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PROTOCOL 01 // FIRST RUN

Learn to survive.

Horda Zero is an auto-attack arena survival game. Current onboarding teaches movement, XP, build choices, and economy across a 12-wave warm-up curve — and the starting hero already enters with a permanent mechanical Signature.

ROUTE // RUN-001

The loop in four moves

You choose a hero and an arena, enter with a starting weapon, and move while attacks happen automatically. The loop does not end when the kill goal is reached: the arena continues until the time limit, defeat, abandonment, or Infinity's special behavior.

Choose a hero

Each character enters with unique base stats, a starting weapon, talents, and unlock requirements. The first hero is available immediately; the others depend on stage progression or secret objectives.

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Read the arena

Stage selection shows the kill goal, duration, reward, merchant availability, native modifier, and associated secrets. The kill goal is a milestone, not the end of the stage.

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Build the run

Attacks are automatic. You move, collect XP, choose upgrades, manage slots, open chests, find runes, buy from the merchant, and react to arena events.

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Resolve the outcome

Victory, defeat, and abandonment are separate states. The results screen summarizes the build, metrics, events, and rewards; eligible coins, essence, and milestones are persisted according to retention rules.

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Priorities in the opening minutes

RISK READING // 0–180 s

Keep moving

Contact damage is still the immediate threat, but staying still for too long also raises pressure from several climaxes and hazards.

Build a foundation

Secure a main weapon, a passive, and one survival upgrade before chasing a rare combination.

Read the Signature

Overclock: Projectile hits build Overclock. Ascensions speed up charge and strengthen Overclock. Its meter is visible on the HUD and grows with the hero's identity.

Do not rely on easy healing

Health pickups are deliberately rare. Movement, positioning, and explicit sustain sources matter more than waiting for a potion to drop.

DROPS

The horde pays little sustain and few extra chests.

INDEPENDENT ROLLS · 0.1.20

Source	Physical coins	HEALTH	RPG Chest	Guaranteed
Non-boss	6.0% · 3	0.10% · 22 HP	—	—
Elite	6.0% · 3	1% · 22 HP	0.10% base	—
Boss	75.0% · 3	10% · 22 HP	15% base	normal Treasure + rune

✓Every non-boss independently rolls 6% for a physical 3-coin pickup and, unless it is an Elite, 0.10% for a 22-HEALTH pickup. Normal kill XP/base coins are processed separately.

✓Elite keeps the 6% 3-coin roll, raises healing to 1%, and has a 0.10% base RPG Chest chance. The RPG Chest chance is multiplied by Arcane Key mastery.

✓Boss rolls 75% for a 3-coin pickup and 10% for HEALTH, always creates a normal Treasure chest and a rune, and has an additional 15% base RPG Chest chance. The RPG Chest chance is multiplied by Arcane Key mastery.

ARCANE KEY. The Arcane Key mastery reward multiplies only the Elite/Boss RPG Chest roll by 1.65x: Elite 0.10% → 0.165%; Boss 15% → 24.75%.

WAVES

The full warm-up takes about six minutes.

12 TIERS · 30 S PER WAVE

Waves still last 30 seconds, and the warm-up is spread across 12 tiers. The first six shown below are only the first half of the curve; maximum tier arrives on wave 12. From wave 2 onward transitions give a 3-second spawn breather, and bonus spawns only become eligible from wave 7 — after the first three minutes.

WAVE 1

0–29 s

Spawn 0.60× · group 0.78× · HP 0.92× · damage 0.90× · speed 0.95×.

confidence opening

WAVE 2

30–59 s

Spawn 0.64× · group 0.80× · HP 0.93× · damage 0.91× · speed 0.96×.

3-second opening breather

WAVE 3

60–89 s

Spawn 0.68× · group 0.82× · HP 0.94× · damage 0.92× · speed 0.97×.

warm-up

WAVE 4

90–119 s

Spawn 0.72× · group 0.84× · HP 0.95× · damage 0.93× · speed 0.98×.

warm-up

WAVE 5

120–149 s

Spawn 0.76× · group 0.86× · HP 0.96× · damage 0.94× · speed 0.99×.

warm-up

WAVE 6

150–179 s

Spawn 0.80× · group 0.90× · HP 0.97× · damage 0.95× · speed 1.00×.

last wave without bonus spawns

STAGE 1 HAS A CONFIDENCE WINDOW. Forest keeps common enemies at 60% of nominal difficulty for the first 180 seconds, then ramps smoothly to 100% by 360 seconds.

HEALING

Sustain pickups use persistent, isolated pools.

DROP · POOLS · PERSISTENCE

0.10%

Common healing drop

Every non-boss, non-Elite enemy uses a 0.10% chance to drop HEALTH.

1.00%

Elite healing drop

Elites have a 1.00% chance to drop HEALTH.

10%

Boss healing drop

Bosses have a 10% chance to drop HEALTH.

NO TTL

HEALTH does not expire

Healing pickups remain in the arena until collected or until the HEALTH pool must recycle its oldest pickup.

256

HEALTH pool

HEALTH has its own physical pool with 256 slots. Multiple healing pickups may coexist; when the pool saturates, only the oldest HEALTH pickup is replaced.

0.20%

Common Soul Magnet

Each eligible XP drop performs an independent 0.20% Soul Magnet roll for common enemies.

0.30% · 0.80% · 4%

Strong / elite / boss Soul Magnet

Strong archetypes use 0.30%, elites 0.80%, and bosses 4%. There is no cooldown, pity, threshold, or active-magnet exclusivity.

64 · NO TTL

Persistent Soul Magnet

Soul Magnet uses a separate 64-slot special pool, multiple copies may coexist, and saturation recycles only the oldest special pickup. Collection delay: 0.35 s.

NO CROSS-TYPE STARVATION. Health and Soul Magnet do not expire by time or offscreen state; each category has its own capacity and only recycles inside its own pool when needed.

SPECIAL / POIs

Choice rewards remain separate from normal Treasure.

GOLD · XP · ARSENAL · RUNIC · SANCTUARY

These five IDs are choice rewards used by special chests and physical exploration POIs. They are not the three slots of a normal Treasure chest, which is a collect-all bundle of concrete coin/build rewards.

GOLD

Gold Chest

+80 session coins

Direct run reward.

EXPERIENCE

Experience Chest

+25% of XP remaining to next level

Moves the next level-up forward without granting a full level automatically.

ARSENAL

Arsenal Chest

+1 level to an equipped weapon below Lv7

Character and special weapons share the same pool. If every equipped weapon is capped, it tries +1 orbital; with orbitals capped, it applies +10% damage.

RUNIC

Runic Chest

choose 1 of 3 uncollected runes

Opens a second step in the same modal. At 3/3 runes, Runic Chest stops appearing in newly spawned special chests.

SANCTUARY

Sanctuary

+30 max health and full heal

Explicit run sustain source.

TWO-STEP RUNIC CHEST. Choosing Runic Chest reveals three uncollected runes in the same modal and you pick one. Once the run reaches 3/3 runes, this chest type no longer enters newly spawned special chests.

MERCHANT

The merchant is a finite run decision.

3 UNIQUE OFFERS

90 COINS

Speed

+12% movement speed for the run

50 COINS

Heal

heals 50% max health through the explicit pipeline

300 COINS

Damage

+18% player damage for the run

SOLD OUT. The three offers are unique per run. Merchant balance combines session and persistent profile coins, spends the run wallet first and uses persistent coins only for the shortfall. After all three offers are bought, the shop no longer reopens during that run.

Essential controls

INPUT // DESKTOP AND MOBILE

DESKTOP

WASD / arrowsMove the hero.

ESC / PPause during a run.

1–3 / SpaceChoose and confirm level-up options.

F11 / Alt+EnterToggle fullscreen in the desktop launcher.

TToggle the performance panel during a run.

ANDROID

DragMove using multitouch and safe areas.

Tap the HUDMap, pause, choices, chest, relic, and merchant interactions.

BACKClose the map, return from menus, or leave the current context.

OptionsVibration, visual intensity, subtitles, and damage numbers.

TELEGRAPH

Not all damage comes from contact.

RANGED + INK WRAITH

Ranged enemies own a warning state, a target locked when the telegraph begins, a projectile, and a dedicated cooldown. Climax pressure can accelerate cooldowns, but never shortens the visual warning time.

Archetype	Warning	Cooldown	Range	Projectile	Damage
RANGED	0.55 s	2.60 s	175–460	285 u/s	0.85× enemy damage
INK_WRAITH	0.70 s	3.20 s	190–500	235 u/s	1.05× enemy damage

MOVEMENT MATTERS. Telemetry uses a rolling 6-second window. After a full window with less than 42 units traveled, camping pressure rises after 5 seconds and normalizes by 12 seconds, scaled by the arena.

Events that change the run

UP TO 2 SIMULTANEOUS EVENTS

36 s · 12 s

Coin Rain

5–100%

Coins fall around the survivor.

78 s · 20 s

Frenzy

15–100%

The horde spawns at twice the intensity.

132 s · 10 s

Luck Hour

25–100%

All experience earned is worth three times more.

176 s · 45 s

Boss Invasion

42–100%

Multiple bosses break through the arena's normal limit.

251 s · 20 s

Darkness Descends

60–100%

Vision is limited to a small circle around the hero.

EVENT ≠ CLIMAX. Events are temporary windows from the common catalog. Climax is an arena-specific mechanic with its own trigger, composition, intensity, and hazards; see Arenas for the complete Stages 1–12 table.

Rewards and exit states

RUN OUTCOME

VICTORY

The timer reaches its limit

Finalizes the arena reward, coins, essence, victories, mastery, weekly ranking, and eligible unlocks.

DEFEAT

Health reaches zero

Phoenix or revive can interrupt the ending. Without them, the run ends as a defeat and does not become a victory.

ABANDON

You leave through the pause menu

The game marks the run as ended. Eligible progress remains, but abandonment does not count as a win.

GOLDEN RULE. Completing a goal is an internal milestone. In normal arenas, survive until the time limit to finish the mission with a victory.

RESULT

The end of a run explains what changed.

CURRENT-RUN DELTA

✓Arcane Link 6e4efffc: automatic T1–T7 team weapon; Host applies damage, clients render; pulse damage 22/26/30/34/38/42/46 with at most one hit per enemy per pulse.

✓Co-op supplies f4def82: bosses always generate Healing Beacon or Arcane Bomb; elites have a 15% total chance (7.5% / 7.5%). At 2P/3P/4P, Beacon heals 35 / 40.25 / 45.5 per living member; Bomb deals 140 / 161 / 182 in radius 360 / 390 / 420.

✓HUD V3: 70dp portrait, 6 weapon slots + 6 passive slots across the top, centered timer, kills left, coins right, and no visible wave counter; touch movement remains active without the ornamental joystick.

✓Arena RPG Zones: 8 zone types, 20 run items, and 4 fixed quick-use slots; mobile uses a 320 ms radial gesture and desktop 4/5/6/7.

✓Runic Resonance uses 3 inscriptions and grants 60 XP, 3×2 coins, 12 healing, and 1 Arcane Dust; it never grants a rune directly.

✓Orbital Blades, Patchwork Sigil, Crimson Tether, and Kinetic Trail use dedicated assets through SharedWeaponVisualAssets; Orbital currently uses icon+hit with no separate glow layer.

✓Field pickups remain run-only with run-start waypoints and unlimited range; once in camera view, the peripheral waypoint hands off to the physical item and sits above the weapon.

✓Exploration currently contains 63 append-only POIs: 59 entries tied to permanent discoveries/unlocks, including Expedition Compass #62, plus four repeatable run-only encounters (#58–#61).

✓Story V1 uses PT/EN narrated audio for stage/event/citadel beats; CoreVoiceBank lazy-loads clips and ArenaDialogueSystem uses a dynamic 6–20 s STORY window.

✓Run-only POIs receive waypoints from run start without requiring reveal; permanent POIs still obey normal discovery except for five baseline nodes with immediate reveal.

✓The tactical map and visual Lightning flash use EnemySpatialIndex and reusable buffers; the map receives only local candidates and visual targeting uses nearest(...) instead of O(N) scans.

✓ArenaRelicSystem uses EnemySpatialIndex/reusable buffers for LIGHTNING, ICE_SHARD, GLADE, and HOLY_RING; the old full-scan Active Relic backlog item is no longer current.

✓Permanent Shop v3 separates purchased level from enabled state; Arsenal has a hard Lv2 cap, Fury requires Power I, and selling refunds 100% of removed tiers.

✓Persisted caps are declared by GameCatalog.Upgrade.maxPermanentLevel(): Arsenal/MULTISHOT = 2 and the other permanent upgrades = 5 unless a future catalog rule says otherwise.

✓PermanentUpgradeSaveSanitizer migrates out-of-contract local/cloud saves: levels are clamped to 0..cap and legacy Arsenal Lv3–Lv5 converges to Lv2.

✓With the current Arsenal cap, the PermanentShopPricing tree closes at 420,000 coins.

✓Pickups use independent physical pools: XP 260, Health 256, Special 64, and Transient 128; Health and Soul Magnet persist and one pool never consumes another pool's capacity.

✓Soul Magnet rolls independently per eligible kill, with no cooldown, pity, threshold, or active exclusivity.

✓STARTER weapons silently follow their owner hero unlock and also repair older saves whose global weapon bit had not been persisted.

✓Special-weapon damage feeds RunStatistics so it appears correctly in the final breakdown.

✓Character and special weapons respect Lv7; Rupture does not reopen weapon overcap.

✓The result screen identifies the highest new Kill Contract completed in the run, the reached target, and any newly skipped tier range (for example T3 → T6).

✓Contract rewards are shown separately as coins, Essence, and Cores; completing T7 explicitly says contracts are retired for that arena.

✓Contracts are evaluated from the run's actual kill count at finalization, including defeat/abandon; Infinity does not progress T1–T7.

✓The result screen tracks only daily/weekly missions whose state changed during the current run and presents their rewards.

✓Weekly survival directives accumulate time across runs; ranking uses only the raw duration of the current match.

✓Home displays Coins, Ascension Cores and Essence; mobile layouts preserve resource rows without overlap.

✓The first eligible Infinity completion grants one global one-time Core; farms 6, 8 and 10 still grant +1 Core per arena.