Hive Defense
The weapon fires itself. Everything else is what you pick on the way down.
The comb under the hive has gone rotten and something has been laying in it. You go down alone. There is no fire button on this cabinet — your calling's weapon swings, spits or hums on its own timer, and the whole game is where you stand, what the level-up cards turn you into, and how long the halls let you keep doing it.
WASD or the arrows to walk — the weapon fires itself · the mouse aims it, and it goes back to the nearest wasp when you let go · 1–4 or click to take a card · P pause · M sound · on a phone, drag anywhere to walk
- Essence off every kill — enough of it is a level, and three cards
- Royal jelly a fifth of your health back, rare off anything small
- Honey well two a hall, standing still — one boon, fifteen seconds
- Relic what a warden leaves. One of three, and it lasts the run
How it goes#
- Walk with `W` `A` `S` `D` or the arrow keys. That is the only control the run needs. The weapon aims at whatever the mouse is pointing at while the mouse is moving, and goes back to picking the nearest wasp for itself a couple of seconds after you stop.
- Pick a calling before the first hall. The four differ by their weapon, not by their numbers: the Drone swings a barbed arc that hits everything it passes through, the Forager throws a barb every third of a second, the Chemist lobs acid that keeps burning where it lands, and the Warden damages everything standing inside its hum without aiming at any of it.
- Essence falls off every kill and is hoovered up inside your pickup radius. Enough of it is a level, and a level stops the hall and offers three cards — traits, which are stat lines that stack, and abilities, which are new things that go off without being asked for and climb through five ranks.
- A hall runs a hundred seconds and then sends its warden. Nothing else spawns while one is alive, it is the only way through, and killing it clears the hall, pays the hall bonus, and leaves a relic — one of three, kept for the rest of the run.
- Health does not come back on its own beyond a slow trickle. Royal jelly off a kill is the only real patch job, and armour comes off every hit before it lands, so a stack of Carapace is worth more against a crowd of grubs than against one hornet.
- Honey wells stand still in the dark, two to a hall, and give one boon for fifteen seconds when you walk into one. Getting to one is a decision, not something that happens on the way past.
- Sound is on. `M` or the speaker in the corner of the status bar turns it off, and the cabinet remembers which you chose. A warden brings a tune with her, and it stops when she goes down.
Where the score is#
Kills pay their own worth and nothing multiplies them. Clearing hall N pays N × 600, so the triangular sum swamps everything else by about hall six — this is a depth score, and a run that farms hall two forever will lose to one that got to hall five and died there.
Posting a run#
Sign in with Discord and the run posts itself when you fall; play as a guest and it is kept as a personal best on this device instead. Either way the game is the same game — the board is the only thing sign-in changes. The arcade page has the longer version of how that works, and the other cabinets.