Reposting this from /r/Gemcraft. These are a collection of the discovered secrets in Gemcraft: Chasing Shadows. Some of this may be slightly inaccurate, but hopefully compiling all the knowledge here will get us closer to the final answer.
Grey Trees
ReaperGuy on the AG forums figured out GreyTrees, and Seberoth also identified some extra codes. It was discovered that the outside corner squares of the map (zoom out to make them easier to see) are clickable. Various codes inputted will do changes to the game, but so far it's only cosmetic aside from the almost-useless Gift Gems.
The codes are entered with the following scheme (as if they're four corners of a number pad): Southwest = 1 Southeast = 3 Northwest = 7 Northeast = 9
The codes discovered so far are: 11331791 - Grey Trees - To get the achievement, finish any field with this set. 11319773 - Black Orb 13371337 - Spinning tower shots 11379197 - Mossy towers 97713791 - Mossy amplifiers 77919713 - Heavy rain 79797919 - Heavy snow 77311973 - Gift gems 11799397 - Dark monsters 11111111 or any 8 digits of the same number - Mods reset
Assuming up to 8 digits in any given code, there are still over 65k codes to try. I don't think brute forcing these will work. Again, all credit for this discovery goes to ReaperGuy and Seberoth on the AG forums.
Compass
The basic gist is that you need to set all compass pieces to tier 5 and beat the final one that drops the field marker. Rinse and repeat 11 times for talismans and field markers. The third reward is a bugged field marker that prevents the round from finishing. Just manually end it and start on the next compass set. You'll know you have completed them all when the gems no longer show up in the loading screen.
The compasses themselves correspond to the gem tiers you see on the loading screen of compass levels. Teardrop is tier 1, triangle is tier 2, square is tier 3, a "U" shape is tier 4, and an "X" shape is tier 5. Every time the compass tiers reset, the compass correspondences are set to a random orientation, which always follows a pattern of 1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2.
Let me be perfectly clear: The directions on the compass don't matter for any tutorial/description, because where Tier 5 is pointing is random each time you do things such as reload the game, change your skills, or beat a level.
The compass levels, in left-to-right order, are C2, E3, J2, K2, O3, U4, and X7. The easiest level to finish at is E3, with only 24 waves at untraited Looming.
Here is my basic algorithm for setting a compass based upon the gem at the loading screen: Tier 1 - Turn 4 times. Done. Tier 2 - Turn 3 times. Recheck. Tier 3 - Turn 2 times. Recheck. Tier 4 - Turn 7 times. Recheck. Tier 5 - Done (duh).
With this algorithm, tier 2 and 4 always become a tier 3 or 5. Tier 3 always becomes a tier 1 or 5.
The rewards for completion of a certain amount of cycles is as follows: 1 - Field D6 3 - Bugged Field Marker (perhaps supposed to be N7?) 5 - Field O4 (Already acquired through normal progression) 7 - Field P6 9 - Field Q7 11 - Field X6 2, 4, 6, 8, 10th times: Talisman fragments of ascending quality
Missing Fields
This list is FAR from complete or entirely accurate. These are just the notes I have from field markers I have acquired or seen from other sources.
A6 - Complete A4 on Glaring B6 - Complete the achievement "Still Alive B1" D6, P6, Q7, X6 - See compass explanaition above. Y4 (->Y5->Y6) - Complete all waves on X5 without charging up the gem. G4 - Complete the rest of Hex G on Haunted difficulty L5 - Complete L1, L2, and maybe L4 on Haunted difficulty
I watched the compass video. It helped immensely. What I need to know is how to combine the gems like he did; and what's the limit? The game didn't tell me... so it must be a secret!
Gem Combining strategies aren't in this thread as they aren't a secret. But there are several other threads on that in the forums. I would recommend starting there, as I don't know what method you are referring to, I can't be more specific as to which thread you are looking for.
It's in the vid... he made 5 red, 5 orange, 5 yellow, and POOF they all combined. Also can we UNdo the specials? I don't like the black orb and gray trees
Hold SHIFT down when you press the G key (the "Combine Gems" hotbutton). Then click on a gem. It will combine all gems of the grade you clicked on, by pairs. If you have 16 Grade 1 gems in your gem box, doing that once will give you 8 Grade 2 gems. Doing it again will give you 4 Grade 3 gems, and so on.
Note that it basically just starts at the bottom and finds the next gem of that Grade to combine with. So, if you are doing things in a specific way, you may not want to combine gems in that fast a manner. But, for a simple gem, where you are just throwing something together in a hurry, it works well.
Note also that if you have unpaired gems, they are left alone. If you have 15 Grade 1 gems, and do this, you will have 7 Grade 2 and one Grade 1 gems. Do it again on the grade 2 and you will have 3 Grade 3 gems, 1 Grade 2, and 1 Grade 1 gem.
Well, I have already completed O6 map, and those numbers are not showing up on ANY side of my map. Now let's see how many times someone says to do something else, like zoom out all the way, which I have already done, replay O6 X amount of times, lighten the map with your brightness, etc. etc. I have everything the way it should be, I have almost completed the entire game, the only thing is I am under level 100, and yes, I have a PAID membership with GC:CS.
ravenpanther: do you talk about grey trees? If so, you can wait a very long time for numbers on the map - they just don't appear When you look at the map, there are black squares in the corners. These squares stand for one number each.left top:7, right top:9, left bottom:1 and right bottom 3. So you have to click on the squares. hth
You get field D6 and N7 for sure from the compass trick you also get a decent lvl 45 talisman with max freeze/beam wizrd level to initial mana and reaper/swarmling DMG
