About Treasure Hunt
One currency for everything
A four-second detour for a chest and a four-second hit from a spike plate cost exactly the same thing. That is unusual, and it makes the game far clearer than a health bar would: there is never a question of whether a risk was 'worth a life', only of whether it was worth the seconds.
It also means the game can be genuinely tense without ever being punishing. A bad vault costs you a few seconds and a broken combo, not a restart, so the correct response to a mistake is to keep moving rather than to despair.
Leaving early is always allowed and always banks what you have. The exit bonus scales with the vault number and with the time left on the clock, so a player who leaves with a healthy clock is compounding, not retreating.
Three traps, all on visible cycles
Spike plates are floor tiles that rise on a 2.2-second cycle, with a visible warning colour for half a second before they do. They are the first trap you meet and the one that teaches the rhythm.
Dart runners fire along an entire row or column on a three-second cycle. The nozzle is always drawn on the wall, and the line they will fire along lights up before it becomes lethal. From vault two onwards they cut the room into zones that open and close.
Grasping vines are anchored and lash out when you come within reach, and their reach circle is always drawn. That is a deliberate decision: the trigger distance is a fact the player is entitled to, not a secret to be discovered by losing four seconds.
The guarded chest
Every vault contains one chest ringed by four spike plates. It is worth 250 against a coin's 10, and it is the risk the scoring is tuned around.
The plates around it fire on their own phases, so there is always a window - but the window moves, and standing still to work it out costs the clock. Taking the guarded chest early, while the clock is healthy, is almost always right.
More generally: if a chest is guarded, that is the game telling you it is worth the risk. Unguarded ones rarely are.
How the vaults get harder
Each vault adds one more item to the quota and two more traps, and moves the exit further from the entrance. No new mechanics appear after vault three; there is simply less room to be careless in.
The clock is topped up on entering a new vault, but by less each time, so a run that is banking good exit bonuses can keep going a long way and a run that is scraping through cannot.
There is always more treasure in a vault than the quota requires. The surplus is what makes staying tempting, and reading how much of it you can afford is the skill the whole category is about.
How to play
- Press Space, Enter or tap to enter the first vault.
- Move with WASD, the arrow keys, or by dragging anywhere on the play area.
- Collect treasure until the quota shown at the top is met.
- The exit circle opens when the quota is met. Walk into it to bank and descend.
- Traps cost seconds, never lives. Watch the clock, not your health.
- Leaving early is always allowed and always banks what you have collected.
Controls
| Where | What to do |
|---|---|
| Keyboard - move | WASD or the arrow keys |
| Touch - move | Drag anywhere; the knight moves towards your finger |
| Touch - buttons | Four-way pad below the canvas |
| 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
- Decide your leaving point before you need it. Runs end from collecting one more chest.
- Take the guarded chest early, while the clock can afford a mistake.
- Vine reach circles are always drawn. If you are inside one, you are already committed.
- Dart runners cut the room into zones. Cross on the beat rather than sprinting the line.
- The exit bonus pays per second left, so leaving with a healthy clock compounds.
- The combo runs on a timer. A long walk across an empty vault costs you the multiplier.
Common mistakes
- Treating the quota as the goal. The quota opens the exit; the surplus is the score.
- Standing still to time a trap, which costs more seconds than the trap would have.
- Ignoring the guarded chest because four traps look expensive - it is worth 25 coins.
- Going back across the vault for one coin after the exit has opened.
- Waiting for a dart runner to fire before believing it will.
Features
- Timed vaults where every cost is measured in seconds, including the traps.
- Three trap types on fully visible cycles, with vine reach circles always drawn.
- A guarded chest in every vault, worth 25 ordinary coins.
- Exit bonuses that scale with the vault level and the time remaining.
- A collection combo on a timer, rewarding continuous routes.
- Personal best score, vault depth and treasure count stored locally.
