Sapphire Yours - Game Elements

Most of the elements in the game will be presented in the tutorial demos (in the lower part of the title screen), but nevertheless I want to say a few words about the most common of them.


Gems and Boulders

Emeralds

These green crystals are the most important things in the game. Collect enough of them (which usually means: all) and the exit will open. Emeralds are quite hard and heavy and can kill you if they fall on your head.

Sapphires

The sapphires are the blue ones. They behave very much like emeralds, but they have a big advantage: They are worth 3 emeralds. They also have a big disadvantage, as they are seemingly not as robust as emeralds and will be crushed to pieces if hit by a boulder.

Boulders

The boulders are just there to make your life a little more interesting. You cannot pick them up, but you can push them away if they are blocking you. Like emeralds, boulders will also fall down if unsupported.

Other moveable objects

Bombs

Bombs are the round red objects. These things are highly explosive and will immediately detonate if dropped down or if hit by any other falling object. Nevertheless you may push bombs around on flat surfaces without killing yourself. Bombs are dangerous, but can often be very useful.

Bags

Bags are objects that need a quite tricky handling. Inside each bag there is an emerald that will be set free if you manage to open the bag. A bag will open if hit by a falling boulder.

Safes

These are the big square-shaped grey objects (you probably know safes). Unlike most other objects in the game they are not affected by gravity and can thus be pushed in all four directions. Inside each safe there is a bag that can be set free by an explosion. You should already know how to open the bag itself to get hold of the contained emerald.

Time bombs

Sometimes you find a bundle of dynamite with an attached clock-switch in the level. After you collect it you are able to set this time bomb with the 'Shift'-Key at your current position. Then run away quickly since the blast would kill you. Time bombs are very usefull to get through walls, break free embedded emeralds, kill enemies or start off a chain reaction of other explosives.

Immobiles

Earth

Earth is the stuff the bigger parts of most mines are made of. Dig it away to get to the emeralds. Earth itself is always harmless and will also not fall down.

Walls

The mine is normally surrounded by a wall that can neighter be dug or blasted away. This type of wall is also often in use as an internal room delimiter or something like that. Nevertheless there is also a special kind of more fragile wall that can very well be blasted.

The Exit

Your ultimate destination in every level. After you collected enough gems, the exit will open and let you escape from the mine.

Doors

Doors come in four different colours: red, blue, green and yellow. To walk through a door you need to collect an appropriate key (which are available in the same colors) first. The keys you have are displayed in the status box in the lower right part of the screen.

Enemies

The Swamp (a.k.a. Green Cheese)

In levels with this stuff, you normally have to be quite quick, since the swamp grows and eventually fills up the whole area. Once you are totally imprisioned by this evil green stuff you are lost unless you are equipped with a suitable amount of time bombs to break free again.

Lorries

Avoid!
These beasty artefacts live in some levels driving around and killing any miner that has the bad luck to meet them. They have been merrily put in the game to keep your live interesting, but nevertheless there are some (very rare) situations where you need the help of even these annoing vehicles. Note, that lorries always follow the wall which leads them to take a circular path through the labyrinth. Can be killed by falling objects or by contact with the swamp.

Bugs

Just like lorries these enemies can kill any miner they meet on their path. And also like lorries, they always go through the mine following the wall. The most important difference is, however, that every bug creates a pile of gems when it is killed.
Therefore, in mines with bugs inside, it is usually your first objective to kill the bugs using boulders or other suitable weapons.

Robots

The robots that sometimes appear in the game, are attracted by humans and follow them unless blocked by a wall or by other means. But unlike R2D2, these beings are not friendly and helpful and will kill you if you get in their way. Luckily they are quite slow, and their attention can also be distracted from you by other pieces of machinery.

Yamyam-Beasts

These are surely the strangest of all enemies. They can be killed by the same means as lorries, but as a special features they may create a lot of usable stuff when being destroyed.


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