Player¶

You have 100 HP and nothing else between you and the swarm. This page covers how you take damage, move, aim, reload and die. Perks and bonuses change many of these numbers.

Health and damage¶

You start every run with 100 HP. Nothing heals you past 100.

Bites¶

A creature bites when it comes within 30 units of you. Each creature bites at most once a second, but you get no grace period after a hit: a pack around you can all bite in the same instant. Bite damage depends on the creature: Survival creatures bite for 4.2–6.

• Creatures of size 16 or less never bite.
• A creature of size 30 or less dies when it touches you, right after its bite.
• In co-op a creature only bites the player it's chasing (see Co-op targeting).
• Energizer and Freeze stop all bites.

These change what a bite does to you:

A bite that lands also knocks you about:

• Your body swings up to about 115° either way. Mouse aim is unaffected, but you slow down while your legs turn back (see Moving), and with Relative movement the hit throws you off course.
• Your spread grows by 1% of the damage (see Accuracy).

Unstoppable prevents both.

Enemy shots¶

Creature projectiles take a flat 10 HP. Only Shield and Death Clock block them: Thick Skinned, Tough Reloader, Dodger, Ninja and Highlander do nothing, and shots don't knock you about.

A shot hits you when it passes within about 10 units of your centre, plus the shot's own radius. With friendly fire on, your partner's shots hit you for the same 10.

Moving¶

Your top speed is 100 units a second. You reach it in 0.4 s and stop from it in 0.13 s.

Alternate Weapon multiplies all of these by 0.8.

With every scheme except Relative, your legs turn toward the direction you want to go, closing 5× the remaining angle per second. Your speed depends on how far they still have to turn: full when lined up, half at 90° off, nothing at 180°. A full reversal stalls you: you're back to half speed after 0.14 s and 90% after 0.46 s.

Creatures don't block you. You can walk straight through a crowd; they stop 20 units short of you. Nests are solid: you slide along them instead of walking through.

Controls¶

Each player picks a movement scheme and an aim scheme. The defaults are Static movement on WASD and Mouse aim, with Mouse1 to fire and Mouse3 to reload. In single-player the arrow keys also move you, whatever your bindings.

Movement¶

• Static: the four keys move you up, down, left and right on screen, and pairs give the diagonals.
• Relative: tank controls. Forward and back drive along your facing, left and right turn you. Turning starts at about 29°/s and builds to 200°/s over 0.6 s; it drops back once you stop both turning and moving. Reversing is as fast as going forward and ignores the Mean Minigun's speed cap.
• Dual Action Pad: the move stick. Any tilt past 20% is full speed.
• Mouse point&click: hold the reload key to set your destination at the cursor. You walk there and stop within 20 units of it. The key no longer reloads.

Aim¶

• Mouse: you aim at the cursor. The cursor stays on screen, so you can't aim further than you can see.
• Keyboard: the aim keys (Q and E) turn your aim at 172°/s. They only work with Relative or Static movement. Turning your body with the movement keys turns your aim too.
• Joystick: the hat turns your aim at 229°/s.
• Mouse relative: you aim the way the cursor points from a fixed spot 200 pixels right of and below the screen's top-left corner.
• Dual Action Pad: the aim stick. The crosshair sits 42 units out at rest and up to 138 at full tilt.

With Keyboard, Joystick and Mouse relative aim the crosshair sits 60 units in front of you.

Reloading¶

Firing your last round starts a reload. You can't fire until it ends, unless you have Regression Bullets or Ammunition Within.

Each gun's base reload time is in Weapons. Fastloader and Weapon Power Up shorten it; Stationary Reloader and Anxious Loader speed it up.

The reload key starts a reload whenever none is running, even on a full clip. Holding it reloads over and over. It doesn't work with Alternate Weapon (the key swaps guns, every 0.2 s while held) or point-and-click movement (the key moves you), and in the original not in co-op either (the rewrite fixes that, bug 40). There you reload only when the clip runs dry.

Picking up a weapon gives you a full clip, ready to fire at once, and cancels any reload.

Shots cost no ammo while Reflex Boost runs or while you have Fire Bullets.

Death¶

You die at 0 HP. The run ends 0.8 s later, once your death animation finishes; in co-op, 0.8 s after the last player falls. A failed quest goes to the quest-failed screen.

Your body stays where it fell and still collects any bonus within 26 units. A MediKit adds 10 HP to it, so if the killing blow left you above −10 HP, a MediKit that lands within reach brings you back; a death from an enemy shot always qualifies. In co-op that works for as long as your partner lives; in single-player only in the 0.8 s before the run ends. Regeneration, Bandage and Death Clock skip dead players.

The arena¶

The arena is 1024 × 1024 units. You can't leave it: your centre stays at least 24 units from every edge.

The camera centres on you and stops at the arena's edges. You see as much as your screen resolution shows: 800 × 600 by default, the arena's full width at 1024. Ranked runs fix the view at 1024 × 768. In co-op the camera centres between the players.

Creatures arrive from outside the edges and aren't fenced in: they can wander off the map. Nests stay inside it.

The ground is decoration. There are no walls, obstacles or slow ground; blood, scorch marks and corpses are only painted on.