The Loop

Your task is to clear a mine field one sector at a time, and maybe get some loot while you're at it.

• Left-click / tap — Reveals a tile. A safe move rewards you with Flow and Scrap.
• Right-click / long-press — Places a flag which locks down the tile. A locked tile prevents anything from moving in, out, or through it.
• Open every non-mine tile and the sector clears.
• After each sector clear, you may choose to Bank & Exit to save your scrap, or Go Deeper to risk the depths for higher rewards.
• Death destroys half of what you carry. Bank your scrap to protect it.
• Between runs, the Workshop turns banked scrap into upgrades and abilities.

Controls: left-click reveal · right-click flag · tap reveal · long-press flag.

Flow & Scrap

Flow powers abilities.

• Ceiling 100 by default. Raise the cap with upgrades in the Workshop.

Scrap is the run economy.

• Deeper sectors have more scrap, at the risk of more hazards.
• Bank at any decision screen to move your haul to the vault.
• Scrap is spent in the Workshop on upgrades and abilities to aid later runs.

Death & Banking

A run ends when something explodes. You, specifically. There are a few ways an explosion can occur:

1. A mine detonated — you opened a mine, or a shifted mine landed on ground you had already opened.
2. Mines collided — a shift forced two mines into one tile.
3. A mine ignited — fire spread to a mine, or a mine shifted beneath the flames.

A shield charge absorbs any one of these (see Tools & Workshop). Without one — Boom: half of your unbanked scrap burns with you.

Turn law: only effective actions advance the world. Blocked clicks, rejected flags and refused abilities cost nothing and tick nothing.

The Shift

From depth 6 the mines themselves start moving.

• Every shift is telegraphed: the HUD chip shows ⇄ direction — in N turns, and amber wind streaks blow across the board in that direction. The last three turns warn loudly.
• The board wraps: mines leaving one edge re-enter at the opposite edge. The amber edge chevrons and corner brackets are permanent — wrap is always on, at every depth.
• A flag is an anchor. Mines can never move into or out of a flagged tile — a mine whose path is blocked by your flag simply stays put.
• Shifting can force two mines into the same tile if they are blocked by a flag. This will trigger an explosion unless a shield charge eats it and protects you.
• Ice does not stop mines. Only flags do.
• Shift cadence tightens with depth; the Stabilizer freezes the countdown.

Hazards

Sectors past depth 10 come with additional hazards.

Ice — frozen ground that is too hard to dig through for a time. It blocks you, not the mines.

Fire — burns on hidden ground.

• On odd turns, each fire has a chance to ignite some neighboring tiles. Clear it before it spreads too far.
• Fire is only deadly when it shares a tile with a mine — fire next to a mine does nothing, forever.
• Revealing a fire tile puts it out. Flagging a fire tile puts it out as well (and anchors the ground).
• Ice blocks fire spread.

Abilities start locked — buy upgrades in the Workshop to use them.

• Radar Pulse (50f, 2T cooldown) — select, then click: sweeps a patch of safe tiles open around the target. Grows with Radar Array levels: 3×3 → 21-tile circle → full 5×5. Radar pays no Flow and never floods its own sweep.
• Seeker Drone (50f, 3T cooldown) — auto-flags 1 mine (2, then 3 at higher levels).
• Stabilizer (30f, 10T cooldown) — freezes the shift countdown for 3 turns (5 / 7 / 10 at higher levels). At max, recast on cooldown and the Shifter never fires.
• Shield Generator — increases the number of shield charges the run starts with. A charge absorbs one mine hit, then it's gone until the next run. Charges carry across sectors.
• Data Ledger — +25% run scrap per level.
• Flow Capacitor — +100 Flow ceiling per level.