# Gameplay Guide

Everything about how a run of **MeatSlicer: A Butcher's Descent** works: the loop, controls, player mechanics, drops, scoring, and difficulty scaling.

See also: [Weapons](weapons.md) · [Items](items.md) · [Perks](perks.md) · [Enemies](enemies.md) · [Bosses](bosses.md)

---

## Core Game Loop

MeatSlicer is an **endless arena roguelite**. There is no final floor and no victory screen — the goal is to descend as deep as you can and maximize your score before you die. Death is permanent (permadeath); only your high score persists.

A run looks like this:

1. **Enter a floor.** Each floor is a small map of rooms (see *Floor Generation*).
2. **Clear combat rooms.** Doors lock until every wave of enemies in the room is dead.
3. **Find the item room.** A free passive item (plus a 35% chance of a weapon).
4. **Kill the floor boss.** The boss room is always the farthest room from the start.
5. **Take the loot, take the stairs.** Bosses drop an item pedestal, a weapon, guaranteed ammo, and the stairs down. Walk onto the stairs to descend.
6. Repeat, deeper and harder, until you are butchered.

### Score

Score is display-only (it buys nothing) and determines your saved best:

| Source | Score |
|---|---|
| Normal enemy kill | +10 |
| Elite enemy kill | +40 |
| Boss kill | +500 (plus drop bonus below) |
| Boss defeated bonus | 500 + floor × 100 |
| Combat room cleared | +50 |
| Descending to next floor | +250 |
| XP gained | +1 per XP (rounded) |
| Ammo picked up with nothing to refill | +15 (+2 per wasted unit otherwise) |
| Duplicate item at tier cap (IX) | +150 |

Your best score is saved in `localStorage` as `meatslicer_best` and shown on the title screen and game-over screen ("NEW BEST CUT" when beaten).

---

## Controls

### In-game

| Input | Action |
|---|---|
| **W / A / S / D** or **Arrow keys** | Move |
| **Mouse** | Aim |
| **Left mouse button (hold)** | Fire |
| **Left mouse release** | Fire charged beam (Spinal Tap only) |
| **R** | Swap between Bone Popper and holstered special weapon |
| **P / Escape** | Pause / resume |
| **T** | Toggle Auto-Draft (auto-pick random perk on level-up) |
| **M** | Mute / unmute |
| **N** | Next music track |
| **Shift** | Dash in the movement direction; 0.6s of 50% slow after (net 95% of walking distance) |

### Perk draft screen (level-up)

| Input | Action |
|---|---|
| **1 / 2 / 3** | Choose perk 1, 2, or 3 |
| **Click a card** | Choose that perk |
| **4 / Space** | Random Cut — pick a random perk of the three |
| **R** | Reroll the three choices (costs 1 reroll token) |
| **T** | Enable Auto-Draft |

### Pause screen (jukebox)

| Input | Action |
|---|---|
| **- / =** | SFX volume down / up |
| **, / .** | Music volume down / up |
| **; / '** | HUD opacity down / up (25%–100%) |
| **[ / ]** or **Left / Right arrows** | Previous / next music track |
| **Click arrows** | Cycle music tracks |
| **Drag sliders** | SFX / Music / HUD opacity bars are click-and-drag |
| **H / [?] button** | Open the 12-page Field Manual |

### Menus

| Input | Action |
|---|---|
| **Enter / Space / Click** | Start run (title), restart after death |
| **H / click HD tag** | Toggle HD Remaster (title screen; reloads) |

The desktop app title screen has **[X] Exit to Desktop**. Pause has **[Q] Main Menu** and **[X] Exit**.
The first matching press arms a 3-second confirmation; press it again to confirm. `P` or
`Escape` resumes. In a web browser, desktop-exit controls are greyed out and non-interactive.

Right-click is disabled (context menu suppressed). There is **no interact key** — pickups are collected by walking over them.

---

## The Player

### Base stats

| Stat | Value |
|---|---|
| Max HP | 6 (shown as 3 hearts, 2 HP per heart) |
| Hitbox radius | 20 px |
| Move speed | 178 px/s (×0.95 while firing the Bone Popper, ×0.85 while firing any other weapon) |
| Crit chance | 5% |
| Crit damage | ×2.0 |
| Post-hit invulnerability | 0.9 s |
| Room-entry protection | 1.0 s of invulnerability on entering any room |
| Starting weapon | Bone Popper (infinite ammo sidearm) |
| Starting level | 1 (0 XP) |

### Damage, armor, and shields

- Every hit taken deals a **minimum of 1 damage** (`max(1, round(dmg))`).
- **Armor** gives a chance to completely ignore a hit. Each source of armor adds its listed chance directly (e.g. Tanned Hide +8%, Thick Hide +4%) — the block chance is simply `armor`, capped at 75%. A blocked hit shows "BLOCKED" and grants only 0.2 s of invulnerability.
- **Shield hearts** (cyan) absorb damage before real HP. They come from the Bone Plate item and Shield Heart perk, and regenerate each floor: 25% of your max shields, rounded up to the next whole shield (1 shield = one full cyan heart = 2 shield HP); a new run starts at full. Losing your last shield triggers a "SHIELD DOWN" warning. On the HUD they render at half-heart granularity — **2 shield HP = one full cyan heart**, matching red hearts (2 HP = 1 heart).
- Getting hit knocks you back 14 px, shakes the screen, and flashes a red vignette.

### Healing

- Hearts restore 2 HP (1 heart) each.
- Healing past max HP normally goes to waste — unless you have the **Second Stomach** item, which converts overflow healing into shield HP. Hearts stay on the floor at full HP unless Second Stomach has unused overflow-shield room (then they magnetize, collect, and fill shields).
- Other healing sources: Vampire Dentures (kill procs), Hemophage (hit procs), Worm Gut / Bone Knit (post-combat heals).

---

## Floors & Rooms

### Floor generation

- Room count: `min(5 + floor, 9)` — Floor 1 has 6 rooms, Floor 4 onward always has 9.
- Layout is a random walk from a start room, with ~50% branch chance per step.
- The **farthest room** from the start becomes the **boss room**.
- The **second-farthest room** (distance ≥ 2) becomes the **item room**.
- Everything else is a combat room. Adjacent rooms are connected by doors.

### Room types

| Room | Contents | Cleared when… |
|---|---|---|
| **Start** | Nothing | Always cleared |
| **Combat** | 1–3 waves of enemies | All waves dead |
| **Item** | 1 item pedestal + 35% chance of a weapon | Immediately (no fight) |
| **Boss** | Floor boss | Boss dies |

Doors in combat and boss rooms **lock** until the room is cleared. Re-entering an uncleared room restarts its remaining waves.

The canvas is fixed at **960 × 640**. Playable bounds are inset into five room shapes: full
hall, wide horizontal hall (224px playable height), tall vertical hall (224px playable width),
compact chamber, and inset pit. Start and boss rooms force full halls; item rooms force
chambers; combat rooms mix the shapes. There is no camera or larger-than-screen room. Visual
tiles recombine into four themes: **abattoir**, **plant**, **oxide**, and **flesh**.

### Waves per combat room

```
base = 3 + ceil(floor × 1.4)      wave 1: always
floor ≥ 2:  + wave 2 of ceil(base × 0.7)
floor ≥ 4:  + wave 3 of ceil(base × 0.5)
```

Waves spawn 0.9 s apart, up to a hard cap of 72 simultaneous enemies.

| Floor | Wave sizes |
|---|---|
| 1 | 5 |
| 2 | 6 / 5 |
| 3 | 8 / 6 |
| 4 | 9 / 7 / 5 |
| 6 | 12 / 9 / 6 |
| 9 | 16 / 12 / 8 |

### Combat room rewards

Clearing a combat room drops:

- **XP gems** worth `irand(3, 5 + floor)` total
- **Ammo** at `24% + luck × 30%` chance
- **Heart** at `10% + luck × 30%` chance

---

## Pickups

| Pickup | Effect |
|---|---|
| **XP Gem** (small, value 1 / big, value 5) | Grants XP × your `xpMul`. Fills the level bar; each level-up opens the Mutation Draft. |
| **Heart** | Heals 2 HP. At full HP: stays on the floor for later (the magnet won't drag it). |
| **Ammo** | Refills carried special weapons (current + holstered) by their authored `refill` × `ammoPickupMul` × `ammoPressureMul()` (pressure scaling at 80% of the HP multiplier), up to 150% of magazine size. Overflow becomes score. |
| **Weapon** | Equips on walk-over. Your old special weapon drops with its remaining ammo (Bone Popper is never dropped). |
| **Item** (on pedestal) | Grants/upgrades a passive item. Hovering near a pedestal shows its name. |
| **Stairs Down** | Appears after every boss kill. Walk over to descend. |

### Pickup behavior

- **Magnet radius:** `46 × magnet` px (46 px base) — gems, hearts, and ammo fly to you.
- **Pickups land 0.6 s after spawning** before they can be collected.
- Only gems, hearts, and ammo are magnetized; weapons, items, and stairs require walking over them.

### Kill drops

| Source | Drops |
|---|---|
| Normal enemy | XP gems (enemy's XP value) · 5.25% + luck×3% ammo · 2.2% + luck×3% heart |
| Elite enemy | 3× XP + 3–5 bonus gems · 18% + luck×10% **item** · else 45% + luck×15% ammo |
| Boss | 1 item pedestal + 1 weapon (rolled at floor + 2) + 1 guaranteed ammo + stairs · the boss room also stocks 1 ammo when you enter · the stair hatch stays sealed for 3 seconds after the kill |

**Luck** is a player stat (Lucky Coin, Crow Bait) that scales most drop chances as shown above.

---

## Leveling & Mutation Draft

- XP needed for the next level: `8 + level × 4` (level 1→2 needs 12 XP, then 16, 20, 24…).
- Each level-up queues a **Mutation Draft**: choose 1 of 3 random perks. Multiple queued drafts resolve one after another.
- **Rerolls** (from the Reroll Rib item) let you re-draw the three choices with R.
- **Auto-Draft** (T) skips the screen and picks randomly — the setting persists between sessions.

---

## Pressure (Dynamic Difficulty)

The **PRESSURE** meter on the HUD is a run-long adaptive difficulty multiplier applied to enemy and boss **HP and speed at spawn time**. It also **multiplies every point of score you earn** — the higher the pressure, the more each kill, room, and floor is worth.

- Range: **0.60 – 2.00** (starts at 1.00).
- Gains for rooms cleared **without taking damage** (flawless streak).
- Taking damage **relieves** pressure, scaled by how big the hit was, how low your HP is, and how many recent hits you've taken. Hits that damage a shield grant no relief.
- Decays passively while below 35% HP, or if you stall in a room for 90+ seconds.
- Only affects enemies spawned *after* the change — living enemies keep their stats.

### The Pressure Dial

The title screen has a **PRESSURE DIAL** (−10 … +10) that tunes how pressure responds. It sets two curves — how fast pressure **rises** per clean room, and how much **relief** each hit grants (which also scales the passive decay). The midpoint (0) is the standard tuning; the dial persists between sessions.

| Dial | Rise / clean room | Relief on hit (base) | Behaviour |
|---|---|---|---|
| **−10** | −0.020 | 0.040 | Strong mercy; negative rise respects the 0.60 floor |
| **−5** | 0 | 0.025 | Mercy — pressure does not rise from clean rooms |
| **0** | +0.010 | 0.015 | Standard tuning |
| **+5** | +0.050 | 0 (none) | Ratchet — pressure can only ever rise; score floored at 1.00× |
| **+10** | +0.100 | 0 | Maximum ratchet; pressure respects the 2.00 ceiling |

Values between the anchors interpolate linearly. Negative rise respects the 0.60 floor and positive rise respects the 2.00 ceiling. **Cranking the dial up is how you chase the BEST CUT.**

### Streak

The HUD also tracks your **streak** of consecutive rooms cleared without damage. It is purely cosmetic bragging rights — its only mechanical effect is feeding the pressure gain above.

### HD Remaster

An opt-in visual mode toggled from the title screen (press **H** or click the **HD REMASTER** tag). When on: the canvas renders at **4× resolution** (3840×2560) with smooth scaling, and sprites load from a **4× WebP tier** (`assets/hd/`) generated from the raw source art (`assets/raw/`) by `tools/hd_assets.py` — full-color, no palette quantization. The setting persists to `localStorage` (`meatslicer_hd_remaster`). Toggling reloads the page (no live hot-swap). If an HD file is missing for a sprite, the loader falls back per-sprite to the standard PNG. **Default is off** (classic pixelated 960×640 look). The toggle is title-screen only — not in the pause menu (a mid-run reload would lose the run).

---

## Difficulty Scaling (summary)

Enemy stats scale with floor number, your **power score**, and pressure:

- **Power score** = `(level − 1) × 0.5 + (sum of all item tiers)`.
- Enemy HP: `base × (1 + 0.22 × (floor−1)) × (1 + 0.05 × power) × pressure` (elites ×2.6 more).
- Enemy speed: `base × (1 + 0.04 × (floor−1) + 0.01 × power) × pressure` (±10% random).
- Enemy **contact damage does not scale** with floor — only elites get +1.
- Bosses scale the same way but with 30% HP per floor instead of 22%.

Full formulas are in [enemies.md](enemies.md) and [bosses.md](bosses.md).

---

## HUD Reference

- **Top-left — BUTCHER // VITALS:** level, hearts (red, 2 HP per heart; half containers render as half outlines) and shield hearts (cyan, 2 shield HP per heart), shown on up to two rows, XP bar, active weapon + ammo (red when below 25%), holstered weapon with `[R]` swap hint.
- **Item tray** (below vitals): up to 24 item icons with tier numerals I–IX.
- **Top-right — SECTOR MAP:** minimap. White = current room, red = boss, gold = item, gray = cleared, maroon = uncleared. Includes floor number.
- **Bottom-right — RUN DATA:** floor, kills, score, PRESSURE % (with the dial setting), STREAK, pressure bar.
- **HUD opacity** is adjustable from the pause menu (`;` / `'` or the HUD slider, 25%–100%). The boss HP bar and toast notifications always stay fully opaque.
- **Bottom-center:** boss HP bar (during boss fights).
- **Top-center:** toast notifications (pickups, floor intros, boss events).

### Screens

| Screen | What it offers |
|---|---|
| **Title** | INITIATE DESCENT, PRESSURE DIAL (−10…+10), HD REMASTER ON/OFF tag, control reference, best score, confirmed desktop exit |
| **Boss approach** | Full-screen hold on first boss-room entry: boss name + FRESH MEAT APPROACHES, ≥1s (HD first-draw paid under the overlay), then combat |
| **Pause** | Jukebox (track cycling), SFX/music volume + HUD opacity sliders, resume/swap/auto/mute hints, Field Manual (`H` / `?` button) |
| **Mutation Draft** | 3 perk cards, random cut, reroll, auto-draft |
| **Game Over ("BUTCHERED")** | Floor, kills, score, NEW BEST CUT tag, restart |

---

## Persistence

Stored in `localStorage` between sessions:

- `meatslicer_best` — high score
- `meatslicer_sfx_volume` (default 0.45)
- `meatslicer_music_volume` (default 0.55)
- `meatslicer_autoperk` — auto-draft toggle
- `meatslicer_pressure_dial` — Pressure Dial setting (−10…+10, default 0)
- `meatslicer_hud_alpha` — HUD opacity (default 1.0)
- `meatslicer_hd_remaster` — HD Remaster toggle (default off)

Nothing else carries over: no unlocks, no meta-currency, no saved runs. Every descent starts fresh with a Bone Popper and 6 HP.

### Death and restart

When HP reaches zero, simulation freezes. Input is locked for 3 seconds, then **R**, **Enter**,
or a click restarts the run. During the lock the player plays a derived gore animation with
particles. Normal damaged monsters show mini HP pips for 2.5 seconds; elite and boss bars stay
persistent.