Your hands work feverishly under the dim candlelight. You check and double-check your sources, knowing that the slightest mistake can cost you worse than your life. But you know the risks. You’ve calculated every gesture, retraced every rune of power, and anchored yourself firmly to the material world. You are ready to begin world domination.
As would-be overlord of the world, you’ll need to summon minions, brew vile potions, fight off the forces of good, and put devious plans into motion. Oh, and most importantly, feed the baby.
NecroMerger is a simple game, and it has a relatively straightforward tutorial that’ll teach you all about the game’s basic functions, from feeding your Devourer to making minions. Nonetheless, if you’d like a quick preview of what to expect from the game, or want a clue on some of the game’s finer mechanics, read on!
Feeding The Devourer
Your main concern in NecroMerger isn’t taking over the world, or laying waste to villages and desecrating graveyards. It’s…feeding the Devourer.
I mean, it’s quite cute, isn’t it? And theoretically, if it gets big enough, it can do all the heavy lifting for you.
That aside, feeding the Devourer is the main task in NecroMerger. Everything you do – summoning minions, amassing mana, plotting evil – they’re all made with the end goal of num num time in mind.
Basic Food
Feeding the Devourer is simple – just tap hold on something and drag it to the Devourer’s mouth to feed it. Note that this is permanent and there are no takebacks!
While the Devourer will eat most anything, only things that have a food stat will help it grow by giving it experience points. You can see how much food something will give via the info panel above.
Note that the higher the tier of the thing you feed to your otherworldly charge, the more food it’s worth. And merged things are always worth more than the sum of their parts. For example, a bone is worth 1 food, a ribcage is worth 2, and a level 1 skeleton is worth 10. You need two ribcages to make a level 1 skeleton. Individually, those ribcages would be worth 8 food, but when merged as a skeleton, it’s worth 10 – that’s a 2 point bonus!
The game also warns you if you’re going to overfeed the Devourer. A menu will appear telling you how much food is going to spill over and be wasted. However, this won’t prevent you from feeding the Devourer stuff if the food cap would not be reached, so exercise caution!
Finally, you can use the Devourer as a universal trash can. If there’s stuff on the board you don’t need, such as chests or invaders, you can feed them to the Devourer. And don’t worry about doing this when you don’t intend to as you’ll get a warning prompt asking if you’re absolutely sure you want to feed a high-value thing to the Devourer.
Cravings
As the Devourer grows, it’ll begin developing specific cravings, which you can see on the left side of the upper info panel.
Fulfilling these cravings is a great way to quickly level up your Devourer as they not only provide their base food boost, but also give a large amount of bonus food when fed!
Prizes
The Devourer isn’t just a hungry monster. Take care of it, and it’ll take care of you.
Your progression in the game is largely tied to the level of your Devourer. As it levels up, you’ll gain new rewards and unlock new game features, such as more space and new buildings. If ever you feel stuck, feed your Devourer.
Necromancy and Economics: Necronomics?
If the game’s name didn’t clue you in, NecroMerger is a game about combining things (also known in academic parlance as “merging”) to make bigger and better things. The more you combine a thing with another thing, the bigger and better it gets!
Merging
Merging is simple: drag two things on top of each other to combine them into a thing of a higher level. Two bones make a ribcage, two ribcages make a level 1 skeleton, two level 1 skeletons make a level 2 skeleton and so on. And yes, this includes structures: 2 level 1 graves make a level 2 grave.
It’s also worth mentioning that when it comes to resources like ice runes or gold, you get a lot more out of cashing in a higher level pile than several low level ones. Of course, that’s if you can afford the space they’ll take up.
On a side note, you can always tap on the info panel in the upper middle of the screen to see exactly what benefits you get out of each level that a thing has. This allows you to plan better and allocate resources more efficiently.
Minions
The first things you can merge in the game are skeletons. These are basic minions that hang around your lair and don’t do much else.
If you had a peek in the info panel, you’ll notice that skeletons have three stats: production, damage, and food.
Money
Most minions have a resource that they produce over time – that’s what the production icon in the info panel means. Skeletons, for instance, generate mana over time. Coincidentally, graves need mana to produce skeleton and eventually zombie parts.
With that in mind, it’s worth dedicating some space in your lair to production minions. While the NecroMerger himself produces some mana, he’s a one-off thing. For comparison, a top tier skeleton produces 14 mana compared to the NecroMerger’s 5. On a side note, you can tap the NecroMerger to gain 5 mana, but this is super tedious and I don’t recommend you rely on it.
As you progress in the game, you’ll gain access to more resource pools, namely slime and darkness. These are produced by other, specialized minions, so be sure to allocate space for those too.
If you really need a quick burst of resources, you can always buy a refill for diamonds – though this gets more expensive the more times you do it in a day. You can also opt to watch an ad to instantly fill your resource tank of choice, though you can only do this 4 times a day.
Your minions will continue producing resources even while you’re offline, though this is limited by your resource cap. To increase your cap, you’ll need to build structures to accommodate them, such as mana pools.
Runes and Invaders
To build structures, you’ll need runes. These precious gems are pretty hard to get – the first few runes you find will come from the Devourer itself, but once you hit a certain point in the game, you’ll find yourself without an easy source. Enter the invaders.
Invaders are unlocked once you progress enough in the game. Each invader is tied to a certain activity, such as summoning specific minions, and each time you perform that activity, they’ll gain some progress. Once their progress bar hits 100%, they’ll automatically appear on the board…
..and not really do anything. See, invaders are more of a resource than a threat. However, you’ll still need to deal with them, and this is where a minion’s damage stat comes in. Drag a minion to the invader, and they’ll do battle. The minion will always be destroyed, but it will inflict damage equal to its damage stat. You can check how much health an invader has by tapping on it and looking at the info panel.
Once the trespassers have been dealt with, they’ll drop a chest filled with (you guessed it) runes. Let the construction continue!
Bonus Resources
You’ll also occasionally find bonus resources on your board.
Progressing far enough in the game gives you access to the bonus chest. This box is filled with goodies: cash shop coins and rarely, diamonds. However, you will need to watch an ad to open it. If you don’t have the patience to do so, you could always feed it and gain 1 coin (do not do this).
You can also gain a free daily chest from the cash shop, which contains the same items (and drop rates) as locked chests. Don’t forget to grab this as you’ll eventually be able to get enough coins and gems to buy neat stuff at the cash shop!
Finally, there’s also the monster album which you can access by tapping the quest menu in the lower left, then tapping the monster icon with the question mark on it. This menu grants you rewards for creating both the first and final levels of a minion.
NecroMerger Codes
Surprisingly, NecroMerger does have some cheat codes, but these are more akin to bonus codes in other games than outright cheats. Nonetheless, you’ll want them as they can give you a boost in your early game production.
To enter cheat codes, go to the settings menu by tapping the gear on the upper right of the screen, then tap Cheat Codes at the bottom of the menu.
Without further ado, here are the current codes:
- DEVOURER: gives 50 gems.
- FREEZING: gives 25 ice runes.
- GOLDRUSH: gives 100 cash shop coins.
- X78HT3P4: gives 15 Astro Coins. You’ll need to progress further in the game to use this code.
Go Forth and Merge!
It may take a day, it may take an hour, heck, it may take all eternity, but eventually our Devourer will get big enough to lay waste to the lands of the living and ensure our final victory. But that’s one of the perks of being a necromancer – time is always on our side.
That ends my guide to NecroMerger, and I hope it inspired you to bring home a baby outer god and nourish it until it decides it will no longer partake in the farce of human life and destroy civilization utterly. If you have additional tips or tricks to add, make yourself heard in the comments section below!