smoke then plant the bomb again in that place.
Also you can just put a bomb down in every room if you have plenty of them, which will most probably pay off after a few rooms.

Invulnerability frames

The Madness of Little Emma has pretty generous invulnerability frames after getting hurt, use it to reposition yourself to a safer spot whenever you get hurt.

You also get a ~second of invulnerability whenever you enter a room, this protects from free, unexpected damage, but also allows for some dirty tricks, like quickly running through a monster to get a better position.

Robbing shops

While buying stuff from shops is self-explanatory, there is also a way to rob a shop and get the items for free.

To start a shop robbery, you need to challenge the shopkeeper, to do this, just plant a bomb and make him float over it. When the bomb explodes he gets super angry and all the items can be picked for free (even before you kill him). The shopkeeper is very very resilient and it takes some time of juking, running around to kill him, also some preparation is usually needed/helpful. It is for you to figure out how to do it.

Killing a shopkeeper has some long-term consequences in the last levels. It also makes you unable to enter the Black Market if you have not been there before.

There are some items which make robbing shops a breeze.

Bomb Jumps aka “Rocket Jumps”

Sometimes you get this sweet golden chest out of your reach and have no means of flying. Fear not, you can try to perform a bomb jump. This is quite difficult, requires good timing, but it is definitely worth it to do it if you see a chest or 2 somewhere out of range (especially if there is health lying somewhere around).

This usually requires you to jump up just before the bomb explodes, so the explosion sends you even higher, however sometimes standing on top of the bomb is enough (you will get like 1 or 2 tiles higher than using plain jump).

Endings

Once you get the hang of the basics described in previous sections, you should be able, sooner or later, to kill Manless Face, which results in achieving Ending 1.

To get further endings, you need to have your madness equal to 0 when killing Manless Face. To do it, you need to get a special item which is unlocked after killing MF for a first time – Prozac. This item reduces your madness to 0 and is always guaranteed to spawn from the hanged girl in The False End. The trick is to not pick too many items after you get prozac, because they will increase your madness over 0 and you won’t be able to proceed any further! The best idea, is to not pick any items after you get it (most small pickups are fine though!), so you are sure your madness stays at 0.
Having madness equal to 0 has this side effect that the rest of the False End level will be very easy after you get Prozac.
Proceeding to the levels after False End allows to get endings 2-4 in consecutive replays.

Endings 5 and 6 require you to find 2 special items. You can get those endings before you even get E2-4. To find those items, you need to access a special side level – Love Burrow. To get the portal there, you need to finish a boss fight with full health (it’s not 100% guaranteed though, more like 80%-90%). A chest will spawn, which will contain a portal inside.

When in Love Burrow you need to find either a Broken Heart, or Shattered Heart. Which one you get depends on your madness level. If 6 or higher you will get SH, otherwise BH. Any of these will appear in a secret, so to find them, you need to actively look for secrets and hope that you will find one of those hearts inside. If you have enough bombs, you will usually be able to find the heart.

Broken Heart allows you to get to a special boss and ending 5 in the last level

Shattered Heart allows you to get to another special boss and ending 6 in the last level

Those hearts will only appear if you have gotten ending 1 at least once before.

Using normal means, you can only access Love Burrow once in a playthrough.

Going for ending 6, so diving into Love Burrow with high madness is much more difficult, so beware! You will probably get killed a few times, before you get the hang of how strong you need to be, to safely find Shattered Heart.

There is also an unofficial, special ending, called Two Hearts. It doesnt reward you with any extra unlocks, or cutscenes, but gives you a hefty amount of points for the ladder + bragging rights, since atm there are only 2 people who ever got this.
To get 2 hearts you need to have both Broken and Shattered Heart. One way to get them is very luck dependant = get to Love Burrow, find Broken Heart and afterwards find one of the special items which allow you to get there again and find the second heart in that way.
Another, more difficult, but also much more reliable way is to visit multiple hidden side levels to get a Broken Heart and get Shattered Heart from Love Burrow normally. If you have ever been to special side levels, you will notice that they always contain a unique chest with 4 dots over it – if you get 4 of such chests in one playthrough, the last one will contain Broken Heart.

Side levels

The Madness of Little Emma has multiple hidden side levels, some easier, some harder to reach. Some of those are:

• Beehive
• Doctor’s Black Market
• Crypt
• Dark Tunnel
• Cave
• Art Gallery

and a few more.

I will explain how to get to 3 of them here, the rest is for you to figure out!

In general most of the side levels are accessed by portals found in secrets in specific rooms.

You can get to Dark Tunnel if you manage to find a secret in the first hanged girl room (in Undergrounds). Dark Tunnel is quite difficult and normally I ignore it, however it could be a good idea to go there if your luck is low, because there is an abandoned shop there. Abandoned shops usually contain 4 random herbs/items and each one reduces your luck when picked up. Your luck cannot be reduced below 0, so you can pick those freely if your luck is already 0.
Also Dark Tunnel is very helpful if trying to get the Two Hearts ending, but it is up to you to figure out why.

A chest containg a portal to Beehive appears if you clear the Hive or Swarm miniboss while not getting hit more than once. Beehive is relatively easy and contains quite good treasures, so it is almost always a good idea to go there. Just be careful of colourful bees which reduce your stats permanently if they hit you!

Doors to Doctor’s Black Market are present in every shop. They are opened if you have 50 or more coins and have not killed a shopkeeper before. The area is safe and there is no risk in going there. It can only be accessed once every game.

Characters

Emma is the starting character.

Amelia is unlocked by beating a boss in Love Burrow (whichever).

Elizabeth is unlocked either by dying 5 times, or using the Noose.

Lucretia is unlocked by having 40 coins on any given moment.

Marah is unlocked by unlocking the ending 4.