• Your character moves automatically in one of four cardinal directions, and cannot stop.
  
• You can turn 90 degrees, but you cannot turn around.
  
• If you run over a red slime, it starts following you. (It's like the game Snake)
  
• If you run into a purple slime, a wall, a mushroom, or a red slime that's following you, you die and have to start the game over.
  
• If you press the primary action button, you jump over one tile.
  
• If you press the secondary action button, you perform a "drop-off".

Pressing the secondary action button will 'drop-off' all of the red slimes that are following you. One of three things will happen:

• If the red slimes are on a star tile, then they are 'saved', you score points and your 'saved' counter goes up.
  
• If the red slimes are on a non-star tile, then they become purple slimes.

Remember that this is based on what tile the slimes themselves are on, not what tile your character is on. So walk a path along as many of the star tiles as you can, then press the drop-off button before the first slime in your chain leaves the star tiles.


There's one powerup in this game: potions.

When you save a slime, you bank what I'm calling a potion point. The cat on the left side of the screen tracks your potion points.

When you reach 6 or more banked potion points, all of them are spent and one of the following will happen:

6: Spawn a red potion (stuns purple slimes)
7: Spawn a green potion (stuns purple slimes, grants a +1 multiplier)
8: Spawn a blue potion (stuns all enemies, grants a +1 multipler)
9+: Spawn a gold potion (stuns all enemies, grants a +1 multiplier, adds one more red slime spawn permanently)

(Thanks to RandomizedRandy for the above info)

Stunned enemies can be run into to kill them.

Every 8 seconds that a potion has been left alone, it will tier up from red to green to blue to gold.

Each potion's effects lasts 45 seconds. If you collect another potion, the timer will reset to 45, and your combo and multiplier will be preserved as long as the timer hasn't hit 0 yet.


Saving multiple red slimes in a single drop-off action nets you extra points - you get 10 points for the first slime, 20 for the second, 30 for the third, etc.

Killing purple slimes in a row gets you 10 points for the first slime, 20 for the second, 30 for the third, etc. It resets when your potion timer reaches 0.


You win as soon as the saved slimes counter reaches 200 or more. At that point gameplay stops and whatever score you have is locked in.

If you just want to get a game clear and turn the cartridge golden:

• Focus on keeping your board clear. The more enemies you have to keep track of the harder it is to not run into one.
  
• Drop off frequently - if you can, get 6 or more slimes to put another potion on the board, but if it's getting hairy don't bother counting. Don't let your train get too long because they might not all fit on the star tiles, especially if enemies are hanging out on them.
  
• Always drop off on star tiles. Never purposefully convert your red slimes to purple slimes.
  
• If you have multiple potions on the board, don't use them all right away.
  
• As the game progresses, more and more red slimes spawn, and keeping your train at a manageable size becomes a priority.

Remember, your goal is to save 200 slimes. Don't worry about score if you're just trying to get a gold cartridge here.

Okay. This is where it gets tricky.

The game ends immediately once you've saved 200 slimes. That means you're on a timer.

To reach 20,000 points before saving 200 slimes, you'll need to score about 100 points per red slime you save. A perfect dropoff of 12 slimes at once will net you 780 points total - 78 points per red slime. That's not enough to reach 20,000 points just off of perfect dropoffs (and doing perfect dropoffs constantly is impractical, anyway, since enemies sometimes take up some of the star tiles.)

So to hit your score target, you'll need to make up the difference elsewhere. Killing enemies, especially with multipliers active, is what'll earn you enough points to make it.

Here's some things to try:


What you'll want to do is gather six red slimes, drop them off, ignore the potion, and then gather six more red slimes and continue. (It doesn't need to be exact, if you grab 7 or 8 don't sweat it).

The potions will be the weak tier at first, but they'll level up pretty quickly. Soon enough you'll have multiple gold potions on the board, which leads into:


Every potion you grab resets the potion timer while keeping your enemy kill combo active. This can also increase your multiplier, which is a huge boost - you can go from 10-20 points per kill at the start of your chain to as high as 500 points per kill (or more!)

This is risky because you need to let enemies survive long enough and fill your board enough to build a decent kill combo - you'll have to feel out how much you're comfortable with before grabbing a potion and starting your combo.

Of course if you need more combo fodder, there's an easy way to get it...


When you drop off red slimes on non-star tiles, they turn into purple slimes.

Ordinarily, this isn't good! But those purple slimes are identical to the naturally spawning purple slimes - they can be used to score points and extend your combo.

That means that if you've got a train of red slimes and a potion within reach, you can drop them off, grab the potion, and then plow through them for tons of points!

The downside is that if you don't clear these, then you'll have to deal with them when your potion wears off, of course.


Remember that for cherry clear, you need to not just reach 20,000 points, but also clear that run. Once you reach (or get close enough to) 20,000, focus on just getting 200 saves for the win! Don't risk losing your precious red cartridge by being greedy and pushing for more points.

Some of the mechanics and numbers in this guide are based on my own personal observation and inuition, and might not be accurate. If you've got a correction, or any other tips to share, please comment on this guide and I'll credit you for it.


I got my cherry clear after playing Magic Garden for 1 hour and 27 minutes. A lot of that playtime was done before I really figured out the game mechanics and above tips, so hopefully it'll take you less time.

I had a lot of fun playing this game, but I think I'm done with it, and I'm not going to chase after high scores or anything like that. It's time to move on to clearing other games in the UFO 50 collection instead of lingering on this one more. (I haven't even dusted them all off at the time of writing.)

Good luck on your cherry clears!