About Dragon Treasure
Four attacks, all announced by name
Tail sweep covers one half of the floor. Dragon breath is a cone along a line, aimed at where you were when it started. Stomp sends a ring travelling outward. Roar makes the centre of the room lethal for a moment and forces you to the edges.
Each is announced by name across the top of the screen and telegraphed in gold for at least 0.55 seconds before it becomes lethal - a floor that holds however hard the fight gets, because that is roughly what a person needs to see, decide and move.
Attacks unlock as you bank, not as time passes. A cautious player meets the fourth attack later than a greedy one, which is exactly the right way round.
Carrying is the risk curve
Treasure is denser towards the middle of the hoard, which is where the dragon is. Every item you pick up slows you slightly, to a maximum of about forty per cent slower with a full load.
So carrying more is worth more and makes you easier to hit, and the banking bonus is superlinear in how much you carried at once - a single dangerous trip beats three safe ones.
Being hit scatters everything you were carrying across the floor. That is a far heavier punishment than the heart, and it is the reason the tunnel mouth is drawn as brightly as it is.
Banking, healing and the only way back
Walking into the tunnel mouth banks everything you are carrying and restores a heart. Health does not regenerate any other way at all.
That makes the loop deliberately greedy: you are always one trip away from being healthier, and always tempted to make that trip bigger. Dropping the lot to survive is always an option and almost nobody ever takes it.
Every second trip wakes the dragon up a little more, so a long run is one where you are banking efficiently rather than frequently.
Reading the recovery
After every attack the dragon is in recovery for a second. The HUD says so in plain text - 'It is open' - because this is a game about reading a schedule and hiding the schedule would make it a memory test instead.
That second is when you go into the middle. Everything else is positioning for it.
Players who treat the whole fight as reactive tend to hover at the edges and bank small loads. Players who learn the rhythm make one large trip per attack cycle, which is roughly three times the score.
How to play
- Press Space, Enter or tap to enter the hoard.
- Move with WASD, the arrows or by dragging.
- Press Space or Shift to roll - briefly invulnerable, and the only way through an attack.
- Collect treasure. Every item you carry slows you down slightly.
- Walk into the glowing tunnel mouth to bank everything and restore a heart.
- Watch the attack names and the gold telegraphs. The dragon cannot be killed.
Controls
| Where | What to do |
|---|---|
| Keyboard - move | WASD or the arrow keys |
| Keyboard - roll | Space, Shift or Z |
| Touch - move | Drag anywhere away from the knight |
| Touch - roll | Tap near the knight, or the Cast button |
| Keyboard - pause | Escape or P |
Scoring
These are the point values this game awards, before the combo multiplier is applied where it uses one. Hit quality changes the figure: a strike at the centre of the correct moment is worth substantially more than one at the edge of it.
Tips
- Go into the middle during the recovery. The HUD says 'It is open' when it is.
- Bank before you are slow. A full load is worth more and much easier to lose.
- Rolling is the only way through an attack. Save it rather than using it as movement.
- Dragon breath aims at where you were when it started, so keep moving sideways.
- The stomp ring travels outward - moving towards the dragon is sometimes the safe direction.
- Banking restores a heart. It is the only healing in the game.
Common mistakes
- Treating the fight as reactive and hovering at the edge with a small load.
- Carrying twelve items past a telegraphed sweep because the tunnel is 'nearly there'.
- Using the roll to travel, then having none left when an attack lands.
- Running outward from a stomp ring, which travels outward faster than you do.
- Waiting for the dragon to die. It has no health bar because it cannot.
Features
- A boss that cannot be defeated, only read - four attacks on a visible schedule.
- A minimum 0.55-second telegraph that holds at every difficulty.
- Carrying capacity that slows you down, with a superlinear banking bonus.
- Hits that scatter your carried treasure across the floor.
- Attacks that unlock on banking rather than on time, so caution delays them.
- Personal best banked total and trip count stored locally.
