Protolife – 100 Achievements Guide

I couldn’t find a complete list of all achievements available and what needs to be done to complete them, so I figured I’d condense all the information I could find online (and what I found through my own trial and error) into one place!

Here I’ll list all the achievements available for this game and what I did to complete them (or point to more detailed guides for specific achievements where possible).

There are currently 29 achievements, of which 2 are hidden achievements.

All the achievements in this section can be completed by playing normally through the campaign without any extra effort.

All of these achievements involve placing down blocks for towers. By the end of the campaign you will have placed much more than these.

• Don’t step on it – Build 100 blocks.
• Brick Factory – Build 1 000 blocks.
• Of course it’s recyclable! – Build 10 000 blocks.

All of these achievements involve killing enemies.

• First Aid – Kill 1 000 worms.
• Stationary Treatment – Kill 10 000 Worms.

These achievements are obtained by finishing certain levels in the campaign.

• Building Blocks – Complete ‘Spawners’ level (level 3 – “Spawners”).
• Operation Successful – Destroy the Tumor (level 12 – “The Cradle”).
• Mortal Engine – Deploy Armstrong-1. (level 20 – “Squid Ravine”).
• Didn’t Split – Kill the protoslime (level 22 – “The Lair”). Defeat the giant slime in the area.
• Kernel Panic – Destroy the Core. (level 31 – “The Core”).
• Signal for who? -Complete the game. (level 32 – “Epilogue”).

“Smash 50 slimes.”

The yellow (and later orange) slimes that spawn near the spawners can be “smashed” by walking over them with the player.

Yellow slimes do not hurt very much, so if you’ve been body-blocking them (smashing them to stop them from destroying your towers) you’ve likely earned this achievement already. If you want to farm the last few slimes for this achievement, Slimepocalypse (level 9) is a easy level with quite a few slimes.

Note: Picking up resources (the green cubes) with the builder also heals the builder by a small amount, so you can regenerate your health back up if needed.

Note 2: I didn’t get a chance to test this on this achievement in particular, but all other “Kill x” achievements only have their progress update if you complete a level (win or lose): restarting or quitting does NOT award progress. So if you need to farm this one, make sure you’re not restarting or quitting the level as the achievement progress might not update.

“Complete ‘Convoy’ level with 0 base damage.”

You can stop the base from moving by building any block in the path it needs to walk.

After opening the first gate, simply build a tower in front of the base on the path it needs to walk, and it will stop. This will give you all the time in the world to clear the level yourself. Destroying the last of the infection will end the level without you needing to escort the base to the end.

“You can do it.”.

To get this achievement, you need to restart any level 5 times; however, you must play the level for at least 10 seconds each time. This was confirmed by one of the developers in a discussion on Steam.

You’ll probably earn this achievement while trying to get some of the speedrun achievements below, but if not, just start a level, wait 10-15 seconds, restart, and repeat 5 times.

“Kill 30 enemies with a single shot.”.

I got this achievement while playing the campaign normally. I’m honestly not sure what classifies as a ‘single shot” (does laser count?), so I’m not sure if it was due to:

• the Laser (TLZR) (“Focus” or “The Core” levels)
• the Tier 2 Missile Tower (TMSL2, level “Locked” onwards) (not sure if each missile is a separate shot or not, since it fires in a burst)
• the Tier 4 basic tower (T4, “The Core”)
• or the Tier 2 flame tower (TFLM2,”Cluster” onwards)

but all of those either have large AOE attacks or shoot in a long line and can hit a lot of enemies at once.

If anyone has a way to do this consistently, let me know!

“Kill 50 magnetos with TX.”

The Magnetos are the enemies that have the round magnetic field around them that causes most projectiles to go flying in random directions. Hpwever, the TX1 lightning (or TX2 and TX3 projectiles) go through this field.

Fortunately this does not need to happen in a single level, so the easiest way to earn this achievement is to play the campaign normally, but making sure you have TX (especially TX3) towers near your front lines. You’ll want these TX towers anyway since they shoot down enemy artillery projectiles, but the TX3 especially has a high rate of fire and will make short work of magnetos (and most enemies outside of a large swarm).

You will still want to have a wall or similar in front of them though as they can be overrun.

“Kill 8 Behemoths by suicide attack in a single level.”

Behemoths start spawning from level 24 – “Missile Range”. These tanky enemies can be killed by running into them with the builder/player, however, this will also kill the player in the process.
Kill 8 of these behemoths in the same level to earn the achievement.

Easiest levels to do this in are probably “Dome” (level 28) due to the number of cocoons that spawn behemoths that you need to clear out, making suicide attacks a viable option, and “Hollow” (level 29) due to the relatively secure starting base, and the sheer number of behemoths that spawn constantly.

You can combine this achievement with “At Least I Have Chicken” below since both need to be done on “Domes” – and chances are you’ll be suicide attacking a lot for that achievement already!

Note: Respawning costs 5 resources, so just keep this in mind so you don’t run out of money. If you have less than 5 resources and you die, you will still respawn, but be left with 0 resources.

“Burn 20 cocoons.”

The cocoons are the nests that, when destroyed, spawn enemies. The achievement is pretty straight forward: just kill 20 cocoons using flame weapons (TFLM1 or TFLM2) across any number of levels. However, the achievement seems buggy…

I’m struggling to see what exactly triggers progression for this achievement. What I’ve found out so far is:

• Achievement progress only seems to track if you complete a level (win or lose): restarting or quitting does NOT award progress.
• Behemoth cocoons, such as the ones on “Domes”, don’t seem to count for the achievement – Despite the fact that “At Least I Have Chicken” achievement specifically calls them ‘cocoons’.
• Worm (and possibly slime) cocoons (such as on the level “Ring of Fire” or “You shall not pass”) DO count for the achievement.

One way to farm this achievement is to repeat the level “You shall not pass”. There are quite a few worm cocoons up north here and the walls can handle the defence while you push out. Alternatively, as soon as the round starts, demolish your walls and wall builders, and go up the north path and start taking out the cocoons with flame towers. During the grow period the swarm at the bottom will destroy your base, causing you to earn the progress, and can restart and do it again.

Alternatively, the level “Ring of Fire” also works.

This method is slow, but works. If anyone can find a more consistent, easier way to do this achievement, let me know!

“Build every pattern on ‘The Core’ level.”

No way around this: you just need to make every tower at least once during a single attempt on the “The Core” level (final level).

Some things to note:

• You DO need to build one of every tier of a building. So this means build a T1, upgrade it to T2, upgrade it to T3, upgrade it to T4. Build a TDUO1, upgrade it to T2, etc.
• This DOES include any miscellaneous buildings such as farms (small and big), the wall maker, the laser, etc.
• This DOES NOT include all orientations, fortunately (so for example, you only need to build one T1, not all 8 forms of it).
• You MAY dismantle the buildings after construction. You only need to construct them once to get the achievement, they do not all need to exist at the same time. So if space or resources are short, just pick up the blocks afterwards.

My advice is to play the level normally until you’ve cleared out most of the infection (except the core). Once you’re safe, go find a corner of your base that has space, press Tab to see all available patterns, and start building them one by one.

If you’re struggling to stay alive, build at most 2 of the 3 lasers: upon building the third laser, the next phase starts, destroying the core’s shield but also destroying the lasers. Having two of the three lasers alive will help keep the waves under control.

What my base looked like when I got the achievement: three lanes secure and a whole mess of random things in my base.

This is the start of the achievements that are harder to earn, and will likely require multiple attempts to complete.

I’m putting both of these achievements together since it’s easier to earn both at the same time, than doing it individually.

• Heroic Sacrifice – “Save the colony at any cost”. While the base is 1 hit away from dying, kill an enemy (e.g. worm) close to the base using the builder.
• Skin of My Teeth – “Complete any level with a very low base HP”. While the base is 1 hit away from dying, finish the level.

This one will take a bit of trial and error since it’s not always easy to see if the base is actually one hit from dying, or if it can still take some more damage.

Because of this, I suggest doing both achievements together: Keep letting the base take damage, and when it looks like it’s about 1 hit from dying, run in front of it with the builder and kill the next mob. If you get the “Heroic Sacrifice” achievement, then quickly spam walls and start making defences, keep the base alive, and finish the mission to get “Skin of My Teeth” too.
If you do not get the “Heroic Sacrifice” achievement, then the base isn’t actually 1 hit from dying, so let one more mob through and repeat the process.

The easiest mission I found to doing this was suggested by ZERO in a Steam discussion: “Tower Defense”.

The basic idea is to put towers on the top and bottom of the paths to stop the infection from spreading, as well as to thin the waves. Ideally, you will only have packs of one or two worms getting through the maze and hitting the base. This will help you keep control of how quickly the base gets damaged. I stick to only T1 or T2 for this part (T2 on the edges to clear out WHIPs or nests that spawn close your towers, T1 for rest). These towers will ‘leak’ some worms, which is perfect. Otherwise, well placed flames work well too, just be careful not to kill the entire wave – we need some worms to leak through to the base.

Keep letting the base take damage (can use your builder to thin the waves a bit more if needed; picking up resources will heal you), and once the base is about to die, use your builder to squash worms and you should get the achievement. If not, let more hit the base.

As soon as the “Heroic Sacrifice” achievement triggers, place a wall down on the path to stop any more worms from hitting the base, plop down a few normal and flame towers, and you should be able to comfortably defend until the time runs out.

“Complete ‘Biomass’ in less than 3 minutes.”

This is an early level (level 5), so we are limited in towers. Fortunately, the mission itself is quite easy: only three nests require a T2 to destroy, the rest can be destroyed with T1 or TDUO1.

The general strategy then is to just rush forward with T1 and T1DUOs – spam them right on the edge of the infection, and as you clear, add more. Bring the crystal forward and place it in a tower that can reach one of those special nests, and once that nest dies, move the crystal to another tower in range of another nest.
Make sure the worms that spawn do not destroy the crystal. Other than that, either build walls to tank the waves of worms, or tank them with the builder.

As you reach the end you will destroy nests that spawn purple worms. if your towers can’t take them out, just squish them with the builder – you can take out two before dying, so if low on resources, this is a good way to quickly destroy any stragglers.

“Pop 6 cocoons on ‘Domes’ in a first minute and beat the level.”

There’s two parts to this: popping the 6 cocoons in the first minute, and beating the level after that.

For popping the cocoons, the easiest way I found is to target the three closest in the middle, and then the one on the bottom left, one top left, and the one on the right.

As soon as the level starts, place 6 T1 towers, each pointing towards one of the cocoons. They’ll slowly take those 6 out, well before the 1-minute mark.

As the behemoths start spawning, they’ll easily overrun the T1 towers. Spam as many blocks as you can in a safe area to ‘save’ all the resources you have (so you don’t bankrupt yourself), then run into the behemoths one at a time. As soon as you respawn, run back out to the next one. By the one minute mark, you’ll have 6 cocoons popped, all 6 behemoths dead, and 0 resources due to respawn costs. Pick up the blocks you put down in the safe area, and you’ll hopefully have enough resources to survive the first grow period.

The first grow might hit hard as you do not have any defences yet. Rely on your base’s attack to do the heavy lifting, and place T1 towers close to the base to give it some fire support. Once the grow period is over, you can now start pushing out again. After that, you can take it slow and start building up your economy again and expanding out. The rest should be easy.

The only other thing that might pose an issue is the reflecting enemies: stomp them with your builder until you have a way to deal with them.

“Complete ‘Isolated’ level with a single control unit.”

For this one I highly recommend the guide by ZERO – It’s what I used to get this achievement.

“Destroy the Tumor using T1 only.”

This is for level 12 – “The Cradle”. You need to win the level while only using T1 towers.

Once again, ZERO has made a wonderful guide for getting this achievement, go check it out!

“Build TLZR in 1:30 on ‘Focus’ level.”

This one is rough. It took me a LOT of attempts, and most attempts failed because I either messed up my placement of towers and lost a lot of time, or got unlucky with the spore/projectiles hitting a crystal.

There are a few different ways to tackle this achievement, but the most important parts are:

• You need to create enough crystals to be able to create T3 towers to clear the nests and spawners around the laser construction area so you can construct the laser.
• You need to have enough crystals to be able to power the laser.
• You need to clear the area and build the laser within the 1:30 time limit.
• While you don’t need to have the laser done before the growth starts, you need to make sure you wipe out the two tower (WHIP) nests before growth starts or they will destroy your blocks quickly.
  

The way I managed to get this achievement was:

• Step 1: Open with a FARM_BIG and set up the blocks for two T3s.
  
• Step 2: Walk over the infection and place another T1 or two to start clearing the area.
  
• Step 3: Once farm finishes, upgrade both bottom towers to T3 with crystals and keep pushing in. They’ll destroy the bottom WHIP. Place another T3 close to the top WHIP to deal with that. At some point a behemoth will spawn – if your T3s can’t kill it it might be worth suiciding into it to stop it from destroying your T3s, or deconstruct your T3 and grab the crystal before the behemoth reaches it. Don’t worry about the behemoth reaching the base, the base will survive.
  
• Step 4: Keep clearing the laser build area, and place down another FARM_BIG.
  
• Step 5: Focus on building the laser as quickly as you can. If all things go well you’ll have the laser built and earn the achievement before you’re overrun. Keep an eye out for the spore artillery shots – if they target your initial T3s, that’s fine, but make sure they don’t hit any of the crystals of your laser! You will likely need to take the crystals out of your T3s as well in order to complete the laser (unless you have time to put down more farms).
  
• If you’re fast enough the laser will clear the bugs; if not, don’t worry, the achievement is just to build the laser, not to win the level!

This is one way to get this achievement, and I’m sure there are many much better ways of doing this. Please let me know if you have any good suggestions for this achievement and I’ll add it to the guide!

Another strategy is to walk around the corruption from the beginning and start clearing from the right hand side, to the right of the laser build area, and place farms down there as you clear.

“Kill 100 000 Worms.”

After completing the campaign, getting all other achievements, and writing every other chapter in this guide, I only managed to get 60% of the way to completing this achievement. This achievement is just a grind, unfortunately.

Couple ways you could go about this:

• Go play through the campaign in New Game+ for a nice challenge, and earn this while you play.
• Go try out the experiments or custom levels, and earn this while you play.
• Grind this achievement out by replaying levels.

I got this achievement by playing the level “Hollow” (level 29), doing nothing, and just letting the waves hit the walls every grow period until I run out of resources and lose, and repeating the process (netting about 3500 kills a run). I chose this level since only worms and behemoths spawn, worm density is high and the starting defences are quite good.

Another option is the custom map “Worms 40k”, which (as the name suggests) spawns 40 000 worms, and you need to survive. There are two bases so the early part is micro intensive, but what worked well for me is:

• Open with one large farm leading into two TX3s in each base.
• Build collectors to get resources at the 3 locations.
• Build another 1-2 TX3s in each base.
• Build a TFLM2 in each base.

Note that like the other “kill X” achievements, progress only updates after finishing a level (either winning or losing). So you will either need to go out and win the level, or let them overwhelm your base eventually.

If you’re in the mood to play New Game+, definitely do that, but if you’re just trying to get 100% completion, this works too.

There are two secret achievements: “I was a good Core” and “You Monster”.

In the final level “Epilogue”, when you reach the final room, do not build blocks on the pattern shown. Instead, head towards the top left to find a secret pathway.

As you follow the path down, you will find a secret room with some infection.

If you walk closer, you’ll see a cake! This will give you the achievement “I was a good Core”!

If you then cross the infection and walk over the cake, you’ll crush it, and get the achievement “You Monster”.