Rock, Paper, Wizards

Controls

• WASD move — your wand aims itself
• Tab switch target · Shift dash, every 3 seconds
• Y Spark · U Rive · I Hexstone
• H Ward · J Beam · K Grasp
• Hold a spell key to charge, release to cast — Rive throws one missile at a tap and five at full charge
• P pause · R restart · M mute

The one rule

Every spell carries a weight. When two spells collide the heavier one wins and flies on, lighter by whatever it just ate. Holding a key adds weight.

That is the whole game: read what is coming, and answer it with something heavy enough.

A counter that actually stops something pays you back: mana on the spot, then three seconds of gold corona and doubled regeneration. Get out-weighed and you get nothing at all.

Three exceptions

• Beam — an ultimate. 18 mana to ignite, a second to gather, 31 a second to hold, and a scorched wand for a moment after you let go. It eats everything it touches, Wards included — a wall in its path shatters and buys the wizard behind it nothing.
• The orb — when two beams meet, the sphere between them slides toward whoever has less mana. Let it reach you and it hurts far worse than the beam. Stop resisting and it rides the winner's beam onward and detonates on whatever it hits.
• Ward — light cover with a health bar, not a shield. Charging it decides how much it can take (20 up to 60), and it thins the whole time it stands, so a wall raised early is half gone by the time the shot arrives. It is rated for Spark and Rive only: it eats as much of one as it still holds, and the shot that empties it shatters it and spills the rest onto you. A Hexstone, a beam or a hurled crate is more than it was built for — those go straight through and take the wall with them. It guards the arc you are facing, and nothing behind you.
• Grasp — hold to lift furniture as a shield, release to throw it.

Modes

Three tiers of rival — Apprentice is easy, Adept medium, Archmage hard — then Escalation: Apprentice, Adept, Archmage one at a time, then pairs working up the tiers, then threes. A wave only arrives once you have cleared the last one.

Multiplayer puts up to six wizards in a free-for-all. Host a duel and you get a four-letter invite code; anyone who pastes it takes a seat. Whatever is still empty when you start is filled with bots at the level you picked.

The room

Stone and pillars never break. Everything wooden does — and a beam vaporises furniture in well under a second. Lattice screens stop bodies and beams but spells fly straight through the gaps, so they are a firing position, not a hiding place. Chairs and stools are not cover at all, they are ammunition.

First to two rounds takes the duel.