The Field Manual

THE RUNTwelve waves, then a choice

A run is twelve waves. Odd stretches are ordinary hordes; specific waves are challenge waves; wave 12 is the boss, and beating it wins the run. You pick a danger level before you start (the ladder below), and once you've held the yard once you can flip on Past the Fence — the finite endless epilogue. Between every wave the shop opens; the whole game is the loop of fight, bank, spend, and grow.

THE CALENDARThe wave clock and the roll

Every wave runs on a fixed clock — the game’s own timetable: a 20-second opener, five seconds longer each wave to the 60-second cap, and a 90-second boss finale. (Past the fence, the final fight against the Thing has no clock at all: it ends by claws, not clocks.)

The challenge roll. The Fence Line forecast is rolled once, at the run's start — the schedule is set before you ever meet it. At danger 0–1 no challenge waves roll; at danger 2–3 one rolls, and at danger 4–5 three roll — drawn from the windows 6 or 7, 8 or 9, and 10 or 11 (a coin flip within each window). Each rolls 60% elite / 40% horde, except the third of three, which is always an elite. A horde wave spawns ×1.35 and brings the Surge's massed fronts.

The endless forecast. Past the fence the epilogue's schedule is rolled once at the crossing: an event every other picket, alternating — horde 14, elite 16, horde 18, elite 20 — then the two quiet pickets before the Thing: the breath before the wall.

The arrivals. Who first steps into the yard, and when — every creature listed at its own earliest wave:

The yard's terrors introduce themselves between waves 4 and 7; the bosses hold wave 12; the Warped walk only past the fence. Higher danger opens some doors early — 3 creatures carry a danger-early arrival on their card.

THE LADDERDanger levels

Danger is chosen at the start and scales the whole run — more and earlier enemies, tougher stats, more challenge waves — and pays for the risk in coin value. Each level unlocks by clearing the one below.

THE STATSThe vocabulary of every build

Every item, weapon, and cat speaks in these stats. Primary stats wear icons on cards and can appear as level-up offers; secondary stats arrive through gear only. Percentage stats compound; flat stats add directly. The rule column is the game's own tip line for each stat — the very sentence the yard answers with when you hover a stat, spoken at that stat’s own base value, the same number the Base column shows — so this table cannot say anything the game doesn’t. Some gear sets a hard cap on a stat; a capped row says so on its in-game card.

Stat	Base	Kind	+as	The rule, at the base value
Altered	0	Primary	flat	The pact's depth: Altered taken on plus Altered gear worn. It drives the warped share, the storm - and Altered-scaling weapons read it.
Max HP	15	Primary	flat	You can take 15 damage before dying.
HP Regen	0	Primary	flat	Mends about %.1f HP each second. The first point mends the most; each further point adds a little less.
Life on Hit	0	Primary	flat	Mends 0 HP every time an attack of yours lands.
Damage	0	Primary	%	Every hit you deal is scaled +0%.
Melee Damage	0	Primary	flat	Flat power fed to weapons whose cards scale with Melee Damage.
Ranged Damage	0	Primary	flat	Flat power fed to weapons whose cards scale with Ranged Damage.
Energy Dmg	0	Primary	flat	Feeds your burns and every weapon whose card scales with Energy.
Attack Speed	0	Primary	%	Your weapons cool down +0% faster.
Crit Chance	5	Primary	%	5% chance any hit crits - x2 unless the weapon's card says otherwise.
Catraption	0	Primary	flat	Feeds your structures: each point adds damage at each structure's own ratio.
Range	0	Primary	flat	+0 reach added to every weapon (nothing swings shorter than 40).
Armor	0	Primary	flat	Soaks 0% of every hit (Armor vs Armor+15); a landed hit always costs at least 1.
Dodge	0	Primary	%	0% chance to slip a hit whole (most cats cap at 60%).
Speed	0	Primary	%	You run +0% faster.
Luck	0	Primary	flat	Bonus rolls everywhere: +1 coin chance on kills (Luck/200), kinder sacks, rarer finds.
Plunder	0	Primary	flat	Pays 0 Kitten Coin at every wave's end - and grows +5% each payday this side of the fence (past it, the plunder fades).
Pierce	0	secondary	flat	Your shots punch through 0 extra pests.
Bounces	0	secondary	flat	Your shots ricochet to 0 more targets.
Expl Damage	0	secondary	%	Your blasts hit +0% harder.
Expl Size	0	secondary	%	Your blasts bloom +0% wider.
Pickup Range	0	secondary	%	Your coin-magnet reaches +0% farther.
Pickup Heal	0	secondary	%	0% chance a caught coin licks back 1 HP.
Coin Attract	0	secondary	%	0% chance a dropped coin flies to you by itself.
Knockback	0	secondary	flat	+0 shove on every landed hit.
Structure Spd	0	secondary	%	Your structures act +0% faster.

THE LEVEL-UPSPick one of four

Every level offers four upgrades with four different names — pick one. The pool is small and honest: 16 stat families, each at four rarities. Stats your cat's weapons actually scale with are offered about 1.5× as often. Rarity odds grow with the wave and your Luck: Tier 2 starts at 30% and climbs 2.5% per wave (Luck/320 helps), capped at 70%; Tier 3 wakes after wave 3 at 3.5% per wave (Luck/520), cap 35%; Tier 4 wakes after wave 7 at 1.8% per wave (Luck/850), cap 12%.

Upgrade	Tier 1	Tier 2	Tier 3	Tier 4
Energy Damage	+1	+2	+3	+5
Melee Damage	+1	+2	+3	+5
Ranged Damage	+1	+2	+3	+5
Life on Hit	+1	+1	+2	+3
Max HP	+3	+6	+9	+14
HP Regen	+1	+2	+3	+5
Damage	+5%	+10%	+16%	+24%
Attack Speed	+5%	+10%	+16%	+24%
Crit Chance	+3%	+6%	+9%	+14%
Range	+8	+14	+22	+34
Armor	+1	+2	+3	+5
Dodge	+4%	+7%	+11%	+16%
Speed	+4%	+7%	+11%	+16%
Luck	+10	+20	+32	+50
Plunder	+4	+8	+13	+20
Catraption	+2	+4	+7	+11

THE MATHThe laws behind the stats

Every law below is the game’s exact arithmetic — not a summary, the rule itself. When the yard’s math moves, this page moves with it.

The armor curve, computed:

RARITYThe four tiers

Items and weapons come in four rarities — Common, Uncommon, Rare, and Legendary — the same colors you see across Provisions and the Armory. Higher tiers cost more and hit harder, and your luck tilts the shop toward the good stuff.

THE SHELFThe shop, the odds, the prices

Between waves the shop opens over the frozen field. Spend coins on weapons and items, reroll the shelf for fresh stock, and lock anything you want to hold for next time. You carry up to six weapons; duplicates and combinations are how builds cohere. Every table in this chapter carries the game’s own numbers — the shop’s real odds and real prices.

The rarity odds. What tier a shelf slot rolls depends on the wave and your Luck (each point of luck is +1% on the growth rates; the caps hold):

The price of a thing. Base price, plus 10% of base + 1 coin per wave; past the fence the per-wave climb doubles, and prices also ride the economic exponent (see THE MEET below):

The reroll ladder. A reroll starts at ¾ of the wave number and each further roll that visit costs one increment more; past the fence the increment itself grows with the deep (√(1 + EF)) — frequent rerolling costs the most out there. Selling a weapon back returns 45% of its tier price.

THE ALTEREDThe dial that pays

Altered makes every enemy stronger and richer at once. In the twelve-wave game it climbs to a cap of 19, drawn as a deepening outline on the mob; past the fence it becomes the doomsday clock, rising every bell and letting the Warped through from rank 15. Cures spend it back. The whole late game is the negotiation between the power the Altered pays and the danger it buys — read Past the Fence for where that leads.

THE PURSECoins & harvesting

Coins dropped by enemies are both your experience (they fill the level-up bar as you collect them) and your currency (they carry to the shop). The harvesting stat pays a flat coin bonus at the end of every wave, and pickup stats widen the magnet that hoovers them in. Money is momentum: it buys the power that earns more money.

What a coin is worth. Danger pays for its risk — every coin's value scales with the chosen level (a fractional bonus pays as a chance at an extra coin):

Whether a coin drops. Drops are certain early, then decay 1.5% per wave from wave 5; a horde wave pays ×0.65 per body (bodies come cheaper by the crowd). Past the fence, the dual economy takes over: the yard’s own pests dry toward a 20% floor by picket 8 — fight the Warped or starve — while Warped drops never decay, and the mushroom family keeps the ordinary rate — that paycheck never dries.

THE MEETThe endless economy

Past the fence, income grows with the procession — deeper Warped pay more, and volume compounds. But every law of the deep economy leans the same way: the farther out you hold, the more the run lives on what you’ve already built.

Prices keep their own clock. Shelf prices follow the difficulty curve to bell 15 — a bell being the deep yard’s shop moment, named for the burst of coins that rings out as each one closes (the epilogue’s own rhythm) — then keep climbing at their own pace (0.69/bell) even after combat difficulty caps: the prices never stop, even when the enemies do. Rerolls climb with them (the increment above). Warped pay leans near the end — full pay through the climb, easing past 70% of the roster to ×0.35 at the Thing’s door, and staying lean while it lives; it leans by mid-endless even if the procession stalls. Plunder flips — past the fence it pays its value and then shrinks each wave instead of growing. The summit is fought on the engine built during the approach, never bought at its gate:

Where the story of that design lives: Past the Fence — the bells, the dial, the Reckoning, and the Thing that ends the ledger.

THE COUCHDefending with friends

The yard holds one to four cats, couch style — one screen, everyone in the same fight. Each cat keeps their own purse and their own gear: coins earned by the team land in individual banks, and the shop opens a strip per player. With friends on the couch, 13 extra provisions join the shop — they wear the Co-op pill in Provisions.

Falling and rising. A fallen cat isn’t gone: any standing friend within 72px starts a 10-second revival, and the risen cat wakes at 25% health. Gear helps the bedside: each Smelling Salmon a rescuer carries fills the bar 25% faster, and Ninth Life Insurance upgrades the wake-up itself — 60% health and 2 seconds untouchable.

The yard answers the crowd. More cats, tougher visitors: ordinary pests carry +8% health per extra cat; bosses answer a full couch far harder, at +10× health per extra cat; and past the fence the procession walks in with +3× per extra cat. Even so, the couch is a friendlier place than the numbers alone suggest — four defenses overlap in ways one never can.