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How to Play

Archerogue is played entirely in the browser. This page describes the controls and systems that are in the game today.

Starting a game

The home page opens on the lobby. Use Start Adventure to begin a run. From the lobby you can also open Records, Rebirth, Ranking, the Board, and Settings (gear button). Settings include sound on/off, volume, language, and a full local reset option.

Movement

On a keyboard, move with W A S D or the arrow keys. Both work at the same time. On a coarse-pointer device (typical phones and tablets), a virtual joystick appears on the game screen: press and drag on the play area to move.

Attacking

Attacks are automatic. You do not click or tap to shoot. While enemies are in range, the archer fires at the nearest target on a cooldown. Skills you pick during a run add extra automatic effects around that basic attack.

During a run you can press Escape to pause, then resume or return to the lobby.

Enemies and bosses

Enemies spawn around you in increasing numbers as survival time grows. Regular types include slimes, goblins, orcs, skeletons, throwers, archers, chargers, shield orcs, and dark mages. Treasure chests can appear as breakable objects. Bosses include the Orc Chief, Skeleton Chief, Goblin King, and Slime King. The run can also spawn mid-bosses, clone threats, shaman calamities, and timed events such as hound ambushes or boar stampedes.

Skills

When you level up you choose from skill cards. Skills are run-only power: extra shots, orbiting fireballs, storms, blades, ice walls, meteors, and similar abilities. Each skill can be leveled during that adventure. Leaving the run (death or returning to the lobby) ends those skill picks for the next adventure.

Equipment and orbs

Enemies and chests drop growth orbs. Picking them up upgrades the current run, similar to short-term equipment. Lobby Luck training increases the chance that higher-rarity orbs appear.

Gold, rubies, and emeralds

• Gold — earned in runs and spent in the lobby on most training stats (attack, HP, pierce, range, attack speed, move speed, luck).
• Rubies — also earned in runs. Gold Gain and Boss Damage training are paid with rubies rather than gold.
• Emeralds — gained when you rebirth. Spend them on rebirth upgrades that persist across rebirths.

Permanent training

Lobby training is account/device progression. Attack and HP can be raised without a listed cap. Pierce, range, attack speed, move speed, and luck have training limits. These upgrades apply to future runs until a rebirth resets basic training (see below).

Rebirth

Rebirth is unlocked from the lobby when your best survival time in the current life meets the requirement shown on that screen. Confirming a rebirth grants emeralds and rebirth score, then resets gold, rubies, and all basic training. Rebirth upgrades stay: attack, max HP, crit chance, magnet, HP regen, range, damage reduction, evasion, gold discount, and starting gold. You then train again on a stronger permanent base.

Survival goal

There is no final stage clear. The run continues until you fall. Lasting longer is the core challenge: enemies scale, spawn rates rise, and bosses and calamities stack pressure. Your best survival time is stored in Records and can appear on the survival ranking if you are signed in with a nickname.

Ranking

Ranking is in the lobby and has two lists: survival time and enemy defeats (lifetime kills on your account). Viewing the boards is available from the lobby. Submitting a nickname and keeping your scores on the public lists requires Google sign-in. Nicknames are unique; changing one later is limited by a cooldown.

Cloud Save

Guest progress is kept in this browser. Optional Google sign-in enables Cloud Save: gold, rubies, emeralds, training, rebirth data, lifetime stats, and career kills sync to your account. Sound, volume, and language stay as device settings and are not the cloud progression payload. Sign-in is never required to play.

Board

The Board is a short community feed from the lobby. Posts are grouped by the game language you are using. You must be signed in and have a ranking nickname to write a message. There is a wait between posts. You can delete your own messages.