how to play

the loop

pilot your husk into a top-down zone · grab salvage into a slot-limited backpack · two pressures squeeze you:

• haul value decays in real time - fresh loot is worth more, so bank it soon
• the rot-tide wall advances from the deep edge - go too far or stay too long and it catches you

reach the extract strip on the south edge alive to bank your haul into gold at its current (decayed) value. caught by the rot = you lose the haul, but the husk survives. spend gold between runs, then descend again.

controls

• move - WASD or arrow keys · on mobile, the touch joystick
• collect - walk over a salvage node (a slot fills)
• extract - reach the glowing strip on the south edge while carrying loot

the wall holds for a short grace, then comes from the deep edge and accelerates. don't get greedy.

a single descent

• the zone is one screen wide and scrolls in depth · nodes sit in bands: a few deep (high value, rot arrives first), more mid, the most near (low value, safe)
• your backpack starts at 6 slots - every node is a question: is this worth a slot?
• haul value compounds down the longer you carry it · the deeper you reach, the more there is and the less time you have
• the rot-tide is frozen for the grace window so you can commit to a direction, then advances and speeds up - a late descent into the deep is a trap, not a free option

every number behind this loop is on the wiki.

between runs - the refuge

gold banks at the refuge. spend it on three run upgrades that bend risk/reward:

• swift - move faster · outrun the rot
• satchel - more slots · carry deeper hauls
• cure - haul rots slower

the refuge itself is gold's open-ended cosmetic destination - the home you reclaim, one permanent fixture at a time. tending the refuge is never run-power: it grants zero advantage in a descent. the run balance is frozen.

the bloodline

your husk is mortal. it ages over descents, dies of age, and passes the line to an heir who carries a memory of the one before. death is honest renewal, not punishment - the line continues, and feeding it is decoupled from age so there's no treadmill.

founding bloodlines - the first 1000, claimed once - wear a quiet cosmetic mark. it's an honest "you were here early" signal, never an allocation, airdrop, or promise of money. see the wiki for the exact bands and cap.

who you play

at entry you pick a cosmetic husk skin - it's pure look · the descent plays identically whichever you wear.

• moss - the husk as it woke · soft green, half-asleep
• tideworn - came up from the deep tide · leaf-shagged, cool and damp
• ashen - a coat of cold cinder · pale and quiet
• emberlit - never quite cold · a dusky warm coal of a thing
• verdant - moss in full flush · the greenest of the line
• gloam - drinks the dark and glows it back · a quiet violet

alongside the line you collect and raise a companion - a small mossy follower, a second cosmetic axis. power comes from level, not rarity; rarity is a look, never a stat.

the shared frontier

you play alone, but not in isolation - it's all async, never realtime, never PvP:

• a daily seed gives everyone the same frontier each day (UTC), so runs and ghosts are comparable
• ghosts layer past run-paths as translucent husks beside you
• marks let you leave and encounter async messages in the cozy-rot idiom
• a shared board shows comparable numbers from runs people already played
• visit a neighbour's refuge · join a cosmetic house with kin · async tournaments / seasonal events (cosmetic stake)

seasons, collections, lore

• seasons rotate cosmetic pools - no progress-burn, no zero-sum, no real money
• a salvage codex fills as you discover types and tiers · lore fragments deepen the refuge
• achievements · mastery ranks · prestige are open-ended cosmetic axes above the run

the firewall

how the economy stays honest is its own page: the economy.