So, you're an aspiring Evil Genius who wants to command a certain level of respect from your adversaries and fear and loyalty from your minions. You know the pesky forces of justice won't leave you alone unless you make them disappear, but you are too stylish to just shoot them in the head. Getting rid of nosy do-gooders is as much an art form as it is a challenge and the flair with which you execute your plan for their demise is the true test of your to-the-core badness.

As anybody who has EVER watched a 60's era spy flick knows, the only death good enough for the arch-heroes is through the most prolonged, comical, improbable, zany, and above all, lethal combination of traps you can possible dream up. To the end of demonstrating a few of the many possible combinations of such traps, I am writing this treatise.

Trap combinations come in as many varieties and shapes as you can imagine, but can be easily classified on a scale of 1 to 5 as to how dastardly evil they are.

Level 1

Level one trap combinations are very common among beginners to the art. They consist of a single trap that works independently to achieve a simple objective: damage the agent, or throw him from your base. A simple example is the classic two pressure sensors in a corridor in front of a health draining poison gas trap. The agents step on the sensors and a one second timer starts, allowing the agents time to walk under the gas hood which then drops over his head and fumigates him. This simple trap is effective in disposing of only the tamest of pathetic investigators and will be quickly spotted and disabled or destroyed by any better agents. Another caveat of the simple trap is that it indiscriminately damages/affects anyone who happens to be standing in its path at the time it is triggered including your own minions, henchmen, or EG. You will often catch your own minions more that you will catch agents. Also, single traps often do not deal enough damage to the agent to incapacitate or kill him, leading to the eventuality of the bewildered or injured agent gaining a bit of heat and running home to his agency to make your life a little more difficult.

Building level 1 trap combinations is useful throughout the game as a means of testing the effects of new traps. Once you know how a certain trap behaves, you can better use it in more devilish combinations. Here's a link to a Level 1 I used for a little while to test bee traps.

Level 2

Level 2 trap combinations are sets of Level 1 traps that function independently of each other but are encountered in sequence. For example: I make a straight corridor leading to a T-junction which leads further into my base. In the corridor I place two gas traps, each with their own set of triggers, followed by more triggers set to a pair of wind traps placed at the T-junction which blow any agent who happens to get past the two gas traps back outside of my base where he must either give up and go home or try to get past the gas traps again. You are still killing you own minions more often than agents, and many agents still escape death in these traps, leading to higher heat in the world for you.

Level 2 traps are also useful for experimentation into the effects of a trap, but are more expensive and space consuming. While it may be satisfying at times, the Level 2 trap combination is probably the least common.

Level 3

The most common trap combination of all. Here is where the real fun begins. Level 3 trap combinations consist of a series of traps that work in unison to do a greater amount of damage to the agent than a single trap alone is capable of.

When you start experimenting with Level 3 traps, you will notice that when one traps' effect moves an agent to where another trap can affect him, you will see a little shield appear on the screen with a number 2 and the word "Nefarious." Congratulations! You have made your first true trap combo. With some effort, you will see other numbers: 2 "Malevolent," 3 "Villainous," 4 "Heinous," and 5 "Genius." For every "Genius" you get, you get a bonus $1000 in your strongroom.

The easiest way to achieve a Level 3 trap is to use wind traps, giant magnet traps, or pit-punisher traps to throw the agent around, however, having several traps go off at once which all affect the same agent at the same time also work.

*Note: I feel it important to mention here the common use of the Prometheus' Revenge fire trap in my combinations. While this trap does damage the agent caught in its wall of flame, it does not count whatsoever toward trap combo bonuses. I like it mostly because it looks cool but also because it is a good way to ensure the death of the trapped agent after the trap has had its fun with him/her.

In Level 3 traps, you start to get away from massacring your own minions but there are agents who do manage to escape albeit much less often than before. SA's have trouble with these traps.

Check out these Level 3 traps I have created:

In this one, the trap is triggered by motion sensors when the side door is broken through. The wind traps blow the agents through some fire into a pair of Electro-Shock Cannon traps.

Here the agent is pulled in by magnets and thrown through lots of fire. This trap is triggered by trapped freaks (See Appendix A).

This one killed more minions than agents but works on the same principle as the first. This trap also is triggered by trapped freaks (See Appendix A).

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Here Mariana Mamba the SA is entertained by a Level 3. Wind traps pull the agents in where a host of various traps each get a piece of the doomed fools.

Level 4

Level 4 trap combinations come in two flavors. The first kind yields many, many 5+ "Genius" bonuses every time. These are some of the most humorous, big buck making, agent destroying traps possible. Characterized by long winding tunnels filled with either wind traps or giant magnets, these Level 4 combinations easily pay for themselves at the expense of some justice seeking bastards.

The other flavor is the black hole trap. Only SA's survive these traps. Even then, SA's can quickly become in over their heads being knocked comatose several times before finally escaping. Level 4 traps of this flavor are rare and difficult to build. They are most often triggered by a room of trapped freaks because the last thing you want is a host of valets running into the trap to put out the fire on a burning trigger device. The roaches check in but they don't check out. These beautiful little beasties are usually quite entertaining to watch though short lived.

Here are some Level 4 traps I have made:

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The infamous Bee Trap. This black hole type trap commonly keeps SA's down and out for DAYS. No agents have EVER escaped. This trap is triggered by trapped freaks (See Appendix A).

My latest creation. I have never seen anyone escape this one except SA's. The first 7 pics are outdated. The 8th pic shows where I placed a wall in the final version. The power generator inside attracts agents where minions tend to ignore it. This trap is not freak triggered so it is usually safe to send minions in to re-arrange body bags in order to attract even more agents.

The Turbo Tube! This dastardly type 1 Level 4 trap combination means I NEVER have to steal money from the world map. I get all money I need from "Genius" combo bonuses from this trap. Included is a small tutorial in how to build the monster.

The predecessor to the turbo tube, the cyclotron would send helpless agents in endless circles giving me insane amounts of money. The Prometheus' Revenge traps did a good job of killing agents inside when turned on. I am currently working on a revision of this trap using giant magnets that I believe will finally make a perpetual money machine.

Level 5

I have never seen a Level 5 trap. I have never built one either. The Level 5 trap will be the most insanely comical, exaggerated, deadly, money making, dastardly evil trap of all time. The Hallmark of the true Evil Genius, the Level 5 trap would be the crowning achievement of all Evildom. If you succeed in making the Level 5 trap, you will prove to the world that you are indeed the most Evil of all.

EvilJon, the webmaster here, is happy to host images of our favorite trap combos from around the community. If you have any really good trap combos, let's see how they stack up - submit them for my perusal at this email link.

Submissions MUST contain the following:

• At least two screenshots of the trap from opposite angles.
• A screenshot of your wiring diagram.
• A verbal description of the workings of the trap.

Good luck my friend! The agents are already on their way! Make sure to prepare yourself well for their arrival.

PenguinMan98, Evil Bastard Trap Maker

***Appendix A

Triggering Methods

There are 3 types of triggering mechanisms in the game. You start with the floor pressure sensor, and later you obtain through research, the motion detector and the laser tripwire.

Prudence is required when placing triggers for your traps. Many times this is THE most crucial step of all. When placing triggers, you must keep in mind the behavior of agents in the areas where your traps will be placed. In corridors, weaker agents tend to plod along blissfully unaware of anything until they trigger a trap, while stronger agents will either dodge past the trigger without setting it off, or they will approach it and proceed to destroy it. For stronger agents, you should consider hiding motion sensors around corners or doors or make a laser trip wire across the entrance to a room right after the room opens up. The idea is: by the time they see it, they've already tripped it.

When an agent destroys a trigger, not only will the trap it's attached to fail to get set off, but your valets will rush to the spot to try to douse the flames on nearby objects and technicians will arrive to try and fix whatever's broken. They can quickly become a liability if there are multiple triggers for the same trap and agents continue triggering it while your minions are trying to fix it.

With more elaborate trap combinations, you want to avoid minion presence in the trap if at all possible. Therefore it is advisable to avoid the use of triggering devices. To solve this problem while still setting of the trap, you need to have something else set off a trigger somewhere else entirely. The first solution I heard of was a trap maker who placed motion sensors along a busy corridor in his base where his own minions would trigger the traps every now and then. This method is useful but terribly unreliable. The better solution was suggested soon after, when someone figured out that those same freaks who so commonly got caught in your own traps and killed due to their inability to avoid triggering them, could be used to set off triggers in a controlled situation. Now it has become common practice to make a trigger room inside your base and fill it ever so carefully with freaks. The constant pointless wandering of the freaks has now become your best friend. The easiest way to harness the triggers from the freak trigger room, is to connect all of them to a single trap (I use Satan's Chimney) somewhere in your base where minions don't go. Then simply link that one trap to whatever trap combination room you wish.

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Getting freaks into the room is a bit of a challenge. I put wind traps in a corridor and use them to blow the freak into his room. Others prefer to wait until they have recruited The Great Mesmero for a henchman and then use his "Mind Control" ability to tell the freak exactly where to go. Recently, someone has suggested the use of henchman Eli Barracuda's "Ghetto Posse" ability to do the same thing. Either way, it's a pain but it's worth it.