Manual
How to drive the mech and what the facility asks of you. PLAY on the title starts a run at the first level of intake; CONTINUE, which shows while a run is saved, picks that run up at the start of its level; EPISODES starts any episode from its first level, or any level you have cleared the one before.
Movement
- W A S D walk; the mouse looks. On a pad the left stick walks and the right stick looks.
- Steps up to half a metre are taken in stride. Anything taller wants a jump.
- There is no fall damage. A pit is the punishment: hazard floor while you climb out, or a respawn tile that puts you back at the last checkpoint minus 20 hull.
Jets
space (pad A) jumps, enough for a one metre rise. Hold it in the air and the jets burn: about half a second of fuel that lifts you another metre and a half, so jump plus jets clears a two and a half metre ledge. The fuel refills in a second on the ground. The jets whisper while they burn and the whisper stops when the tank is dry.
Boost
Hold shift (pad B) while you move and the mech boosts the way you are moving, strafing, backing off or diagonal as much as forward: more than twice the walk in a tenth of a second, for as long as you hold it and the meter lasts (about half a second; the thin bar under the hull). Let go and it eases back to a walk. The meter refills in a second on the ground, not in the air. In the air the boost turns you toward the way you are pushing but does not speed you up. A drone's stream of fire, a turret's lock-on, a charger drawing its line: boost sideways out of it. A boost-jump with the jets crosses four tiles of gap at level.
Guns
Eight slots on the number keys, the wheel, or the pad's bumpers. Switching is instant. Ammo pickups refill a gun by a third; a gun pickup gives the gun and a full magazine. Guns and ammo are kept across the levels of an episode; a new episode is a pistol start with the twin guns.
| slot | gun | what it does |
|---|---|---|
| 1 twin guns | fast rounds, infinite | the fallback, never runs dry; the barrels glow hot while held |
| 2 shotgun | seven rounds in a fan | close work; 30 shells |
| 3 gatling | a stream that spins up | 240 rounds; hold it |
| 4 rail | hitscan, pierces the line | 20 slugs; every drone in the line takes it |
| 5 missiles | seek the nearest drone | 14; the bursts hurt you too |
| 6 laser | a continuous beam | ten seconds of charge; never misses |
| 7 shells | lobbed, a wide burst | 15; over cover, and the bursts hurt you |
| 8 flak | a shell that bursts into fragments | 40; just short of a drone |
Shield and hull
Two layers, mek's. The shield (the thin cyan bar) takes hits first; left alone for three seconds it refills fast, and every kill puts ten back at once. The shield is the fight. The hull (the amber bar under it) only comes back from repair pickups, checkpoints (to at least half) and perks. The hull is the run. Under a quarter it warns; at zero you die and go back to the last checkpoint with what you had there (the drones you killed stay dead). The card counts the deaths.
Keys, doors and switches
- A door framed in a colour wants the keycard in that colour: cyan, magenta or amber. Keys hover and spin; walk into one. The chips bottom left light up as you hold them.
- A lit disc on a wall is a switch: shoot it. It moves something; if you cannot see what, a message says. Some switches come in a sequence: shoot the lit one, a wrong one resets the order.
- A lit ring on the floor is a plate: stand on it. Some hold only while you are on them.
- Lifts hum and have a lit edge. Bridges blink before they drop. Pads throw you. Teleporters are a column of rising dashes.
- Drones announce every shot: their guns brighten for a moment before the round leaves. Move when they do. Only a few are ever winding up at once; the rest hold their fire and reposition.
Secrets
Every level hides one to three: a door that is not on the map (shoot it or push it), a ledge only the jets reach, a vent to shoot out. Entering one counts it, with a chime. The card says how many you found and the episode screen remembers.
The cards
The exit is a tall glowing terminal with one line on it. Using it ends the level: a card with kills, secrets, time against par, deaths and salvage; then one perk of three (1 2 3, a click, or the pad), kept for the rest of the episode, two stacks at most; then the next level. The eighth level of an episode is a set-piece and its card is the episode card. After the fourth episode, the end card has the whole run's numbers.
Menus on a pad
Every screen takes the pad: the d-pad or left stick moves the highlight (left and right on an options row change its value), A presses, B or start goes back. The cards take any fire button. On the keyboard the arrows move, enter or space presses, esc goes back.
Options
Field of view (70 to 110, 90 by default), mouse sensitivity, invert Y, pad aim assist, render scale (lower it for frame rate on a slow machine), head bob and screen shake (both off by default: the camera only moves when you move it), sound volume and mute. Saved on this device with your records and the run in progress; nothing leaves the browser.