Basics

You get 6 weapons and 6 passives, with two exceptions. Level-ups fill twelve slots. The Mindbender relic changes the weapon half, and the planner reads your setting out of an imported save. The other exception is the stage floor: the Silver Ring, Gold Ring and both Metaglios are found on the map and sit outside the count, which is the only reason the Infinite Corridor and Crimson Shroud route fits at all. Everything you take at a level-up, though, is a slot you cannot use for an evolution later, so decide what you are building toward by about the 5 minute mark and refuse the rest.

How evolutions actually trigger. Three things must be true: the weapon is at max level, the required passive is in your inventory (any level, unless the recipe says otherwise), and you open a treasure chest dropped by a stage boss. Bosses start dropping those chests from 10 minutes in.

Chests give more when you have more ready. A chest can hold up to five items and will happily evolve several weapons at once. If you are one level away on two weapons, spend a moment topping both up before you crack the chest.

Staying alive

Keep moving, always. Standing still is how runs end. Circle-strafe around the swarm rather than running in a straight line into fresh spawns - you want enemies trailing behind you in a clump your weapons can chew through.

Armor is worth more early than late. Armor subtracts a flat amount from every hit. Early on, when enemies hit for very little, that flat number blocks most of the damage. By minute 25 it barely registers - so buy it early and stop investing later.

Defensive items are not wasted slots. Laurel and Clock Lancet deal little or no damage, but a run that ends at 18 minutes deals zero damage for the remaining 12. Both also evolve into genuinely powerful defensive tools.

Building well

Cooldown is the quiet best stat. Empty Tome makes every weapon you own fire more often - it multiplies your entire build rather than one weapon. If you are unsure what to take, Cooldown is rarely wrong.

Two evolved weapons beat six unevolved ones. Spreading levels across six weapons leaves you with six weak ones. Pick two or three evolution targets, drive those to max level, and take the passives that feed them.

Banish is how you control your build. Buying Banish in the shop lets you delete an unwanted item from the offer pool for the rest of the run. A few banishes early turn a random build into the one you actually planned.

Curse is a damage stat in disguise. More Curse means faster, tougher, more numerous enemies - and therefore far more experience and gold. Once your build can hold a crowd, Curse makes runs better, not worse.

Long-term progression

Buy Greed early, then everything else is cheaper. Greed increases the gold you earn every run. Bought early it pays for the rest of the shop; bought last it barely matters. Same logic applies to Growth for experience.

Reroll, Skip and Banish are build tools, not luxuries. These three let you refuse bad offers and shape the run. Most players underrate them because they do no damage - but they are the difference between hoping for Empty Tome and getting it.

Unlock stages by surviving 20 minutes. Each normal stage opens up by surviving 20 minutes on the previous one. You do not need to reach 30 - leaving at 20 with the unlock banked is a perfectly good run.

Dying does not cost you your gold. Gold and unlocks earned during a run are kept whether you win, die, or quit out. A failed run is still progress, so take the risky stage.

Secrets & extras

Pick up the Randomazzo in Gallo Tower. It unlocks Arcana cards for every future run - an entire extra layer of build customisation. It is the single highest-value pickup in the base game.

Some characters are unlocked by typing. A handful of secret characters are unlocked by typing their name directly on the character select screen rather than by meeting an in-game condition.

Explore the edges of each map. Coffins, relics and hidden pickups sit far from the starting point. If a run is going well and you are safe, spend the spare minutes walking somewhere you have not been.