Skeletons and Stuff

Skeletons and Stuff is an action roguelite about a handful of heroes and the thousands of skeletons who would like them gone.

Every battle is one long wave. The dead keep rising around the rune pillars, you keep cutting them down, and every time you level up the world grinds to a halt so you can decide what to get better at. Clear the battle, step through the portal, do it all again. Seven battles in, the Bone King is waiting.

Pick your hero

• The Wizard casts with his bare hands: storms, fire and frost, and a few stranger tricks besides.

• The Huntress trusts steel over sorcery. One bolt, one skeleton.

• The Barbarian came down from the frozen north and answers every skeleton with an axe. Bones break. He doesn't.

• The Pirate sailed into the crypts for the gold and stayed for the fight.

Build them as you go

Every level-up deals you cards: a new ability, an upgrade for one you already have, or something plain like attack speed, crit chance or luck. Cards come in six rarities, and the more luck you have, the more often the good ones turn up. Don't like what you got? Pay a little gold to reroll, or purge a card so it never comes back this run.

Every hero has an auto attack and three ability keys to fill, and every ability takes up to ten upgrades, so most runs come down to what you decide to commit to. The Wizard, for one, can end up with chain lightning, meteors, a ring of ice or a storm cloud that goes looking for the thickest part of the horde.

Dark pacts

Some cards are deals with something you probably shouldn't be dealing with. Blood Pact gives you +100% damage, and you never heal again. Glass Soul takes 70% of your health for +50% damage. Restless Dead speeds the skeletons up and pays you more for every one you drop. Nobody makes you take them. You'll take them anyway.

Company

Three ghostly skulls can join you. Charles isn't well, but it's for a good cause: whatever he throws up on takes more damage. Ezekiel slams a ring of fire down around you when the skeletons get too close. Bjorn, a Norse skull who never thawed, breathes frost on the horde and slows it down.

And then there's Hugo, a British Shorthair who decides you're his human for the run. He does nothing.

Know your skeletons

Armored skeletons shrug off half of your auto attack. Lightning skeletons barely feel your abilities. Gold ones run straight at you and explode. Skeleton wizards shoot back. A Skeleton Captain turns up every minute to see how you're doing, and Elite battles end with the Bone Brute and his club.

Along the way

After a battle you can make the next one Elite for better loot. Or not. Now and then a bonus room turns up, the Vase Vault, where every vase you smash hands you a card you have to take. Some of them are pacts. And in some battles a shrine rises near the ritual circle: a hooded skeleton with a bowl, happy to take your gold in exchange for new abilities.

After the Bone King

Beat him and the run counts as a win. Then the horde just keeps coming, a little stronger every 30 seconds, until you go down. That part is for your score. Want it higher? Light the Dark Braziers in the middle of a fight: tougher skeletons, more points.

Between runs

The souls you collect go into a talent tree of twelve small talents, five ranks each, and every hero gets the benefit. Win a run and you unlock run modifiers: curses that make the next run harder and pay out more souls and score. One of them is Hardcore. One hit and you're dead.

Also

• Three places to fight in: the Ashen Crypt, the Forsaken Woods and the Frozen Pass.

• Shrooms grow on the battlefield. You should eat them.

Pick a hero. Break bones. Make questionable choices.