golem

What the golem is

The golem is a titan: the biggest enemy in the game, which replaces the boss every ten levels. It is family 2 of 4 and has 3 forms; every run draws one and builds its pieces anew.

• Slab stack: 4 to 6 faceted slabs stacked on a spine, with a face (slit, cyclops or row of eyes), 2 to 4 crystals and sometimes shoulders and satellite slabs.
• Spine: 6 to 9 vertebrae with wings, a spike collar or shields, a head with eyes, roots and a heart.
• Floating peak: an upside-down mountain with a plateau, 2 to 4 broken peaks on top, crystals and satellite rocks.

The intro card only shows the family; you can tell the form by looking at it. It has 4 phases: 3 stages and the core.

How a titan fight works

You can't beat a titan with ordinary goals: it never reaches the table, so you have to send the ball through the reticle in its goal.

• Lanes with a reticle. Its goal is split into 5 lanes. 2 have a reticle (3 on easy), marked by a column of amber light. The reticles switch lanes every 7.5 s (5.5 s on hard) or when the weak point they target falls.
• Comet shot. If the ball goes in through a lane with a reticle, it turns into a comet that flies for 0.75 s into a weak point: it takes 1 life off it (2 with the giant ball) and gives you 150 points and 1 s on the clock. A goal through a lane without a reticle does no damage, and the game reminds you: aim for the reticle.
• Weak points. They pulse between fuchsia and white. Each stage has up to 3; the core is a single one with more life.
• Probes. Every so often it drops a probe onto the table. Break it with the ball before it leaves: it takes life off a weak point of the current stage.
• It catches your ball. If you shoot at its goal outside the reticle lanes and the ball passes close, most of the time it holds it for a moment (1.0 s on easy, 0.8 s on normal, 0.6 s on hard) and sends it back with spin, curving sideways. It then needs 7 to 15 s before it can do it again. It never touches the giant ball.
• Finishers. Breaking each stage opens a finisher, and when the core drops below 30% life the final finisher comes: perfect center = titan destroyed.
• Extra speed. Against a titan, the ball and the CPU are 15% faster.

What to break in each stage

Each stage has its own weak points; once you break them all, that part of the titan falls apart in a 2.4 s slow motion with a screen shake, and you move on to the next one.

Life on normal: each stage weak point takes 1 hit (2 from level 40). The core takes 4 at level 10, 5 at level 20, 6 at level 30 and 7 at level 40. On easy life is multiplied by 0.7 and on hard by 1.15, rounded and never below 1.

Probes: the pillars

The golem drops 2 pillars that stay planted on the table; the ball bounces off them. Each broken pillar takes 1 life off a weak point.

life

1 hit each on easy, 2 on normal and hard

lasts

13 s on easy, 11 s on normal and hard

damage to the titan

1 per pillar

points

400 per pillar

It drops one batch at a time: the first at 9 s, then 11 to 15 s after the previous one ends (a bit more spaced out on easy). If you don't break it in time, it shoots at you once and goes back to the titan.

How to beat the golem

1. Aim for the reticle. Send the ball down the lanes with an amber light column: every comet shot takes 1 life off a crystal, eye or node.
2. Break both pillars. That's 2 probes at once: each one counts against a weak point. Use them as walls to bounce the ball and hit them again.
3. Read the meteors. The reticle shows where they land, never on your row, and the ball bounces in the crater they leave for a few seconds: factor that in when you aim.
4. Stay calm with inverted controls. They last 4 s: short movements until they return.
5. Dodge the full web. At the core your row turns red with two gaps, one in each half: go to the closer one, then stop the final finisher's needle in the center.

Golem attacks

The golem adds one of its own attacks per stage: meteor shower in stage 1, meteors and burst in stage 2, and all three from stage 3. It also uses the tilted table from stage 2 and the vortex from stage 3. The final attack first comes 7 s into the core and repeats every 20 s (26 s on easy).

When it appears

The golem can be the titan of any level that is a multiple of 10: titans replace the boss every second boss.

• Campaign: levels 10, 20, 30, 40…
• Boss rush: the 2nd, 4th, 6th boss…, every other one.
• Different families: the 4 families are shuffled every run, so the first four titans (levels 10, 20, 30 and 40) are always from different families. After that the order repeats.
• Never in endless or 2 players.
• Web demo: the campaign goes up to level 10, the first titan, so you can meet it there.

The titan level lasts 99 s and goals don't count toward clearing it: it ends when the titan dies. The clock freezes during the intro, which lasts 6 s and can be skipped by holding for 0.9 s (tap, space, OK or A).

Size comparison

A titan measures 40 to 52 u, more than five times the width of the table. That's why it doesn't fit on it: it floats far away, behind the rival goal.

u = game units (the table is 9 × 16). On a phone in portrait the titan moves up and back a little so it fits on screen.

Rewards

Beating a titan pays more than a regular boss.

• Points: double a boss: 10,000 at level 10, 20,000 at level 20, 30,000 at level 30. On top of that, 300 per weak point, 500 for the core, 400 per pillar and 150 per comet shot.
• Coins: the ones from a boss (20 + 5 per 10 levels, plus the level's own) and 15 extra.
• Lives: +1, and another one if you lost no lives in the level (max 7).
• Titan radio: beating a titan unlocks the titan radio in the jukebox.
• Missions and achievements: it counts as a defeated boss, but not for the collector achievement (beat all 8 boss types).

When it dies it blows up in a 2.2 s chain of explosions and the titan defeated screen appears.

Music

Every titan has its own theme of epic drum n' bass and jungle, at 172–176 BPM, in Phrygian, natural minor or harmonic minor.

The theme is built in sections that follow the fight: the intro opens with big drums and low brass, every broken stage comes in with a kick, a cymbal and a brass hit, and the music moves to a new section until the core, where jungle and drum n' bass merge. Beating a titan unlocks the titan radio, which plays that theme on loop.

In the retro view

In the retro view, the golem is drawn from above, outside the table, with the same warnings in the same order as in 3D. There the vortex turns the table 90° and the game reframes so it stays playable.

Name and epithet

Every titan gets a name and an epithet made up for your run, shown on the intro card (warning · titan).

• Name: 2 or 3 syllables, -Ω and a number from 2 to 99, followed by the family. For example: draxen-Ω42 · golem.
• Epithet: two random parts, like hammer of the abyss, anvil of cold iron or beacon of a thousand orbits, followed by the family and 4 phases.

The Ω in the name is just style: titans are never a secret boss Ω.

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