the further she goes, the worse she looks. that's the point.
There is no experience bar. Her power is her decay: the road cracks the porcelain, the house melts her, and the night hands her wings, hearts, and weapons. This page is everything she can become, and everything that scores.
Her power is her decay. One meter, bottom-left of the HUD, filled by anything she does while she stays alive. Five notches, one every twenty points. It never resets between levels, and nothing on it is ever required to finish one. Every stage changes how she looks, reddens the moon, and detunes the music-box lullaby a little more.
What fills it. New ground walked (five points a screen). Kills (a snake is four, a valkyrie six). A minigame won, a lost part found, a boss wounded, the dog sent off: ten each. A lantern lit: three. A button eye: two.
Clean play fills it faster. Every fifteen seconds without being hurt steps the rate up, to double after a minute. One hit and the streak is gone.
A hit knocks a notch off. Twenty points, a full stage, every time something touches her. Vermin cost ten. A pit costs a heart and a notch. "she is less than she was."
Breaking empties it, but she can go back for herself. Lose her last heart and the meter is zero, but a glinting piece of her stays where she fell, holding everything she had. Retry the level, walk over it, and she is whole again. Break again before you reach it and the piece is gone for good.
The fifth notch, at eighty. A red gone almost black. It takes heat.
Heat melts her. Beside a candle in the house, a torch in the tomb, or an ember stone in the hollow mountain, riding the dragon, or aboard a burning saucer, the meter runs at double speed, and only there can it cross eighty. Lanterns, will-o-wisps, and frozen crystals are cold light: the road can crack her, but it can never melt her.
Cold sets her. On the mountain the meter fills at half speed and the melt drains away. She climbs the summit very wrong but solid. The tomb's torches and the mountain's embers melt her again; the high air is neither hot nor cold, and keeps her as she arrives.
The boy sees it. Reach a boss door melted and "he sees what she is": he starts the fight already wounded, and the AT HER WORST badge is hers. Finish the game melted and the board marks the run 🖤.
She starts with five. Every heart she earns adds a new container to the HUD, in rows of ten. Ten at once earns the OVERFULL badge.
Always one heart, even at full health.
Every win pays one heart. The doll toss pays one per bucket: three buckets, three hearts.
Five borrowed hearts, shown green. They go home when she leaves; every heart she owned before boarding walks out with her.
Enemy contact. A pit (after a second in the dark the last lantern pulls her back). Vermin cost half. The dog's bite. On the last heart, the dark keeps her.
How: survive one minute in a level and a purple dragon with no eyes arrives and follows her. Jump onto its back.
Powers: free flight on the arrows. Z breathes a short gust of flame. X spits a flame ball that roasts anything it touches. C hops off.
The price: spectral valkyries climb after her while she rides, up to three at a time, spear-first, tougher than bats. Dismount and they withdraw.
How: every so often a silver door full of stars appears ahead, counting down. Reach it within three seconds.
Powers: +5 borrowed hearts, free flight, Z fires laser beams, the tractor beam under the dome lifts any enemy she hovers over and X fires the passenger back out as a projectile. C bails out.
The price: two to five jet fighters scramble with missiles. Near the end of the level the saucer starts smoking: eject in time, or the explosion costs a heart.
Entirely optional, always tucked somewhere high in the back half, glinting faintly.
Four are hidden along level 1: platform tops, over ravines, one impossibly high, one behind the dollhouse, one where the wall is cracked. Find all four and "she sees": the SHE SEES badge, and the tag at the end pays double.
Level 2. +500 and the HER BRAIDS badge.
Level 3. +500 and the HER IVORY TEETH badge.
Level 4. +500 and the HER FINGERNAILS badge.
Level 5. +500 and the HER PORCELAIN HEART badge.
Level 6. +500 and the HER WINDING KEY badge.
Level 7. +500 and the HER GLASS TEARS badge.
One number behind every "% finished": 7 parts + 6 bosses + 16 minigames + 25 achievements, equally weighted. Tab on the pause screen shows the list.
Points carry across levels. Dying keeps the level but resets the level's score, so a clean run is worth more than a stubborn one.
| Tag the boy at the dollhouse | 1,000 |
| …having found all four button eyes | +1,000 |
| Each button eye | 200 |
| Each lost part (braids, teeth, nails, heart, key, tears) | 500 |
| Snap a spider's web (three hits on the thread) | 200 |
| Send the dog off (three hits) | 250 |
| Down a jet (laser, or tractor-beam throw) | 300 |
| Valkyrie, cave troll | 300 |
| Bear, mountain lion, mummy, centipede, harpy | 250 |
| Snake, wolf, goat, owl, cobra, storm cloud, cherub | 200 |
| Rat, magma slug (only when it is dim) | 150 |
| Bat, spider, cockroach, scarab | 100 |
| Ant | 50 |
| The pale boy: each thrown bat or roach that lands | 500 |
| …stomping a bat or roach to arm it | 50 |
| …the spell breaks | 1,000 |
| The werewolf: each candelabra hit | 400 |
| …he breaks through the wall | 1,500 |
| The yeti: each icicle hit | 400 |
| …a fist at half power | 150 |
| …he escapes down the tunnel | 1,500 |
| The gold-masked god: each dagger hit | 400 |
| …the mask falls | 2,000 |
| The wyrm: each pick into the open mouth | 400 |
| …the fire goes out | 1,500 |
| The storm king: each head stomped while it dips | 400 |
| …three crowns fallen, the true ending | 3,000 |
| Doll toss, per bucket landed (three buckets) | 300 |
| Balloon darts, per pop / three-of-four win | 100 / +200 |
| Coffin shuffle, right coffin | 200 |
| Fortune teller (tarot pairs): 800, minus 100 per extra flip | 100–800 |
| Bell toll: a true toll / a decent swing | 200 / 50 |
| Crow gallery, per crow | 150 |
| Grave dig, the right grave / a wrong one | 300 / 50 |
| Glyph rite, four words said back | 400 |
| Scarab race, the right beetle | 300 |
| Spear gauntlet, three gates dashed | 400 |
| Minecart rush, three gaps jumped | 400 |
| Blind pool, per catch / three catches | 150 / +300 |
| Rockfall, eight seconds outlasted | 400 |
| Star catch, per star / six of ten | 100 / +300 |
| Weathervane, the east wind / near enough | 300 / 100 |
| Cloud hop, six clouds held | 400 |
A perfect line through all sixteen games with every bucket landed is worth about 7,600 and sixteen hearts. Every boss on first contact is another 10,500 plus the hits. The rest is bats.