Korbat's Lab: A Strategic Guide

First let’s get to the basics:

The Aim

Your aim is to break all of Dr. Sloth’s boxes as they contain ingredients for some evil potions. There are four types of boxes. The plain ones require one hit; the striped take three hits and get darker each time they are hit. Boxes with bombs in them will destroy all boxes one space around them, and boxes with a flame with destroy everything beneath them. Each box, other than the flame and bomb, is worth 10 points. You have three lives, and that is represented by the clock on the right. The first three levels are always the same; the rest become random.

The Enemies

Sloth’s lab is crawling with Spyders and Korbats. Some levels have none, some have two, some have combinations. These nasty creatures get in the way of your ball, and by doing so your ball may go in a complete opposite direction that you are unprepared for. The best strategy here is to avoid them.

The Power-ups

This, in my opinion, is the most important part of the game. There are quite a few power-ups: some that affect the ball, some that affect the boxes, and some that have other quite unusual effects. Here is a list that you should know very well:

• Red potion, arrow pointing down: Slows down your bat
• Green potion, arrow pointing up: Speeds up your bat
• Red potion with an arrow and ball: Slows down your ball(s)
• Green potion with arrow and ball: Speeds up your ball(s)
• Pink Potion: Bat becomes smaller
• Purple Potion: Bat becomes bigger
• Yellow Potion: Swaps your paddle control from left to right and vice versa
• Green Potion with reversed arrow: Flips the entire screen as in a mirror
• Potion with bomb: Releases a bomb that you can control and gives one hit to a box
• Potion with three balls: Releases three more balls
• Potion with red ball: Destroys everything in its way without being deflected including the metal boxes
• Orange potion with sun: Sets off all bombs
• Blue potion with sun: Releases all the fire flame boxes
• Grey potion: Weakens the striped boxes so they only need to be hit once.
• Black potion with question mark: Restarts the level
• Pink potion with exclamation mark: Skips level
• Blue Potion with skull: Removes all enemies
• Big white skull: Game Over!
• Yellow star: Extra life
• Silver Coin: Worth 50 points
• Gold Coin: Worth 500 points

Strategic Tips:

1) Remember that the most important part of the game is keeping yourself alive. The ball is priority over ANY power-up. Try not to risk it just to get a good power-up, even if it’s Extra Life, as it will cancel out anyway.

2) The good thing about this game is that you can take breaks between levels. So once you get tired, just take a little time off before starting the next level!

3) The ball works like a ray of light when hitting boxes: it goes the opposite way at the same angle. However, it is different when it comes to the bat. The closer you are to the edge, the more angled and the faster the ball will go. Use this information to aim.

4) Don’t forget to use the walls! The edges can be quite useful when you're trying to get to a tough place.

5) Aim for the easiest boxes first, then aim for the bombs and flames (if there are any in the level) and then worry about those that are hard to reach.

6) Avoid the bad power-ups as much as you can, but not at the sacrifice of your ball. The only power-up you could sacrifice your ball for is the big white skull as it will be game over no matter what.

7) Speed up bat, slow down ball, or bigger bat? Remember that you cannot have a combination of these power-ups. Once you get any, anything else will be cancelled. So you need to decide which works best for you. Personally, I prefer the bigger bat. In harder levels, however, a slower ball will make it easier to aim.

8) Power-ups that affect the ball will add up. For example, if you get the Slow Ball twice, your ball will decrease in speed even more. The same goes for making it faster, so be careful!

9) Since your aim is to get as many points as possible, the power-up that restarts the level is a good one! For the same reason you should avoid the one that skips to the next one.

10) I find that aiming for a certain score helps. You could try and divide the score according to the available lives you have. For example, if you’re aiming for 9,000, you could say: I’ll get 3,000 by the time I lose my first life, 6,000 by my second, etc. Don’t end the game just because you lost a life- unless it’s very early in the beginning- as you never know what could happen later on!

You might have heard this a lot of times before, but the best way to get good at a game is to practice! Eventually you will know the levels well, and you will know what to expect. You will start to find it easier to avoid the enemies and control the ball. You will notice that your score will slowly increase and you will set higher and higher aims!

One of the most important things also is to enjoy the game! If you like it, you will have fun playing it and that will make it easier for you to practice. If it starts to become frustrating, just take a break and come back to it later. I hope that this guide has made it easier for you to understand and play Korbat’s Lab, and I wish you good luck!