Combining the same heroes

The game’s guide screen shows a picture here: three level 1 Swordsmen turning into one level 2 Swordsman, and three level 2 Swordsmen turning into one level 3.

Buying a hero you already own adds a copy: three copies make level 2, and nine copies make level 3. Spare copies wait beside the party member until enough have gathered, and each party member says how many it has.

Hiring heroes of the same classes

The picture here shows the Warrior class icon three times: with no warriors, with 3 warriors and the first bonus lit, and with 5 warriors, one short of the second bonus.

Warrior, Ranger, Mage, Rogue and Nuker unlock their first bonus at 3 heroes and a stronger one at 6. Every other class unlocks at 2 and 4, Sorcerer has a third step at 6, and Explorer needs only 1. Each class icon in the shop says how many you own and where the next bonus is.

How things are heard

Four things hold a tone of their own for as long as they are there: the nearest enemy, the elite, the nearest loose gold and the nearest healing orb.

Each tone is panned to where that thing is, relative to the way the snake is facing rather than to the screen, so hard left means on your left whichever way you are pointing. A tone is bright when the thing is in front of you and dull and low when it is behind, and it rises and pulses faster as it gets closer.

That is what makes something reachable rather than merely noticeable: turn until its tone is bright and in the middle of your head, and you are heading straight at it. Turn until it is dull and low and you are heading away.

The main menu’s learn sounds screen plays each of these on demand, sweeping past you from one side to the other, which is the quickest way to get them into your ear.

The snake

You steer only the head, and every hero you own follows it in party order. Slot 1 is the head and takes most of the hits, so put a tough hero there.

The snake never stops moving. Hold A or the left arrow to keep turning left, D or the right arrow to keep turning right.

Heroes attack automatically whenever an enemy is in range; you never aim, you only decide where the snake goes.

The arena

It is a rectangle 24 steps wide and 13 steps tall, and the snake covers about five steps a second.

Hitting a wall bounces you off it and your new heading is spoken. A dry wooden knock means a wall is straight ahead; it gets faster and higher the closer you are. A soft low pad on one side means you are running along that wall. W says where you are and which way you face at any time.

Enemies

A wobbling tone and a spoken place mean enemies are about to appear there; they arrive one second later and chase the head of the snake.

The nearest one holds the enemy tone, so keep it dull and behind you and let your heroes shoot it. A hard fast rattle over the top of that tone means an enemy is touching you and taking a hero’s health. A single ping to one side while the tone is on the other means a second enemy is closing from there and you are about to be pinched. A falling buzz, repeating faster as it comes, is a shot flying towards you; steer sideways to let it pass.

Special enemies

There are eight kinds of enemy, and the enemy tone tells you which one is nearest, because each kind holds a tone of its own. They differ in how fast and how deeply the tone pulses rather than in pitch, because pitch is already carrying distance:

The learn sounds screen plays all eight back to back under the eight enemy tones, which is the fastest way to get them into your ear.

On top of its tone, each special enemy has a sound for the thing it does, and each one is announced in words as well.

• Shooters plant themselves with a short hollow reed and fire a burst of three about a second later. Once stopped they never move again, so they are the one enemy you can safely leave until last.
• Headbutters wind up with a rising buzz, then launch in a straight line on a hard whoosh dropping away. The two seconds between those two sounds are the dodge: steer sideways, not away.
• Exploders leave a mine when they die. It ticks faster and higher for two and a half seconds and then thuds into a ring of eight shots thrown out in every direction. Be travelling away from the ticking before it finishes.
• Tanks are slow and hard to kill, and every few seconds throw the enemy next to them at you — a low rising swoop, and then something arriving much faster than it was walking.
• Speed boosters die in a clean rising shimmer, and everything near them moves at three times its speed for the next few seconds.
• Spawners die in a high rattle and leave five to eight critters, which ordinary shots pass straight through.

The main menu’s tutorial runs screen fights each of these on its own, one short run per enemy, after explaining what it does.

Rounds

A round is a set of waves. Each wave spawns when the previous one dies, and the wave number is spoken.

Every third round ends with a choice of one item from four. Every sixth round is an elite round: an elite arrives at the centre holding a slow, heavy tone of its own, so you can find it under the swarm, and its attacks are announced. Kill the elite and its escorts to win the round. Round 25 wins the run.

Health and gold

Party health is spoken as it drops past 75, 50, 25 and 10 percent, a hero at low health is named, and each hero lost is named. When the last hero dies the run ends.

Loose gold ticks like a flipped coin and a healing orb glows with a soft, warm chime. Both are struck sounds that repeat, where the enemy and elite tones are held and never stop, so the things worth chasing never sound like the things worth avoiding. Steer until the ticking or the tolling is bright and centred and run over it. Gold picked up is added to the round reward.

Reports at any time in the arena

The shop

The shop’s controls are gathered into groups: the three cards for sale, your party, the class icons, your items, the shop controls and the go button.

Tab and Shift+Tab move to the next and previous group and name it as you arrive. The arrow keys move within the group you are in, saying where you are in it — “party slot 2, Archer, 2 of 3” — and wrapping round at its ends. Home and End jump to the first and last control on the whole screen. Every other menu in the game is grouped the same way.

1, 2 and 3 buy a card, R rerolls the shop for 2 gold, backspace sells the party member or item you are on, shift backspace sells one spare copy, and page up and page down move a party member forward or back in the snake.

Enter on the shop level buys experience for 5 gold; higher shop levels offer rarer heroes. Lock keeps the same three cards for next round. G starts the round.

Learning the sounds

The main menu has a learn sounds screen: every sound in the game in a list, each with a description, and Enter plays it the way it arrives in the arena. It is the quickest way to get all of this into your ear.

Learning the enemies

Next to it, tutorial runs is twelve short fights, one per enemy type, in the order you meet them. Picking one reads out what that enemy does and how to answer it, and Enter then drops you into a small arena holding nothing but that enemy and one hero. The enemies are weakened but behave exactly as they do in a real round, and the elites keep a few escorts, because every elite attack in the game is aimed at its own allies.

A run takes ten to thirty seconds. Dying costs nothing — R tries it again — and clearing one marks it done in your save and offers the next. Inside a run, F5 reads the explanation again.

Press F1 at any time for the full key list, and M to hear the last message again. A control announces only its name; its full description, such as a hero’s, waits a line at a time under Ctrl+Up and Ctrl+Down, which also step through a report or this guide after it has been read.

Anywhere

Menus, shop and card screens

Every screen gathers its controls into groups — on the shop: the cards for sale, your party, the class icons, your items, the shop controls and the go button. Tab moves between the groups, the arrow keys move within one.

The group is named as you enter it, the way a screen reader announces a landmark, and each control says where it sits in its group: “video. window size minus, 1 of 4”. Coming back round to the top of a group names it again, so a list repeating itself is never mistaken for the screen repeating itself.

The arrow keys steer the snake in the arena, so they do not move focus there. On that one screen Tab falls back to moving one control at a time, which is also what it does on a screen that has only one group. Nothing is ever out of reach.

Shop only

Arena

Choosing an item

The four items are read out by number as soon as the screen opens. 1 to 4 take one, R rerolls (and the new four are read out), the arrow keys browse the four full descriptions, and Tab moves on to the reroll and to the party and items you already have.

What the sounds mean

Everything is panned relative to the direction the snake is facing, not to the screen: hard left means “on your left”, whichever way you are pointing.

Four things hold a tone for as long as they are there, panned to where they are, bright in front of you and dull behind, rising and pulsing faster as they close:

The enemy tone comes in one flavour per kind of enemy, and they differ in how the tone pulses rather than in pitch, because pitch is carrying distance:

Everything else happens once:

Distances are given in steps of 16 pixels — the arena is 24 steps across and 13 down, and the snake covers about five steps a second. Bearings are given on a clock face: 12 is straight ahead, 3 is your right, 6 is behind you.

The learn sounds screen on the main menu plays every one of these on demand, with a description of each, so none of this has to be learned during a fight.