Horde Survivor

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Horde Survivor is a free online survival roguelite built on what the genre takes away rather than what it adds: there is no aiming and no firing. Your weapons run on their own clocks and shoot at whatever is nearest, so the only input in the game is movement — where you stand, what you let close in, and which of three cards you take when a level arrives. That makes it a positioning game with a build on top, and it also makes it measurable. Three bots were run against it: one that stands still, one that walks away from the nearest enemy, and one that circles. Standing still lasts about two and a half thousand ticks and survives no run at all; running from the closest thing lasts three and a half thousand, because walking away from the nearest enemy walks straight into the rest of the ring; circling lasts five thousand three hundred and finishes the run about one time in six. The run length came out of those numbers rather than out of a guess — at ten thousand ticks not one bot survived a single run in seventy-two, which is a finish line nobody reaches rather than an ending, and at five thousand two hundred a bot that only walks in a circle finished more than half of them. Enemies spawn on a ring around you, not off the edges of the arena, because with edge spawns a player standing in a corner took less than half the damage of one in the middle and the entire game became standing in a corner. There are eight upgrades, three weapons among them, and every level offers three cards drawn from the seed, so a run is repeatable but never the same twice.

How to play Horde Survivor

1. Press Play. Arrow keys or WASD move you; on a phone, drag anywhere on the arena.
2. You cannot attack. Your weapons fire on their own timers at whatever is nearest.
3. Enemies come in on a ring around you and walk straight at you. Touching one costs health.
4. After a hit you get a moment where nothing can hurt you, so being brushed by a crowd is survivable — being stuck in one is not.
5. Killing something leaves a spark. Walk near it to pick it up; sparks drift toward you once you are close.
6. Sparks are experience. Enough of them levels you up, which pauses the run and offers three cards.
7. Cards add a weapon, level one you already have, or improve everything at once — power, haste, magnet, boots, health.
8. Waves get thicker and faster as the clock runs. Bigger enemies arrive from the third wave on.
9. Survive the whole run — a shade under three minutes — to finish it. The counter at the top says how long is left.
10. The arena has walls, so there is a limit to how far you can retreat. A corner is no safer than the middle — the horde spawns around you either way.

Tips

• Circle, do not flee. Measured against bots, circling lasts over five thousand ticks and running from the nearest enemy only three and a half thousand — because running from the closest one walks into the rest of the ring.
• Never stand still. A bot that never moves reaches level three and dies before half the run; the same build circling reaches level seven.
• Take Magnet earlier than feels right. Experience you cannot reach is experience the run does not get, and it is the difference between levelling every twenty seconds and every forty.
• Orbit is the answer to a crowd behind you. It needs no aim and no line of sight, so it covers exactly the direction your bolts do not.
• Nova is for when you are already surrounded. It is slow, so take it before you need it, not when you do.
• Boots do more than they look like they do. Movement is the only defence in the game, so speed is a defensive upgrade, not a convenience.
• Leave the brutes alone early. They take three times the killing and your bolt is busy — kite them and let the orbit chip them down.
• Watch the health bar, not the enemies. If it has moved twice in the last few seconds you are already inside the crowd and should be leaving.

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