Beginner's guide

Gold Below is a turn-based loot roguelike for phones. You go down thirty floors, and you win by what you wear.

The whole game in five lines

1. Every enemy shows its next move. You answer with ATTACK or GUARD.
2. Kills pay gold. Gold buys gear from the shelf at the bottom of the screen.
3. Two of the same piece merge into a better one.
4. Pieces of the same set multiply each other.
5. Every tenth floor a boss checks whether you did 2, 3 and 4.

Your first run

Pick Wren. Her card says it: "Straight-up steel. A good first descent."

Floor 1. You have a Rusty Shortsword, 30 gold and three cheap pieces in the market. The game waits until you put one on: drag the glowing piece onto the glowing slot. Then tap ATTACK. Each enemy hits back for the number above it.

The rest of floor 1. A kill drops a piece into your stash, the bag chip under the fight. Open it and wear that too. Spend your gold on the starter pieces: every socket you fill is more armor and health.

Floor 2. The market holds a twin of something you own. Drag one onto the other: that is a merge, and the piece comes out a rarity higher.

Floor 3. You get a second piece of a set. Wear both and a chip under your bars lights: the set bonus is on, and each piece's main stat now counts double.

After that the run is yours. These four moves, wear, loot, merge, match, are the whole loop.

Reading a fight

• The tab over an enemy is its next move and its number. is an Attack. is a Heavy: a double blow that mostly ignores armor. means it will armor up.
• Your armor takes hits first, then your health. Both are full again every fight, so there is nothing to save between fights. Use everything.
• The red number beside your bars is what the enemies' turn is about to take. If your health bar is hatched to the end, that turn kills you.
• Tap an enemy to target it and read its card.
• Hold any button to read exactly what it would do right now.

See combat and enemy intents for all of it.

When to GUARD

GUARD gives back 40% of your armor, gives 1 mana and halves every blow that turn. Use it:

• when GUARD glows gold: the game has worked out it is the better move;
• when a Heavy is coming, often with a red frame round its number;
• when a red "!" stands beside an intent: without it you die this turn.

Do not GUARD every turn. From turn 11 every enemy grows 15% a turn, so a fight you only defend in is a fight you lose slowly.

Cast your skill

Your hero's skill costs mana and nothing else. It does not end your turn, so cast it and then ATTACK. You start every fight with full mana. "Cast it whenever it glows" is the game's advice, and "you never cast it" is one of the commonest lines on the death screen.

Build one set

This is the rule that decides runs. The death screen's first tip is usually "Wear more of one set."

• Pick the set you have two pieces of by floor 3 or 4 and keep feeding it.
• A piece's set stat is multiplied by the pieces of that set you wear, so the fourth piece improves the first three.
• Loot leans toward what you wear, and the market and merchant offer pieces you are missing.
• A new piece with bigger numbers can still be worse. Read the card's "IF EQUIPPED" line, not the piece's own stats.

Not sure which? Choosing a set lists what each is good and bad against, in the game's own words.

Merge upward

A gold "+" on a tile means you own its twin. Buy it: twins merge the moment you tap Buy. A merged piece has nearly double the stats in one socket, and you only have eight sockets.

Spend your gold

Gold does nothing in your pocket (unless you play Pip or a Gilded build). You lose it all when you die. Buy, refresh the market when nothing fits, and long-press an offer to lock it if you can't afford it yet.

Pay the Tally

Each depth posts a bill: 62 gold in the first. Pay it at the first merchant you can: paid by floor 3 it returns 3 gems, and the boss fights at his normal strength instead of up to 40% stronger. See the Tally.

Before the boss

Tap the floor number, "8/30", in the top bar. From floor 8 of a depth the boss notice plays his fight with your current gear and says READY, CLOSE or NOT YET. If it says NOT YET, the last floors before him are for fixing that: one more set piece, a merge, a tonic.

Against The Tallyman: GUARD his Heavy, and kill his imps first.

Ten habits

1. Wear something in every socket. An empty socket is the worst piece in the game.
2. Two pieces of one set by floor 3.
3. Buy every twin of a piece you wear.
4. Cast your skill every turn you can.
5. GUARD the Heavy, ATTACK the rest.
6. Kill the healer, the thief and the summoned helpers first.
7. Pay the Tally on floors 1 to 3 of the depth.
8. End fights by turn 10.
9. Carry a Red Tonic, and from the second depth a Green Draught and a Gilt Heart.
10. When you die, tap "Why you died". It tells you which of these you skipped.

Play Gold BelowThe first ten floors are free. No ads, and it plays offline.

Written from the game's own rules, version 2.9.4. Spotted something wrong? Tell us on Discord.