Tesla vs Lovecraft Game of the Year Edition Achievement Guide & Road Map

Tesla vs Lovecraft Game of the Year Edition
Tesla vs Lovecraft Game of the Year Edition Achievement Guide

Overview:
- Estimated achievement difficulty: 4/10 [skill and luck dependent] [Achievement Difficulty Rating]
- Offline: 20 [1000]
- Online: 0
- Approximate amount of time to 1000

: 10-15 hours [skill and luck dependent] [Estimated Time to 100%]
- Minimum number of playthroughs needed: 3
- Missable achievements: None [level select]
- Does difficulty affect achievements: Yes - must play on the Aether plane and Eldritch plane for the two related achievements
- Unobtainable/glitched achievements: None

Introduction:
Welcome to Tesla vs Lovecraft, a top-down shmup where you take on the role of the titular Nikola Tesla, and put your inventions to work against a horde of Lovecraft-ian monsters. If you've played Tesla Force, the gameplay here is largely the same but the meta is different. There are around 30 levels in this game, and each one plays like its own little randomized adventure, completely separate from other levels. There are still crystals to collect that can be used on permanent upgrades for your character across all levels. This game has quite a bit more gameplay required though: as noted in the overview, three playthroughs are required. After beating all 30 levels on your first playthrough, you'll automatically be kicked into a new playthrough on the Aether plane. Same levels, but higher difficulty. You'll have to run through all levels again on the Aether plane, and upon beating that, you'll immediately be kicked into a new playthrough on the Eldritch plane, the third and highest difficulty, to again play through and beat all 30 levels. You'll unlock stuff along the way to make things easier, get better at the game, and more importantly, use crystals to get permanent upgrades across all levels. Let's get started.

Abbreviated Walkthrough:
As noted above, and how this game works, is that you'll get a linear playthrough through 30 levels. Every 10 levels is a boss fight. Your first playthrough will have virtually no crystals available to you, so you won't be able to do any upgrades aside from maybe one. They aren't needed though, as every level on your first playthrough should go down relatively easily, as you get used to the gameplay, how to kite enemies, what weapons work, what perks are best, etc. If you'd like to read up on the best weapons, perks, and builds, I've gone through that in a lot of detail in Wardenclyffe Victory III (90G). During your first playthrough, you will actually unlock almost every cumulative enemy kill achievement, as well as all story achievements, and will be pretty close to the completion, achievement-wise, at the end of your first playthrough.

After beating your first playthrough, you'll be send back to the map screen, but at the start of a fresh playthrough on the next higher difficulty, Aether plane. You'll now need to play through the entire game again on this difficulty. The addition, aside from more/tougher enemies, is that Aether crystals now spawn during levels, allowing you to break them and then collect them. You also now have access to daily challenges to earn crystals, and Eldritch signs for crystals. All Eldritch signs are is that, if you finish a level with full health (regardless if you lost any during the level), you get bonus crystals. As a result, always try to save health packs for when you only have a couple enemies left.

During your second playthrough, you'll actually start amassing some crystals and can upgrade yourself. I highly recommend reading through my explanation of what upgrades are helpful and which aren't, which I cover in detail in Wardenclyffe Victory III (90G). I probably got less than five upgrades during this playthrough, since crystals still aren't present in very large amounts, and I did this playthrough in a single day (and therefore only completed one daily challenge). I don't think many, if any, upgrades are really necessary for this playthrough, as long as you focus on good weapons and good perks.

After beating your second playthrough, you're once again put back at the start of a new playthrough, but this time on Eldritch plane, the highest difficulty. Crystals now spawn far more frequently during levels, daily challenges are worth more, and Eldritch signs are worth more. The bad news is that far more enemies spawn on each level, and more challenges versions of each enemy. This is definitely where you'll want to read through my tips in Wardenclyffe Victory III (90G) for weapons, perks, builds, etc., because that's really the key to success. You'll also want to prioritize spending of the crystals you're earning, which I go into detail there.

On this third playthrough, pretty much everyone online talks about grinding crystals to get enough upgrades to survive. I know I'm in the vast majority when I say this, but I didn't need to grind crystals at all to complete the game. I'm not saying this to brag about skill or anything. I'm saying this to reinforce my belief that the upgrades aren't nearly as important to winning as weapons and perks are. I do think that two upgrades, namely reshuffling perks (because getting the right perks is critical) and teleport charges, are pretty essential, but you should have plenty of crystals to put multiple points in both of those categories. In my opinion, Eldritich difficulty itself isn't that hard, it's specific levels that are hard. You may even find yourself struggling with the same levels on Aether plane, just because they're small, enemies spawn nonstop on all sides of you, etc. It's levels like these where it feels like no amount of upgrades will help. All that matters is getting a good weapon and good perks to create a build that lets you keep all the enemies under control. That's why you want to be able to reshuffle perks, and what teleport charges are so handy, because it's the only way to help you survive long enough to get an overpowered build going. There were many levels on Eldritch plane that I beat first try, but then others took multiple tries because the level layout or insane enemy spawning felt crazy, and the only way to combat it was to get a good weapon paired with a few really good perks, and survive long enough to be able to do so.

Hopefully my guidance in Wardenclyffe Victory III (90G) will help you get through Eldritch difficulty. Just know that a lot comes down to luck. You might be on the hardest level of the playthrough, but you get an epic weapon or epic perk and suddenly the level is a piece of cake. That's how it goes in this game. Persevere, grind crystals if need be, and you'll eventually make it through the third and final playthrough, getting your completion upon beating it.

Conclusion:
I found this game to be a ton of fun. Despite needing to play through all levels three times, it definitely didn't feel like a slog or boring. It was nonstop action, and I always felt like I was making progress. Despite this game not technically being a roguelite, it has many similar elements, but the most fun of which is definitely when a build comes together perfectly and you become so OP that it's just a blast running around levels and annihilating everything. The achievements are very straightforward, and will all unlock by the time you complete your third playthrough. If you made it through Eldritch difficulty, congrats on the completion!

[XBA would like to thank Necrophage33 for this Roadmap]

Find Inventions

15
Recover lost Tesla Backpack
Story-related; cannot be missed.

This unlocks at the end of the very short first introductory level.
Baby Steps

100
Complete Tutorial
Story-related; cannot be missed.

This unlocks at the end of the very short second introductory level.
Deep One, Two, Three

15
123 deep ones must die
Refer to That's no squid (30G) for more information.
War Pigeon

90
Recover and Operate the Mech
You start every level in the game inside your mech, and after a set amount of time or taking too much damage, your mech explodes and you're on foot. Mech pieces then spawn around the map, and are indicated by yellow markers, one at a time. Collecting all five pieces reenables your mech, which you can press to enter again. Doing this for the first time unlocks this achievement.

This should be your general strategy for every level in the game: after losing the mech, plan your route around picking up all mech pieces so you can get back in it, and repeat until the level is complete.
Dag-On, Dag-Off

30
Kill 200 Spawns of Dagon
Refer to That's no squid (30G) for more information.
Kill it with Fire!

30
Kill 50 Parasites
Refer to That's no squid (30G) for more information.
Extinguisher

30
Kill 500 Fire Vampires
Refer to That's no squid (30G) for more information.
Polymurderous

30
Kill 50 Polyps
Refer to That's no squid (30G) for more information.
Shoggoth Schmoggoth

30
Kill 50 Shoggoths
Refer to That's no squid (30G) for more information.
Down came the rain...

30
Kill 1000 Spiderghouls
Refer to That's no squid (30G) for more information.
That's no squid

30
Repel 100 Tentacles
All of these achievements are cumulative, but because every level requires you to kill all enemies to complete it, all of these achievements are essentially progress related. Enemies are not randomized at all, so every level forces you to kill all enemies. You'll therefore unlock all of these achievements will natural progression.

The only two slower ones are the ones for Shoggoths and Tentacles. Shoggoths aren't that common on your first playthrough, so unless you're dying a lot and replaying levels (and therefore getting more Shoggoth kills as a result), you likely won't unlock the Shoggoth achievement until your second playthrough.

For Tentacles, you won't see any Tentacles at all until the final level of your first playthrough. Same thing on your second playthrough: none except for the final level. However, on your third playthrough, every single level has Tentacles. Therefore, unless you die a lot on the final level of your first and second playthroughs, you likely won't unlock this achievement until early in your third playthrough.
First Showdown

30
Complete Chapter 1
Story-related; cannot be missed.

This unlocks upon beaitng the first boss. Refer to Wardenclyffe Victory III (90G) for more tips on progression and beating levels/bosses.
Second Showdown

30
Complete Chapter 2
Story-related; cannot be missed.

This unlocks upon beaitng the second boss. Refer to Wardenclyffe Victory III (90G) for more tips on progression and beating levels/bosses.
Third Showdown

30
Complete Chapter 3
Story-related; cannot be missed.

This unlocks upon beaitng the third boss. Refer to Wardenclyffe Victory III (90G) for more tips on progression and beating levels/bosses.
Wardenclyffe Victory

90
Activate the Wardenclyffe and save the world.
Story-related; cannot be missed.

This unlocks upon completing the final level on your first playthrough. Refer to Wardenclyffe Victory III (90G) for more tips on progression and beating levels/bosses.
Wardenclyffe Victory II

90
Activate the Wardenclyffe and save the world in Aether Plane.
Story-related; cannot be missed.

This unlocks upon completing the final level on your second playthrough, Aether plane. Refer to Wardenclyffe Victory III (90G) for more tips on progression and beating levels/bosses.
Wardenclyffe Victory III

90
Activate the Wardenclyffe and save the world in Eldritch Plane.
Story-related; cannot be missed.

This unlocks upon completing the final level on your third playthrough, Eldritch plane.

How this game works is that you'll have 30 or so levels to play, one after another, and each is its own set experience. The layout, enemies, their spawns, etc., are not randomized. The only things randomized are what weapons, abilities, and powerups drop, and what perks you get when you level up. As a result, in most levels, you'll pretty much be reliant on getting good RNG with weapons and perks as those really are the decideding factors in whether you beat a level or not.

During your first playthrough, every ten levels you'll have a boss level. You'll need to first survive for 90 seconds, and then the boss will spawn, which you need to kill. These levels are straightorward actually, and can all be played the same way: start by killing enemies in the mech, and as soon as a weapon spawns, move toward it in the mech while shooting at enemies. From the time your mech gets destroyed until the boss spawns, your goal is to collect all mech pieces to ready the mech, but DO NOT use it. Save it for when the boss spawns. In the meantime, kill enemies, level up, and pick perks that will increase the damage you do (more on perks below). Once the boss spawns, get within range and deploy your mech, and unleash on it while strafing around it. On your first and second playthroughs, you can likely kill each boss with a single mech deployment as long as you aren't taking a lot of damage from the boss or enemies. On your third playthrough, you can still take off a solid half of the boss's health. Either kite the boss around while you collect the mech parts, or just attempt to finish it off with your weapons if they're strong enough. I recommend just going for the mech again though, since you can't die while you're in it.

The final stage of each playthrough is pretty chaotic. There are four energy cores you need to power up. Each one requires four batteries. Batteries will drop randomly and will be marked with a yellow marker, much like mech pieces. You need to collect four batteries, then head to any of the four cores and press to activate it. Doing so slows time, much like collecting a Time Warp powerup. You need to do this to all four cores, all while avoiding/killing endless mobs of enemies. Once all four are activated, you need to survive another 60 seconds or so, and then the level ends. I actually found that these levels are only hard in the beginning. Once you get good weapons and have a few good perks, the difficulty doesn't change much throughout. Just stick to the outskirts of the level and only go in for batteries, dashing in and out right away.

As you progress through levels on your first and second playthroughs, you'll unlock more weapons, abilities, and perks that'll then have the possibility of showing up in future levels. By the end of the first chapter of your second playthrough, you'll have unlocked all weapons, abilities, and perks (although you may not have seen all epic perks yet). You'll therefore have a decent selection during each level, in terms of what weapons to pick up and what perks to choose when you level up, as well as which abilties to use. There may be some subjectivity to what weapons, abilities, and perks are best, but I feel that what I've listed below will hold true for pretty much everyone.

Best Weapons
- Repeater Shotgun
- Uzi (can't remember its exact odd name in-game)
- Gauss Assault Rifle
- Gauss Shotgun
Worst Weapons
- All Tesla weapons
- Revolver
- Laser Pistol
Best Perks
- Weapons shoot backwards
- Bullets bounce off walls
- +20% damage
- 50% to pierce enemies
- Regain some health every ten seconds
Worst Perks
- Nearby enemies take radiation damage
- Deploy an electrical charge when damaged
- Pulse enemies away when damaged
- Increase max health by 30%
Best Abilities
- Sparks
- Thunderbolt
- Mine
- Heavy Weight (I don't recall the exact name for this one)
Worst Abilities
- Repulse
- Static Cloud
- Nova
- Explosive Barrel
Optimum Builds
- The Repeater Shotgun is, by far, the best weapon in the game, and it's an absolute beast with the right perks. Because it's a shotgun, anything that reduces reload time is great. However, getting the perks to shoot backwards and for bullets to bounce off walls almost guarantees a victory in many levels. You won't get much benefit out of the persk for an extra projectile per shot, so instead go for (after shooting backwards and bullets bounce off walls) reload time, fire rate, and chance for bullets to pierce enemies
- I found the Uzi quite good as well. The only difference in build is that you definitely want the perk to add an extra projectile when shooting, since that basically doubles damage output. Having bullets bounce off walls with this gun means there will be bullets everywhere.
- For the Gauss Assault Rifle and Gauss Shotgun, they already pierce enemies and bounce a bit. The AR is definitely the preferable of the two. Again, for the rifle, extra projectiles is key, and since it pierces everything, firing it into a crowd is fantastic for taking out mobs.
- The other random thing that can happen is getting an epic weapon drop. I've only seen a few, but the epic Gauss Shotgun and epic Repeater Shotgun are amazing. Bullets everywhere. The only epic weapon that seemed like a waste was the epic Revolver. It was good, but not effective enough for mobs on higher difficulties.
- Lastly, the only other change in my build was if I got the epic perk that gives the Death Ray weapon. This weapon kills everything it touches instantly, and was a guaranteed win for me each time I got it.
Now on to the next section - upgrades, crystals, and farming crystals. You'll likely purchase almost no upgrades on your first playthrough, and they aren't really needed. Likewise on your second playthrough you may not get many upgrades either, and I also was able to make it through the second playthrough with little or no upgrades. Your third playthrough is where you'll really start getting more crystals, since they spawn way more often during levels, get dropped by enemies, etc. In fact, here are the ways you can get crystals in this game:
- Spawn during levels. They are indicated by yellow markers, like the mech pieces. You need to destroy them and then pick up the crystals. These become available starting with your second playthrough
- Random drops from enemies. There is a specific smaller enemy that can randomly drop a crystal (as well as a health pickup) when killed. These enemies are rare in your first playthrough and far more common by your third playthrough
- Rewards for leveling up enemy kill challenges. After each level attempt (successful or not) you'll be shown progress bars on challenges for killing each type of enemy in that level. They're all cumulative. Every time you level up, you get another 10% damage toward that enemy type, and an amount of crystals corresponding to the total extra damage to that enemy (for example, at +50% damage, 5 crystals; at +80% damage, 8 crystals, etc.)
- Eldritch signs when completing levels. Starting with your second playthrough, if you finish a level with full health, you'll get bonus crystals. It doesn't matter if you take damage during a level. All that matters is that you have full health when it ends. You can therefore save some set health spawns for the end of a level to max your health before ending it to get crystals
- Daily challenges. Each day there is a new cumulative daily challenge to work toward, and the reward is a good chunk of crystals. The later ones, on your third playthrough, give 40 crystals per quest. You unfortunately only get one per day, but it's worth doing each one
- Epic Motherlode perk. The GOTY edition of this game (or if you buy the DLC for the standard version) includes an epic perk called Motherlode that immediately give you 100 crystals. Obviously pick this one every time it shows up during a level, since it's quite rare
You'll likely do all of the above without really trying, making slow but continual progress towards collecting crystals. It'll be almost nonexistent on your first playthrough, a bit on your second playthrough, and then far faster on your third playthrough. Of course, the next question will be what should you spend your precious crystals on.

In my opinion, the most important aspect of being successful is getting lucky with weapon drops and perks. Having a build as noted above can make things work even with no upgrades. That being said, there are some that are definitely more beneficial than others. Let me also preface this section by stating that, during my time with this game, I never needed to grind crystals. I seem to be in the vast majority here, as there are posts and videos about farming crystals everywhere. I do believe that my success was a combination of only spending my crystals on the most beneficial upgrades, and getting lucky/putting together the best builds for success. Here are what I spend my crystals on:
- The upgrade to be able to reshuffle your perks is one of the two most essential ones. There are many times where I've gotten two of the more useless perks, and shuffling has resulted in at least one of the best one. I put four or five points into this category
- More teleport charges is also essential for Eldritch.. Sometimes your build doesn't really get going until you've leveled up a few times, and found a better weapon, and this really helps with survivability. Also, there are some levels whose layout is just completely unfair (too small with enemies spawning on all sides of you). There's no way you're going to survive long enough to get a build going without some help with survivability. I put at least three points in this category too
- I'm not sure how much it helped, but I put four points in the weapon damage category. I did three points all at once, and didn't notice much difference
- I also put three or so points in the upgrade to increase epic perk chance. I will say that I seemed to get epic perks and epic weapons relatively often, and there were a handful of levels that felt hopeless until I got an epic perk or weapon, and I always got one within 5-10 tries.
- I spent one point on the upgrade to start with a random perk. If you have crystals to spare, this is a really good one, but of course relies on luck to get good perks. There were plenty of times where I would spawn with a really good random perk, like extra projectile or protective shield
Ones I recommend definitely NOT wasting any crystals on are the ones to increase max health, the one to damage enemies when you teleport through them, starting with a random ability, etc. They are absolutely not worth the crystals.

Lastly, because crystals are needed in such large amounts for upgrades, there may be a need/desire to grind out crystals if you get stuck. There isn't really a great way to grind out crystals until you reach your third playthrough. It's not even possible on your first playthrough, since crystals don't spawn in levels yet. On your second playthrough it's possible, just really slow and inefficient. On your third playthrough, crystals spawn way more often. As a result, one option is to grind out crystals that spawn on the stage. The following video shows this method in action. It's relatively quick compared to others, netting you around 6 crystals every 30-40 seconds, but when you needs hundreds of crystals for an upgrade, you're talking a lot of replays. Full credit to the creator of the video.

The other option, which is definitely best when used in conjunction with the above farming method, is to try to get the Motherlode epic perk in each replay. Having as many points in the reshuffle upgrade and the upgrade to increase epic perk drop chance obviously improves this possibility, but you'd also have to spend a lot of crystals just to get there. However, you should have a few points in the reshuffle category just to help with levels in general. So, each time you run a level to grind crystals, at least level up once. Press to pick your perk, and then reshuffle them until you run out of reshuffles, looking for Motherlode. You won't get it that often, but when you do it's an extra 100 crystals, which is huge.

One other crystal farming technique that's worth mentioning is daily challenges. Once you get to the Eldritch plane, daily challenges are worth 40 crystals. It's important to note that daily challenges come out every 24 hours, but they never expire. As a result, you can actually farm daily challenges quite easily: go offline on your console, restart it, then switch the date to many days in the future (however many daily challenges you want). Load up the game, and you'll have multiple daily challenges you can complete, each for 40 crystals. They will likely take some time to do, but you can likely collect other crystals while grinding out this challenges, and also keep on the lookout for the Motherlode perk all the while, making this a little more fun. I personally didn't use this, so you may need to load the game one day at a time to get each daily challenge to pop up, but it might still be more fun than the mindless grind above.
Meta Upgrade

90
Purchase a meta upgrade
Meta upgrades, as the game calls them, can be purchased from the level select screen by scrolling left to the icon of the pink crystal. On your first playthrough, you won't get many crystals. The only ones you'll get are from leveling up your enemy kill challenges that you get shown after each level. Because killing enemies is required, you'll have enough crystals to buy an upgrade by around halfway through your first playthrough. The game will automatically kick you to the upgrade menu as soon as you have enough crystals to afford one, so buy your first one and this will unlock.
Crystal Rain

30
Collect 100 crystals
Crystals, or Aether Crystals as they're named in levels when you pick them up, are the most important currency in the game. They're used to upgrade yourself permanently across all levels. However, despite being the most important currency in the game, you won't find many on your entire first playthrough. You won't start seeing Aether crystals in levels until your second playthrough, on the Aether plane. Despite that, you'll still be earning some crystals as you complete challenges for killing set numbers of enemies. There are also daily challenges that reward you with crystals for completing cumulative challenges. Even without trying, you'll unlock this achievement sometime during your second playthrough. Refer to Wardenclyffe Victory III (90G) for more details on farming crystals to get upgrades.
Epic Awesome

90
Choose an EPIC perk
Rarely, when leveling up during a level, one of the two perks you're presented with will be an epic perk, and it'll be flashing multiple colors to indicate it is epic. Choosing an epic perk for the first time unlocks this achievement. Since the perks are completely random, you could unlock this in your very first level you play, or you may not unlock it at all until your second playthrough. The only thing you can do to improve your chances is to upgrade two categories on the upgrade menu: the ability to shuffle your perks, and increasing the chance of getting an epic perk. Other than that, you're just going to have to play levels, level up, and hope to get an epic perk as an option.

My personal experience was that, by the time I reached by third playthrough, I had already gotten four or five epic perks, and that was with minimal or no investment in either of the upgrades mentioned above.