Your first throw.
Your next adventure.

A first expedition

1. Start in Willow Village. Talk to Nia and accept a quest before heading out.
2. Inspect your loadout in Equipment. Mira sells gear, Bram improves it, and the Arcane Forge promotes quality.
3. Follow the eastern travel sign into Willow Forest, then enter Forest Ruins at the far end.
4. Pick a seed and difficulty. Fight, gather floor pickups and explore the optional branches.
5. Extract to bank what you found, or defeat the boss and extract for victory. Return to town to claim completed quests and improve your next run.

Find your footing

Tap the world to throw toward that location, capped to your weapon range. Hold to repeat; drag to update the next throw. The right joystick takes priority, and movement and button touches stay independent. Throws still stop at first enemy contact, and taps respect the normal attack cycle.

Settings include stick swapping and optional Auto attack. Manual aim takes priority. Auto attack looks for the nearest reachable, unobstructed enemy when manual input is absent; mouse hover alone does not attack.

The rhythm of a throw

Your first permitted attack launches immediately. Outbound travel deals contact damage. At the end of its reach, the yo-yo spins and damages enemies on its own tick interval. When its spin time expires, it returns; the catch starts the cooldown. Keep holding aim to launch again when ready. The current throw keeps its heading; the next launch uses your updated direction.

Return travel deals zero contact damage by default. The Return Strike upgrade enables one recall hit per enemy at 50% damage for Common weapons, scaling to 75% for Mythic. Bladed String is a separate upgrade that adds periodic damage along the deployed tether. Early recall still requires return travel and the catch cooldown.

Read the boss warnings

Bosses keep attacking across the arena. Frost Colossus and the other impact bosses mark your position even at long range: leave the amber circle before it turns red, then sidestep their projectile fans. Bosses balance spin avoidance with pursuit and moving away from walls. Every expansion champion also fires aimed bolts between signature patterns, so keep moving during recovery. Scrapmonger marks your position for his scrap bursts rather than bursting only around himself.

Every dungeon and raid now selects one of three exclusive bosses. Amber shapes show committed attacks before release; red shapes deal damage. Green wedges and passages mark safe routes. Sidestep charges, leave marked impact circles, and use recovery windows to attack. Below half health, the eight new champions add follow-up attacks. The four new raid bosses have very short recovery windows and keep firing committed projectiles during major patterns: keep moving while attacking, and use the green exits immediately. The boss field notes describe each strategy and its signature gear.

Your weapon is your spellbook

Each yo-yo grants its own magic. Cast when the spell cooldown is ready and the weapon is in an allowed state, such as Outbound or Spinning. The yo-yo compendium lists damage, radius, cooldown and cast states for every spell. Swapping weapons replaces those grants.

One world. Many expeditions.

Overworld routes are handcrafted and safe. Walk close to a named map point and use Interact; the nearest eligible point within 54 px is selected. Travel signs connect regions. Cave entrances open expedition selection. The world atlas lists every NPC, service, cave and travel connection with local coordinates.

Finite dungeons assemble modular rooms from a seed. The dungeon minimap tracks discovered rooms and their connections. Doors let you pass living enemies, but room-clear rewards and blessings require a clear. Optional branches contain caches. Check the minimap, choose a route and locate an extraction shrine.

The people in town

• Nia, Trailkeeper: repeatable dungeon, boss and enemy-count quests. Accept first; return to claim. A skip recharges after ten minutes of unpaused gameplay.
• Mira, Outfitter: buy weapons and wearables, and sell banked equipment.
• Bram, Blacksmith: permanent stat upgrades, quality-scaled passive unlocks and salvaging. Upgrade strength increases 10% per quality tier, up to 1.5x at Mythic. Prices keep their steeper multipliers; weapon damage gains already follow quality power budgets.
• Arcane Forge: promote equipment quality. Promotion resets purchased upgrades.

What comes home with you?

Extraction banks collected loot. Boss victory followed by extraction also grants the dungeon’s completion reward. Defeating the boss alone is not enough: collect the drops and leave safely. Death removes unbanked loot and temporary blessings while keeping XP, permanent unlocks and banked equipment.

Temporary blessings apply automatically after room clears. Coins, relics, equipment and healing orbs are physical floor pickups. Rooms do not automatically heal you, so watch your health and plan your exit.

Make the next run stronger

Spend XP-based talent points on permanent build choices. All 45 skills remain visible by tier without category labels or path-filter buttons; prerequisites, rank controls and refunds still apply. Combine a yo-yo with body armor, a hat, footwear and a back item. Upgrade owned gear at Bram’s and promote quality at the Arcane Forge. Equipment can be inspected during an expedition; prepare loadout changes outside an active run.

Save data is local. The game supports suspended expeditions; menus and interruptions pause play. Endless Descent offers escalating floors and Depth equipment; read its separate guide before heading south.

Choose your challenge.

Difficulty is fixed for an expedition. Current rules below come directly from the game definitions. Boss quality follows difficulty across all regions; a longer dungeon changes the journey and boss pool.

Easy: Beginner combat in every region. Common boss gear and regular healing pickups; length changes the journey, not gear rank.

Normal: +2 enemies per combat room · 1.4× enemy health · 1.25× damage · +15% coins.

Hard: +5 enemies per combat room · 2.2× enemy health · 1.6× damage · +35% coins. +5% projectile speed and 5% shorter ordinary ranged recovery.

Expert: +7 enemies per combat room · 3.5× enemy health · 2.2× damage · +60% coins · 1.5× relics. +10% projectile speed and 15% shorter ordinary ranged recovery.

Nightmare: +10 enemies per combat room · 6× enemy health · 3.5× damage · 2× coins · 2× relics. +15% projectile speed and 30% shorter ordinary ranged recovery.

Bullet Hell: +16 enemies per combat room, including 4 guaranteed ranged · 14× enemy health · 8× damage · 2.5× coins · 3× relics. The ten pressure reinforcements (4 ranged, 6 melee) grant no rewards. Melee enemies retain their normal attacks. 128 live projectiles. Armor blocks at most 65% of each hit before active defenses. Triple projectile spreads, +30% projectile speed and 55% shorter ordinary ranged recovery. Raids keep their fixed rosters and hazard timings.

Boss endurance and pace

Bosses gain extra health on top of enemy difficulty scaling and shorter recovery between attacks. Warnings, active hazards and stagger windows keep their full durations. These modifiers also apply to Endless bosses, alongside floor scaling; ordinary enemies and summons keep their own health rules.

On Bullet Hell, Fulminant Roc has 21,840 HP and 55% shorter recovery. Prepare for repeated lightning and dive patterns, including the follow-ups below half health. Suspended expeditions retain their saved boss balance; start a new expedition for these changes.

Extra enemies apply to ordinary combat rooms. Raids choose one of three bosses; each encounter has its own summons and hazard timings. Older suspended saves can retain earlier balance until a new expedition starts.