My favorite Godfinger game is Bizarre Brigade. Problem is, to unlock all of its characters, players need to delve to depth 1,000 in Soul Hounds III. This is actually pretty hard to do. So, to help out other players who are struggling to get that deep, here’s a guide on how to do it. It'll cover some general tips and a stage-by-stage guide.

General Tips

• The most important tip. Do not play Soul Hounds III for long stretches of time without taking breaks. Excessive repetitive button mashing will hurt your hand.

• Speaking of button mashing, if you have the option, use a keyboard instead of a controller. I found that I was able to mash faster when I used a keyboard.

• When it's convenient, try to be towards the center. You have more options for avoiding danger and grabbing items when you aren’t at the edge.

• Pomegranates are very important to get. If you think you can get to a pomegranate without dying, go for it. The time it takes you to get that pomegranate will likely be less than the amount of extra time it gives you. They give 25 energy to your timer. They give you 12.5 extra seconds of life on stage 1. The amount of extra time decreases a little per each next stage, but they always remain vital.

• The silver coin pick-up items are good, but don't go out of your way to get them. Silver coins will randomly cause 1 out of 2 types of effects to occur. The first effect is mediocre. It'll pick a random color of regular block on your screen and turn that color of regular block into a different color. The second effect is better. It'll turn all regular blocks on your screen into the same color.

• The gold coin pick-up items are great. You should go out of your way to get them. Just like silver coins, they randomly cause 1 out of 2 types of effects to occur, but these effects are much better. The first effect is giving your dog a shield. The next time your dog takes damage, the damage is negated and your shield goes away. The second effect is your dog will temporarily get supercharged for 9 seconds. While supercharged, he's invincible, he moves faster, he digs faster, and the timer doesn't go down.

• You get an extra life when your score reaches these breakpoints: 60,000 / 150,000 / 250,000.

• Watch a video of a successful run. Videos give you a great idea of how you should be playing.

Stage-By-Stage Guide

Stage 1 - 000m to 100m

Obstacles: Regular, 5-hit

The first stage is easy. Just quickly dig straight down. If you run into any low-risk pomegranates or coins, go ahead and collect them. You'll sometimes run into blocks that take 5 hits to break. Just dig straight through them.

Stage 2 - 100m to 200m

Obstacles: Regular, 5-hit, Unbreakable

This stage introduces solid, unbreakable blocks. These blocks can't be broken and can't fall. They make your descent more difficult, because now you'll have to dig around them. However, you can use them to your advantage. Since they don't fall, the squares beneath them are safe areas. When digging around unbreakable blocks, hook your dig around the bottom, so that you're directly underneath the unbreakable block. This will help you avoid the falling blocks better.

Stage 3 - 200m to 300m

Obstacles: Regular, 5-hit, Spikes

This stage introduces skull spike traps. For this stage, the traps will only have 1 side with spikes. Once triggered, the spikes deploy after 1 second. The traps are unbreakable and do not fall, so use them as cover like you would with unbreakable blocks. Keep an eye on spike traps near 5-hit blocks. You don't want a 5-hit block to block you while the spike trap deploys. Towards the end, the density of spike traps increases. For this end part, it's pretty much a sprint downwards. Just go around each spike trap and keep digging down fast. The falling blocks above you will tend to snap onto same-color adjacent blocks.

Stage 4 - 300m to 400m

Obstacles: Regular

This stage is very easy. It only has regular blocks that only come in 2 colors. Just dig down, but do not leave the stage when you reach the bottom. Before you leave, collect all the pomegranates that fell to the bottom with you. You should be leaving this stage with a near-capped out timer.

Stage 5 - 400m to 500m

Obstacles: Regular, 5-hit, Unbreakable, Vertical Lasers

This stage introduces vertical lasers that hit every square in a column all at once. They trigger every 6 seconds. The column they choose is random. Usually, only 1 laser will fire at a time. Rarely, 2 lasers will fire at the same time. Try to time it so that once the lasers fire, you make a burst of progress. Then when it feels like the next wave of lasers is coming, try to get into a position where you have enough space to safely swap columns, in case a laser shoots your current column.

Stage 6 - 500m to 600m

Obstacles: Regular, 5-hit, Spikes

This stage is another skull traps stage, but now some of the skull traps will have spikes on all 4 sides. When you trigger a 4-sided skull trap, all spikes deploy after 1 second. Be careful when going around them. I've often triggered a 4-sided skull trap by being to the left of it, then I dug 1 down and 1 to the right, only to get spiked by the down-facing side.

This stage ends with a skull trap maze. It's not hard, but I'd still recommend watching a video of it beforehand so you know what to expect.

Stage 7 - 600m to 700m

Obstacles: Regular, Unbreakable, Spikes

Just like stage 4, this stage is another easy stage to replenish your timer energy. Break the first block and there will be no more breakable blocks. Just unbreakable blocks and skull traps. Don't ground pound to skip it. Gently fall within the center and collect as many pomegranates as you can. A lot of the pomegranates will be on platforms made of skull traps. Just walk across them in 1 direction.

Stage 8 - 700m to 800m

Obstacles: Regular, 5-hit, Unbreakable, Spikes

This is the first stage to have all types of blocks. It's pretty conventional. The only thing to comment on is that the timer counts down fast at this point, so it's very important to collect the pomegranates.

Also, at some point, you may encounter a section with only one passable square in the middle, with a 5-hit block plugging up the square, and a spike trap above it. Don't try to break this 5-hit block all at once before the spike trap goes off. You won't have enough time. You need to hit the 5-hit block twice, then get out of the way of the spike trap. Then after the trap finishes retracting, go back and finish off the 5-hit block with 3 more hits.

Stage 9 - 800m to 900m

Obstacles: Regular, 5-hit, Unbreakable, Spikes

For this stage, the regular blocks will largely only be 1 of 2 colors. There are a few exceptions, but pretty much just 2 colors. There will also be parts of the stage that have 2 columns of unbreakable blocks with a single column of regular blocks between them. The trick to this stage is to go within the gutters between those columns of unbreakable blocks. The pomegranates will tend to spawn near the entrances and exits to these gutters. The gutter exits might also have spike traps at the bottom, so just move out of the way when you reach the bottom.

Stage 10 - 900m to 1,000m

Obstacles: Regular, 5-hit, Unbreakable, Horizontal Lasers

This stage introduces horizontal lasers. They hit every square of a row all at once. They trigger every 5 seconds. Sometimes, only 1 laser triggers at a time. Sometimes, 2 will trigger at once. Due to the layout of the stage, these are more difficult than the vertical lasers, even if they're conceptually similar.

The stage contains sections that are almost entirely filled-in rows of unbreakable blocks with only 1 square open to dig through. This means that if you dig straight down until you hit an unbreakable row, you'll be stuck on the row above it until you reach the end that has the diggable square. While you stay directly on top of this unbreakable row, you can't escape the horizontal lasers. To work around this, dig in bursts between laser triggers. If you spot an unbreakable row, don't dig straight down to it. Dig horizontally towards the diggable square, then dig down. If you keep some vertical space between you and the unbreakable row, you still have the option to dig down to dodge lasers.