first person. proper programs. no way out.
best wave 0 · best score 0
opening a room…
every empty slot is filled by a companion
WASD to move, mouse to look, SHIFT to sprint, SPACE to jump, Q (or CTRL) to dash — a burst the way you are moving, every second and a half: the answer to a seeker's windup and a sentry's orb. Click the arena to take the pointer; ESC gives it back and pauses.
Every arena has floors above floors: stairs, towers, catwalks, bridges. A jump clears a gap of three cells at a sprint, and lands on a ledge up to your waist. Programs on foot take the stairs and drop off edges after you; seekers just fly. After every warden a ferry docks at the east gate: walk aboard and it carries you over the water to the next sector, each lit in its own colour. Waves hold until you step off — but the sector you left sends seekers out over the water after you, and there is nothing on a deck to hide behind.
Every sector has a perch above everything, a walled platform served by a lift: stand on the lift and it climbs its rails of light. The parapet hides you from most of the fire below, and seekers and the warden still fly up — and the programs on foot know the lift too: they call it down, ride it, and come after you. Some sectors have two lifts on different sides of the perch, so what you rode up is not what they come up by. Wait beside a lift to call it; stand on it again to ride down.
Past the delta every sector brings one new machine. First the pads: step on one and it throws you onto a roof — you can steer a little in the air. Then sliding bridges that run back and forth between the blocks: ride one, or wait at the edge for it. Programs on foot use both. Then dropships: where one is coming its landing zone lights up on the floor — shoot it down before it lands and everything aboard goes with it. And one sector is left by cable car instead of the ferry, from a station on the east rim. Beyond it you board a ship: its sliding doors open for anyone who comes near — you and the programs — and shut, they stop fire and sight. The bridge is up on the top deck. After the ship, a giant tree you climb by ladders — push into one to climb, step back over an edge to climb down, jump to push off — and tree tops joined by ziplines: step into the lit square and ride, jump to let go. The programs climb and ride as well. Past the canopy: pistons, columns that rise and sink out of step — keep pushing and the stair walks you up; relays, step into one and you come out of the other of its colour; belts that carry whoever stands on them, faster with them, slower against; and vents — hold jump in the draft to rise, let go to sink gently, step off onto the ledge. And after them a conduit of glass through the hills: you see through it, but nothing outside can see you in it or shoot you — meet them at its mouths and doors, or walk its deck. Then downtown: a street, a tenement of three floors with a stair up at another corner on each, windows to shoot from (or jump out of), and a bridge from its roof to a stair tower that winds down to the back alleys — mind the traffic: the cars brake for you, but not if you step out right in front of one. After downtown: a harbour with piers, boats and a hut on the water; a castle on islands floating over the clouds, where an updraft brings you back up if you fall; a dam with a lake on top and a valley below, down ladders; and homes cut in the rock on either side of a valley, joined by tunnels and bridges. Then the sectors grow to twice the size. A junction, where a train runs between two stations: step onto its flatcars from the platform and it carries you across — programs ride it too — and it knocks aside whoever is on the track when it comes. An airfield with a cargo plane you walk into up its ramp; a quarry of terraces round a pit, dump trucks on its floor and conveyors across it; and an old walled town with a canal, a market square and a church tower.
1 BEAM — instant, endless, light. Hold to fire. 2 DISC — heavy, slow, and it bounces three times off walls. Three discs, one regrows every two seconds. Bank them around corners.
SENTRY walks and shoots. SEEKER flies fast, hangs a beat in your face, bites, then backs off to recharge — burn it while it is dark. TANK is slow and hits hard. Every fifth wave a WARDEN arrives — big, patient, and it spreads its fire.
Kills within two and a half seconds of each other chain: every link adds a quarter to the bounty, up to four times, and a hit breaks the chain. Clear a wave, breathe for six seconds, the next one enters from the corners. Integrity regenerates slowly if you stop getting hit. There is no end; there is a best wave. Every sector you reach stays open: after a run ends you can start again from any of them, at the wave that sector begins on.
CO-OP on the title screen opens a room: you get a four-letter code and a link. Send the link to whoever you want in — they land in the lobby, you start when everyone is there, and anyone arriving later drops into the run in progress. Every slot nobody takes is filled by a companion, so a room of one is still a full squad. If whoever opened the room closes their tab, the game carries on: somebody else takes over and the bodies of anyone who left keep fighting as companions.
Pick on the title screen how many of you go in. Every slot you do not fill yourself is filled by a companion — a program on your side that walks the sector as you do, shoots what it sees, throws a disc into a crowd, dashes out from under a seeker, and takes ladders and lifts to keep up. A squad brings more programs down on you, not tougher ones. Nobody dies alone: at zero integrity you go down instead of out — you lie where you fell and bleed out over three quarters of a minute, and anyone standing over you for three seconds brings you back. Each pick-up gives you less than the last. The run ends only when the whole squad is down at once, and a crossing puts everyone back on their feet.
Pick it on the title screen. RELAXED sends half the programs, they hit for a third and you mend fast. EASY takes the edge off. MEDIUM is the grid as built. HARD sends more, tougher, hitting harder, for half again the score.