This page describes the strategy developed by Elad Verbin, an  experienced Styx player. Elad took the opportunity of this web site to share his strategy with all other Styx fans. So, give it a try!

If you are interested in strategies of other Styx players, reference the Strategy page. If you have any good ideas yourself please contact us. We'll be more than happy to publish your playing suggestions on this web site.

The stage is yours, Elad:

Elad's Strategy

 I discovered a strategy which allows me to get consistently over 25K in the first stage with a little practice ( I got as high as 27 thousand and something... ), and over 40K total, and I'm still improving.

My strategy takes some practice, but it can get you a 18K bonus and at least 6K on colouring pretty regularly. In the strategy I don't move in diagonals at all (but you can change it  and try to find places where moving in diagonals will improve the method ).

1. The general idea is first to nearly trap the Styx in one half of the field, leaving a hole that, on average, it will go through every couple of  minutes.

2. Then you can work quietly on the other half of the board, where the Styx isn't present. What you do is make a series of tall "buildings", with  narrow gaps between them (about 8 of them. The gaps should be very narrow, but not too much. Some practice will show you... ). You do all  this while avoiding the worm ( it's not so hard since you're inside the  field most of the time).

3. After you prepared the trap for the Styx, you go and lurk near one of  the ends of the center-field wall, until the Styx goes through. Then you  immediately close the wall (well, not exactly. See elaboration 4, below).

4. All you have to do now is trap him while he's inside of one of the gaps, and then you close him, if you're near enough. If the gaps are very narrow (as they should be) the Styx "jumps" from one to the other through vacuum  very strange...) but it doesn't really matter. If the gaps are narrow enough, you manage to close 98% ( I even got 99% once ), so you get many bonus points.

Unlike other methods, in this one you should be afraid of  the worm much more than of the Styx, because you have only 2 brief contacts with the
Styx -- in the beginning and in the end.

Some elaborations:

(1) When you initially close the middle of the field, you should do it by  "repeated building" -- you build a small cube. Then you immediately go back  up and build an extension for it, and repeat this until you have as long a  wall as you want. This way only a small piece is vulnerable to the Styx  and its erratic movements at each step.

(2) The buildings should not all be equal in height. They should be in  increasing height -- the one nearest to the wall should be short (about  1/2 the size of the wall ) and the last one, near the edge of the screen (I usually trap the Styx on the left half, and work on the right ), should  be about the size of the wall. That way the Styx has an open triangle to get into when he crosses the wall. I found that this way when the Styx does go in he doesn't tend to jump back out like he does when the first  few walls are high.

 (3) Avoiding the worm on step 3 is hard (especially when there are 2  worms ). Your situation is easier because the trip around the board is  very long (because of all the buildings), so you have some time. When  the worm does come, one thing you can do is wait for her near the leg of  one of the buildings and when she is at the bottom, close the bottom of  the gap so that you'll be on the other side of the worm.

 (4) On step 3 you don't immediately close the wall. Instead, you almost close it, but leave a gap as small as you can. Sometimes the rotten Styx  goes back anyway, so you can close it with a structure a little more  complicated so he won't cross back. The wall the at the middle shouldn't be  too thin, because then he can jump back "through vacuum" ). Then you wait  until the color goes green and THEN you close it completely. That should  give you about 4K.

(5) Just make sure that during all of this you won't close more than 80%  so you want have a "premature victory". Usually before step 4 I closed a  little more than 70%.

One interesting thing to note about this "algorithm" is that it's major  parts are designed to avoid the 2 kinds of randomness that make the game so difficult: The randomness of the Styx ( since you have almost no  contact with him ), and the randomness of getting points for coloring  sections  see elaboration 4).

 I'm sure I left out some little tricks that I use for certain steps, but  after some experience with this method you can figure them out.  Note : There are a lot of parameters that you can change to make this  method even more efficient...

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