How to play

Press Play Now on the home page. You get a guest account on the spot, with no email and no password. Pick a class, name your Forgix, and it starts with a chip, three parts and 500 FORX, the in-game currency.

A guest game lives only in the browser you started it in. When you want to keep it, open your HQ and choose Save my progress, then add an email and a password. It becomes a normal account with the same Forgix, parts and FORX. Nothing is reset.

The class comes from the body of your Forgix and sets its starting strengths.

A Forgix has five slots for parts: head, torso, left arm, right arm and legs. A new Forgix starts with a head, a torso and legs. The core holds no part: it is the Forgix's own life. Parts add attack, defense and speed. The health of an arm or leg part sets how much damage it takes to break that limb in a fight. Parts come from four manufacturers: Forgetech, Swiftcore, Voidcraft and Ironblood. You swap them in the Assembly screen.

In the Arena and the Campaign, fights go turn by turn. Each turn you pick one of three moves:

• Attack a zone of the enemy.
• Defend: you skip your attack, and your defense counts 50% more against the hits you take that turn.
• Surrender: the fight ends right away and counts as a loss. It can't kill your Forgix inside the fight, but the core health lost after a loss still applies.

The faster Forgix usually moves first. Every hit takes health off the enemy, wherever you aim, with one exception: a Forgix with the Phantom domain dodges the first hit of each fight. Saboteurs in the Campaign always have it. You win by bringing the enemy's health to zero. Where you aim decides what else happens:

Broken arms and legs only last for that fight. Nobody plays against you live: the other side is always run by the game, even when it is another player's Forgix. It attacks every turn, picks its own target, and never defends or surrenders. Leaderboard challenges play out on their own, without you picking moves.

Your Forgix's core health carries over from one fight to the next, and it starts every fight with whatever is left. The health it loses during a fight comes back when the fight ends. What stays lost is a small amount taken after each fight:

There are no draws. In the Arena and the Campaign every fight has a winner. When a Leaderboard challenge ends with no winner, it counts as a loss for the player who started it and as a win for the Forgix that was challenged.

You can repair the core from your HQ for 4 FORX per point of health. If the core reaches zero, that Forgix dies and stays dead. If it dies in the Arena or the Campaign, each of its parts has up to a 60% chance to survive and go back to your inventory.

When every Forgix you own is dead, the game takes you to the Rebirth screen. There you forge a new Forgix and pick its class again. If one of your chips was left without a body, it costs 200 FORX and that chip moves into the new Forgix with its history. That can happen when a Forgix dies in the Arena or the Campaign, but not every time. Otherwise it costs 400 FORX and comes with a new chip.

You can sell the parts that survived, and if you are short on FORX, the same screen offers short jobs that pay some back.

The chip is your Forgix's personality. It is made once, together with the Forgix, and keeps a record of every fight after that.

Its loyalty goes from 0 to 100. It changes after every fight you start, and after every Leaderboard challenge against your Forgix. The chip you start with goes up 3 on a win and down 2 on a loss. A new chip made at Rebirth can move by different amounts, depending on the class you pick.

The chip also remembers which classes it beat and lost to. Every so often, and never sooner than 5 fights after the last time, it gets a chance to learn a named trait based on that record: one against the class it has fought most, once that class has beaten it 3 times; one for a high win rate; one for a low win rate; or a veteran trait once its wins and losses add up to 30.

Parts go from rank E up to rank S. Forging a part to the next rank costs FORX and materials, and the higher ranks can fail. The part has to be on a Forgix of at least the level shown. Materials can drop when you win a campaign fight. Each failed attempt on a part adds 15% to its next try, so a bad streak can't go on forever.

Your HQ, the arena, the campaign and the Assembly screen are open from the start. Other sections open as your highest-level Forgix levels up. Fights and expeditions give XP.

Send a Forgix away for a few minutes and it comes back with FORX, XP and a chance at a part. Higher-level Forgix finish faster: 5% less time for each level after the first, down to 40% of the base time.

The Expeditions section opens once one of your Forgix reaches level 2. After that, each destination below checks the level of the Forgix you send, not your highest one.

While it is away, you can't send it to fight. It is not safe, though: other players can still challenge it from the Leaderboard, and it can lose core health or die there. Your HQ shows when it will be back. Once the timer ends you can send it to fight again, even before you collect the reward. So sending one out is a real choice: rewards now, or a fighter now.