XCraft

WorkersWood, stone and iron only come in on your workers' backs. Train them at the keep or any of your houses (T, Shift+T for five, or click the Workers counter; right-click it for auto-train). The keep lodges 12 workers and every house 3 more. Right-click trees, grey rock or rust-red ore and they chop or dig, then haul each load to the keep or the nearest sawmill, quarry or mine. Build those drop-offs right at the resource so the walk is short. Anything you place starts as a foundation: workers you have selected go build it, otherwise the closest one does. Right-click a damaged building to repair it. Workers run for the keep when the dead get close. I finds an idle one.

EconomyThe keep and houses pay gold. Farms make food, and every soldier eats 1. Houses eat 2, hold two townsfolk each and lodge 3 workers. Workers do not eat farm food, they are capped by lodging instead.

WallsPick a wall and drag a line. Zombies path to your nearest building and claw through whatever is in the way, so wall in everything. Your soldiers can stand on walls and shoot over them.

InfectionA house, farm or workshop that drops below 60% health turns. The people inside come out as zombies. Soldiers and townsfolk who die get back up five seconds later. Burn them before they stand.

The fallenBodies stay where they drop. Zombies with nothing alive close by kneel over them and eat, up to three to a body, ripping off arms, legs and heads as they go. A zombie that is feeding barely looks up, so it is an easy kill, and a body torn apart by a crowd is not getting back up. Bodies rot away after a while.

TownsfolkEvery house brings two townsfolk who wander the streets and talk. A house pays full gold only while its people live. They run from the dead and hide indoors when the horn sounds. Anyone bitten turns about ten seconds later, unless a soldier is close enough to put them down first. Nobody opens the door for the bitten.

SwarmsA horn means a swarm is coming from the marked edge. Survive twelve to win. After each one you pick a perk. Sleeping nests in the wilds wake up if you build or walk near them.

The ZwarFrom the fourth swarm on, it is not always the dead. The Zwar are a hive of clawed things from somewhere else: skitters that come in floods, spikers that spit bone from range, bursters that pop in a spray of acid that eats buildings, armored ravagers that cleave whole squads, wyrms that fly straight over your walls, and the matriarch, who breeds as she walks. Anything they kill gets cocooned and hatches more skitters. Some swarms come on two fronts, the dead from one side and the Zwar from the other. The two farthest nests in the wilds are theirs.

HeroesEvery faction's hero has an ultimate on a long cooldown: a holy strike, an artillery barrage, an orbital lance, a war horn, a sword storm, a frenzy, a spear of plasma or a mind blast. Press R or the gold button by the build bar, then click where it should land.

TowersSelect a finished tower and upgrade it twice (U). Each level adds damage, range, health and, for towers that hit several enemies, one more target.

AgesSelect your keep and advance your people to the next age (Y): Age II needs a barracks, Age III your special building. Each age makes every unit, building and tower of yours stronger, raises your taxes, and rebuilds your town in your race's grander style. Age II unlocks your artillery: slow, long-ranged, built to crack walls and crowds.

RanksEvery soldier, down to the cheapest grunt, ranks up at 8, 20 and 45 kills. Each rank attacks faster, hits harder and toughens up, and it shows: shoulder plates first, then a cape and crest, then gold. Keep your veterans alive. Their replacements start back at zero.

FactionsEight human banners, from the Lost Ninth (a Roman legion whose Eagle makes the shield wall nearly unbreakable) to the Black Tide Brethren (pirates who earn gold on every kill) and the Gaslight Society (Victorian hunters whose silver hits big things harder), plus three that never were: the Chitin Brood (cheap swarming bugs whose dead stay dead), the Vorr Dominion (sun-worshipping lizard legions with plasma) and the Grey Conclave (psychic greys and a floating Overmind). Pick Let Fate Decide to get a random one each run.

ControlsDrag to select, right-click to move. WASD or screen edge to pan, wheel to zoom. 1–0 build, Esc cancel, Space home, Q all soldiers, T train a worker, I idle worker, H hero, Y advance age, S stop, X demolish, M music, F fullscreen. Click a townsperson to hear them out. Hover any building, build button or enemy to see what it does. + and - change game speed when playing alone. Solo runs save on their own every swarm and when you quit; hit Continue on the main menu to pick up where you left off. If the game stutters, the Graphics button in the top bar drops the detail; it also steps down on its own on slow machines.

Co-opG or middle-click pings the map for your ally. Enter opens chat. Shift-click to keep placing. Double-click a soldier to grab every one of that type.