The Gauntlet: Hexwing's single-player roguelike

The Gauntlet is the single-player side of Hexwing, the free browser shooter. It is an endless, constantly scrolling top-down shooter: the world is generated as you fly, enemies stream in, and every sector ends in a huge boss that folds in and out. There are two rogue-like modes, one for each vessel, and they are the only place in the game that drops relics (abilities with specials found nowhere else) and Gauntlet skins, which always glow or shine like metal. Every run starts in a new area, and each run is different. Find it on the Play tab once you are signed in.

Two paths, two vessels

An endless, generated world

There is no arena and no level select. One run is one continuous flight: the ground scrolls under you and is generated a slice at a time above the top of the screen, so no two runs share a map. You pass over buildings with lit windows and turrets on their rooftops, and between them stand walls that stop shots, yours and theirs. A wall that reaches you shoulders you aside and scrapes some health off, so read the ground ahead. You can fly the whole screen, top to bottom, which is how you get behind a shield or ahead of a slow shot. Enemies are not tied to the ground: they fly their own courses over it, in groups that arrive by distance flown, and hazards such as meteors, spore clouds, solar flares and gravity eddies cross the field on their own.

Bosses that fold in and out

Every sector ends with a boss, and the bosses are huge: a core the size of a fifth of the field with six or more parts arranged around it. A boss cycles between open and closed. Open, its parts swing out, fire at you, and are vulnerable. Then it folds: the parts draw in and the closed mass is armoured, sweeping across the field and throwing spirals of shots. Then it unfolds and the window opens again. Break the parts to reach the core; the boss grows with every sector you clear, so a later Lich Engine or Dreadnought is bigger, tougher and faster than the first.

Sectors, difficulty and banking

• Each sector is a new area. When a boss falls you get a calm stretch, then the next sector begins in a different biome, never the same twice in a row.
• It gets faster and harder. The scroll speeds up as you go, and every sector raises enemy health, fire rate, shot speed and damage.
• Bank or push on. In the calm after a boss a Bank run button appears: stop there and keep everything the run has earned. Die, and the run ends where you fell; you keep the score and kills to that point, and a relic or skin that dropped is still yours.
• Your best is kept. Every run is recorded: sectors cleared, distance flown, foes downed and score. The Play tab shows your best on each path and the best runs overall.

Rewards found nowhere else

Relics are abilities of ordinary strength whose special is one of four modes that no other ability in Hexwing can roll. The wand's relics carry Summon (two spectral guardians circle you and fire homing bolts at your foes) or Banish (enemy shots near you turn to harmless motes and you are untouchable for a moment; monsters nearby are stunned). The plane's carry Afterburner (five seconds of speed, firing half again as fast, with a burning wake) or EMP (a pulse that wipes enemy shots and freezes your enemy for two and a half seconds). Relics come about one sector in seven and on every boss; you can take them into online PvP.

Gauntlet skins drop about one sector in five and are always glowing, metallic or both. Like every Hexwing skin they are drawn the same way in 2D and 3D and are worn on the Profile tab. Neither relics nor Gauntlet skins ever drop from the practice bot or from PvP.

Tips

• Step sideways, not back. Most enemy fire is aimed where you are; a short sidestep beats a long retreat, and the tilt control lets you shoot around a wall you are hiding beside.
• Kill turrets early. A rooftop turret fires until its building has scrolled off the bottom of the screen.
• Save the special for an open boss. The parts are only vulnerable while the boss is unfolded; a Summon or an Afterburner in that window does more than at any other time. You get two specials a run.
• Homing shots home on the nearest enemy, so a homing weapon in one slot clears stragglers while you watch the walls.
• Bank when you are low. A run banked at two sectors with a relic in hand beats a run that ends in the third with nothing new.

2D or 3D

Like the rest of Hexwing, The Gauntlet plays in a crisp 2D top-down view or in 3D from a camera behind your vessel, and you can switch mid-run. The arena pool of the path paints the sky; the ground, buildings, enemies and bosses are drawn from the same specification in both views.