The loop
Strike, climb, loot, grow
Every kill buys the next one. Your boons keep striking while you tap, and while you are away, so the loop runs faster each time round.
Step 1Strike
12% crits
Every tap hits. Some land as crits, for 8× the damage. At first your thumb is the whole army.
Step 2Climb
1 kill, 1 stage
Each foe you drop moves you one stage up the road, and the next one is tougher.
Step 3Loot
Gold from all
Everything that dies pays out. Bosses pay 3.5× as much.
Step 4Grow
×2 every 10 levels
Gold buys boons that strike on their own, and levels that make them hit harder. Bleeding Edge starts at 10 gold.
Then every 5th stage, a boss
It has 4× the health and 30 seconds on the clock. Kill it and the road goes on. Run out of time and it throws you back a stage, to grow and try again.
Choose your hero
6 heroes, 6 ways to fight
Heroes come to Tapheim from every land. None of them is the strong pick: their kits differ in shape, not in worth. Each brings 5 skills of their own. The first comes at stage 5; the rest you learn as the climb reaches them.
Kaito
the Oathsworn
He swore an oath to a lord who did not live to hold him to it. He kept it anyway, and took the last ship out to Tapheim to see it through.
In battle
A blade and the will behind it. Hits hard by hand, and harder in bursts.
Skills · 5 to learn
StrengthStage 5
Your taps hit eight times harder.
12s · 1m 30s cooldown
- ?
4 unknown skills
Keep climbing. They will come to you.
The wall
Every fifth stage, something hits back
A boss carries 4 times the health of the stage that produced it, and you get 30 seconds. Miss, and it is whole again.
That is the wall, and it is on purpose. An idle game without one is a progress bar that fills whether you are in the room or not. This one asks you to be in the room, then hands you your hero’s skills and a satchel of potions so that being there is worth something.
- 30son the boss clock
- Run it out and the boss heals to full, not to where you left it. The Bone Hourglass buys back half a second a level.
- +10sfrom a potion
- Drink one mid-fight to push the clock back, up to twice its length. A potion moves the wall a little. It never removes it.
- 34%of bosses leave a potion
- Or buy them with gold, or bring them home from a job. Hoarding a few for the boss you are stuck on is the point.
The trophy shelf
The ones worth naming
Some bosses have names. Beat one and it goes on your shelf with the story it earned. These are the first three you will meet.
Stage 25
Grimhorn
First of the Fallen
The first thing in Tapheim that hit back.
Stage 50
The Pale Watcher
It Blinked First
It had been watching the shore a very long time.
Stage 75
The Sightless Choir
They Hum in the Dark
You heard it long before you saw it.
40 more, for you to discover
Further down the road, deeper into the worlds, epic titans among them. Who they are, where they wait and what they were before Tapheim fell is yours to find out, one trophy at a time.
Idle damage
Boons that fight while you don’t
Boons are powers that strike on their own, and they keep striking with the game closed. You find them as you go deeper, and each one hits harder than the one before it. These are the first three.
Bleeding Edge
Every wound keeps bleeding.
Stage 1 · 10 gold · 1/s
Phantom Axe
A spectral axe keeps swinging.
Stage 3 · 75 gold · 8.5/s
Storm Call
Lightning finds your foe.
Stage 8 · 560 gold · 72/s
9 more, for you to discover
Each opens deeper than the last and buys more damage for its gold. Every tenth level doubles a boon, so the choice that shapes a run is yours to plan: push the one you have to its next doubling, or save for the next one you find.
Prestige
Start again, reach further
From stage 40, you can trade the run for relics. Gold, boon levels and tap damage are gone; your best stage, every boon you have found and every artifact carry over.
So the second run walks past where the first one stalled, and the boss you spent an evening on becomes a stage you do not notice. That is the axis the whole economy is built on.
Relics are paid for depth, not for time, and they buy the only upgrades that are never reset.
Artifacts
Crown Shard
+35% to all damage, per level
Up to level 200
Iron Gauntlet
+60% to tap damage, per level
Up to level 200
War Drum
+45% to boon damage, per level
Up to level 200
Hoard Key
+30% to gold dropped, per level
Up to level 200
Watcher's Eye
+1% critical chance, per level
Up to level 40
Bone Hourglass
+0.5s on the boss timer, per level
Up to level 30
Travel & work
Further out, it pays more
Everyone starts on the shore. Get deep enough and the road opens somewhere worse, where the monsters carry more health, every world has its own creatures, and every kill drops more gold for the trouble.
The gold outgrows the health, by enough to take you further once you can hold your ground. Arriving is the hard part: the stage you walk in on is suddenly several stages tougher, and a boss you were beating now outlives its clock.
Where every run begins
Tapheim Shore
Where Everyone Starts
The beach the boats come in on. Nothing here has ever killed anyone important.
x1 monster healthx1 goldWork here
Mend the Nets
1h · gold + 1 potion
Watch the Tideline
1h 30m · gold + 1 potion
Escort the Salt Caravan
2h · gold + 2 potions
Opens at stage 100
The Ashen Pass
Past the Last Watchfire
The road over the mountain. Everything up here is bigger, and it carries more.
x4 monster healthx6 goldWork here
Clear the Rockfall
1h · gold + 1 potion
Guard the Waystone
1h 30m · gold + 2 potions
Haul Ore from the Old Mine
2h · gold + 3 potions
Opens at stage 250
The Drowned Deep
Below the Tideline
The halls the sea took back. What lives down here has never been hungry for long.
x12 monster healthx24 goldWork here
Dredge the Drowned Shrine
1h · gold + 2 potions
Light the Lantern Line
1h 30m · gold + 3 potions
Hunt the Thing Below
2h · gold + 4 potions
Opens at stage 500
The Sundered Crown
Where the Crack Began
The old kings' city, split down the middle. Whatever broke it is still awake.
x36 monster healthx96 goldWork here
Sweep the King's Road
1h · gold + 3 potions
Relight the Lantern Ward
1h 30m · gold + 4 potions
Watch the Crack
2h · gold + 5 potions
Opens at stage 750
The Jade Wilds
Where the Roads Give Out
The jungle the old kings never tamed. Everything out here grows, and most of it bites.
x108 monster healthx384 goldWork here
Cut a Trail to the Falls
1h · gold + 3 potions
Strip the Golden Bell
1h 30m · gold + 4 potions
Find the Lost Expedition
2h · gold + 5 potions
Opens at stage 1000
The Pale Reaches
Past the Last Map
Snow over everything the old kings fled from. Nothing out here has seen a fire in years.
x324 monster healthx1,536 goldWork here
Dig Out the Last Wall
1h · gold + 4 potions
Chip Out the Frozen Fleet
1h 30m · gold + 5 potions
Hold the Blue Gate
2h · gold + 6 potions
A road you have opened stays open. Prestige sends you back to the shore, and so does starting over, but neither takes away the way out. Where you stand is the run’s; where you are allowed to go is yours.
Or put the sword down for an hour
Every place has work, an hour to two hours long, that pays gold and potions when it is done. The dangerous places pay more of both. Take one before you put the phone down and come back to a wage instead of a fight.
Nothing is fought
No taps, no skills, and your boons stand down with you. The monster you left is back at full health when you return. Two hours away is not a pause button on a boss.
You stay where you are
No travelling until the work is done, and no prestige either. A job pays for the stage you took it on, and a fresh run on stage 1 is not that stage.
Walking away pays nothing
Walk away whenever you like, for nothing. A job pays for finishing it, or the longest one, dropped when convenient, would always be the right pick.
The gold is your own strength: an hour of work pays at least what an hour of your fighting is worth, more than twice what the same hour idle would bring in, and it grows as you do. The wage is fixed the moment you sign on, and somewhere dangerous pays more, by how much richer the place is than it is hard.
While you are away
It keeps going without you
An idle game is a long commitment, and most of it happens with the screen off.
12 hours of fighting you did not do
Close the game and your boons keep fighting at half rate, for up to 12 hours. Or take a job before you go and come back to a wage instead.
ComingA save that asks instead of overwriting
If the phone and the cloud have both moved on, the game will ask which one you meant, and show you both. Last-write-wins is how idle games quietly delete a week of somebody’s evenings. Time away will be counted on the server too, so winding the clock forward earns nothing.
- Coming
Boards for depth, prestiges, relics and kills
Four leaderboards, because one number cannot say whether you went deep, reset often, or hunted bosses. Nothing on them will be submitted by the app; they are read from what your save already proves.
ComingClans ranked by what you did after joining
A clan’s totals will count only what members have done since they joined. Otherwise recruiting one veteran is the fastest route to the top, and a board stops measuring anything that happened there.
Questions
Before you set sail
When does Tapheim come out?
It is coming to iOS and Android, and there is no date yet. Leave your address and we will write once, on the day it lands on the stores.
Is it free?
Yes. Tapheim is free to download and free to play.
Does it need an internet connection?
No. The whole game runs on your phone, so it plays offline: on a train, on a plane, wherever. Online extras such as cloud saves and leaderboards are coming, and they will be optional.
Do I have to keep tapping?
Only when you want to. Your boons fight on their own, and while the game is closed they keep earning gold at half the rate, for up to 12 hours. Tapping matters most at a boss, where every hit counts against the clock.
What happens if a boss beats me?
Every 5th stage is a boss with 30 seconds on the clock. Run out of time and it throws you back one stage, not back to the start. Grow a little stronger and try again, or drink a potion: each one adds 10 seconds, up to twice the clock.
Which hero should I pick?
Whichever you like the look of. The 6 heroes fight differently, not better or worse, and each one learns a kit of their own as the climb goes on.
What is prestige?
From stage 40 you can end a run and start again from the shore, in exchange for relics: upgrades that never reset. Each climb after that goes faster and further than the last.
Will my progress follow me to a new phone?
Your progress is saved on your phone. Cloud saves, so a run can move to another device with you, are coming.