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Gish Boss Guide
calyth2000 At hotmail dot com
Copyright 2004 Benton Lam
version 1.3
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1. Legal stuff

Gish is credited to Edmund McMillen and the Chronic Logic Team. I'm not
affiliated.
This guide is copyrighted by Benton Lam, and intended for personal use only,
and shall not be sold or published without permission.
To see the detailed credit (given if I messed up somewhere, sorry), please see:
http://www.chroniclogic.com/index.htm?gish.htm


Now that's out of the way.

2. Changelog

v1.3  Added proper names to the bosses
v1.2  Added stuff about saving the girl ;)
v1.1  Modifying beating Basenjinn beating strategy
v1  Started writing

3. About Gish

Gish is this blob of tar, and his girlfriend Brea is kidnapped and dragged
down the sewer, so in order to find her again, Gish followed into the sewers.
Gish have 3 basic property besides normal - sticky, slippery and heavy;
properties can be combined in anyway you wish, but obviously the sticky
and slippery wouldn't do you any good.
Gish is quite tough, and could survive falls and such, but he will face
enemies and obstacles that will harm and even kill him. You must navigate well.

4. Why don't you do a comprehensive FAQ?

The gameplay itself is quite simple, and the only things that could trip
players up would be finding secrets, and navigating some traps, but frankly
you'd figure them out rather quickly. Also, the first round of the game
is basically a tutorial in basic maneuvers to play the game.
However, the later bosses have stumped me quite a bit. So I figure someone
would like to know this information.

5. Boss information

First of all I like to acknowledge Edmund Macmillen for pointing to the link
for the cast of gish. This allows me to identify the bosses. And of course I
also have to thank him for having such a fun game! =)

Level 1
Genus: Mucilag
Species: Honey Buckey

This one is rather simple. You need to bounce high enough so that you could
land on them using heavy with enough force to crush them. I don't seem to get
enough bounce to take care of the bottom one in one strike, so I'd recommend
trying to climb to higher ground and then land the bottom one. There's a
ledge on the top that has health tarballs.

Level 2
Genus: Begotten
Species: Paunchy Chops

You can no longer crush this boss like the last one. He's very fast chasing,
and at times, cut corners to chase after you. The map is basically a tunnel
with very little light. Hm...
Run through the tunnel as fast as you can. You'll need your wits and quick
fingers to change properties to climb when the only path left is up. When
you arrive at the end chamber, you'll see a switch. You'll need to do jump over
the switch and activate it using heavy quickly to minimize health loss. The
roof would collapse and dispatch this boss.

Level 3
Genus: Zipperhead
Species: Visceren

Well, we have a name for this boss. =)
Note the ground. They're mainly breakables, but there are support pillars 3
tiles wide. Below is searing lava that nothing would survive. Hm...
Note the two hanging rock blocks about 2x2 tiles wide attached by ropes.
They'll land right on the unsupported floor tiles. A fancy way to kill the
Viserens would be to somehow lure the Viseren(s) right under the rock, hop on
its head to avoid melee or minion damage, while trying to bounce high enough
onto the block. That way, the Viseren stays put. Climb between the rock and
the roof, and attempt to become heavy until you break one of the ropes. the
other rope would give and the rock would land on the Viseren and pushing it
into lava.
If this fails, you must lure the Viserens onto unsupported tiles of the floor,
have it stay put, while you land hard on their heads. I'd recommend bouncing
from the Viseren's heads, then to one of those rotating platform. Then stick
on to the roof directly overhead of one, release the sticky and become heavy.
The force should at least make a few of those tiles give way, if not all.
Be quick with your jump or sticky key, you might send enough force down that
the Viseren would crash through the floor, and you don't want to touch that
lava.

Level 4
Genus: Unknown
Species: Basenjinn

This boss is quite quick, but you can outrun the screen and it will not follow
you. You must be quite close to it to lure it right after you. Oh yeah, don't
land on those spiky ears. They will damage you.
This boss took me a while to figure out to kill. Note the 3 giant rocks and
breakable tiles holding them in place, and the breakable floor tiles concealing
a pit. At the end of the hall, there's a platform with 3 loose rocks that you
could use to shoot the breakable ceiling to crash a rock down. Don't bother
with it. I've tried too many times, and each time, Mr. Cat with spiky ears
manages to beat me to death before I could shoot the stone properly to kill
him.
What I did was to jump right up to the first rock, and manage to break all 3
at the time; hence I'm not sure whether one stone would be capable of holding
the rock in place. I end up suffering incredible damage, but I survived with
about 15 HP left. If you try to escape to the right, you might be able to
avoid damage.
I've actually done this again after writing version 1, and it's possible that
right off the starting line that you jump hard enough to break loose the first
block, have it land on the boss, and escape unharmed.

Note: The escape from the Egypt requires you to get into this cannon object,
and have yourself fired right out of it. Try using heavy to avoid suffer the
impact damage.

Level 5
Genus: Zipperhead
Species: Sister Vis

These fellas are like the level 3 Viserens, but look fitting to the cathedral
theme. You should hop up to so that you don't become a Viseren sandwich, and
you need to get over those two fast chopping pillars. Lure the Viserens near
you.
You can't use the same strategy of dropping down on them. It doesn't work
anymore, but remember when you climb up, right under the cross, there were
little switches? Those switches will activate the pillar in the path that the
Viserens came from, and if you get it right, it will squish the Viseren. Lure
the second one under the pillar and repeat.

Final Boss

Genus: Mucilag (Possible)
Name: Hera

Apparently Hera knows you from high school, and now not very happy with you.
Brea is in a cage right over the lava, but there's nothing you can do to save
her yet, not until you deal with Hera.
Hera is pretty tough - you can't squish, and it's got pushing power. You can
be squished, but when compressed, you could press heavy to push Hera off you.
Throw the switch on the right wall to open up the lowest floor.
Now comes the hard part. You need to run down to the bottom floor, and throw
one of the stones on the left dead end up to the middle level. You'll have to
face Hera pummeling you at the same time. You might be able to be near the
stones, shove Hera aside and shoot the rock up to the middle level.
Luckily, Hera doesn't seem to know how to jump, so it won't follow you back up
the levels.
Curiously, it may be possible to trick Hera to stay in the spot right over the
lava. If you lured her to over the trap door, try and get yourself stuck to
the ceiling right over the trap. Carefully maneuver yourself up to the middle
middle floor, and stay over the trap. Climb again to the top floor. Now while
staying as close to the edge of the first floor as possible, hop to the
ceiling, roll yourself over to the switch, and hit it a couple of times.
Sometimes she might get the better of you and not stay over the trap, but you
should try doing that a couple of times. I've manage to get her without trying
to struggle with the rocks on the bottom floor.
You need to put one of the rocks on that button on the top left corner. Do so,
obviously, by shooting it up various floors to put it in the switch.
Once you get the rock on the switch, the trap doors open. If Hera isn't in the
lava enjoying a searing hot bath, lure her there. Remember she can't really
jump.
Thanks to subhuman2k, he gave me the tip to save Brea (he asked me about using
the 4th level boss in his comprehensive guide he is writing). He suggest to me
to stick on the ceiling over the little island where the two trapdoor used to
be, and stick myself on the cage. When the trap is sprung, and Brea starts
falling, I was able to move her on the island, and hence saving her. Saving
your girlfriend apparently nets you a mere 10 point bonus...

6. If you've got better tips...

Please email me if you got tips. Email is at the top of the FAQ