Shadow Play

Floor 1 of 8 0 gold

You

What you've seen it do:

Floor 1 of 8

Take one charm

A place in the Hall of Shadows. Your name:

Hall of Shadows

Charms none yet

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How to play

Descend eight floors of a shadow-puppet dungeon and defeat the Shadow King. Every fight is a duel of three moves.

The three moves

Slashbeats ➜Thrustbeats ➜Blockbeats ➜ Slash

Slash knocks a thrust aside.
Thrust goes straight through a block.
Block catches a slash and turns it back.

Win an exchange and you deal 2 damage. Lose it and you take the enemy's damage. Pick the same move and you clash, and nobody is hurt.

Read the shadow

Before every exchange the enemy's puppet shows what it's about to do. Watch its weapon arm:

Weapon raised high over the head means a slash is coming, so block.
Weapon drawn back, level with the shoulder, crouching, means a thrust, so slash.
Shield or guard brought up in front means a block, so thrust.

The line of text under the stage always describes the pose too.

When the shadow can't be trusted

Every enemy repeats the same short pattern of moves. The strip under the stage shows everything it has done so far, so you can spot the loop.
Deeper down, the curtain sometimes drops over an enemy. Use its pattern to guess what comes next.
A trickster lies with its shadow. When the candle by the stage gutters, the pose you see is false.

Exploring each floor

Every floor is a small dungeon on a map. Walk through a door to any room next to yours. You can see what waits in the rooms next door, but not farther. The stairs down are in the far room, and something always guards them.

Treasure rooms hold gold. Beaten enemies drop gold too: elites drop more, and they also leave a charm.
A campfire heals 5. A shrine takes 3 health and gives you a charm.
Traps look like quiet rooms. Walk in and you take damage. The Lantern charm shows them on the map.
Side rooms are optional. Fighting for more gold is a risk you choose.

Charms are lasting advantages, like a lantern that shows the next move early.

Score

Your score is the gold you carry, plus 10 for each heart you have left, plus 250 for defeating the Shadow King. The best ten shows go in the Hall of Shadows with your name. It's kept in this browser.

Keys: 1 slash, 2 thrust, 3 block.

Hall of Shadows

The ten best shows played in this browser.