Controls and tips
How to play
Build, hold the Anchor, and watch the ground. The first page teaches the rest. The full guide has every number.
The basics.
Every wave opens with a countdown. Build during it, or press Start Wave to bring the wave early and take the Thread bonus. The Unwritten come out of the tear, walk the shortest road to the Anchor and attack whatever blocks it.
The only thing that ends a run is the World Anchor’s health reaching zero. The complete numbers for every structure, enemy and page are in the guide.
Controls
- Build
- Pick a structure card, then click a tile. On touch, tap a card, tap a tile to place the ghost, and tap again to confirm.
- Look at something
- Hover, or click to select. On touch, tap a structure.
- Cut The Thread
- Press the button, then choose a tile. The same on touch.
- Zoom
- Fixed framing on desktop. On touch, pinch, or use the + and - by the cog, up to twice size, and drag to move about.
- Pause
- The cog, or Escape.
- Start a wave early
- The Start Wave button. It brings the wave on at once and pays a Thread bonus.
A page, in four lines.
- Preparation: build with the countdown running, or start the wave early for a bonus.
- Waves: the Unwritten walk the shortest road to the Anchor and attack what is in the way.
- The Anchor: 1000 health. Enemies that reach it spend themselves on it, which does not count as a kill.
- Thread is the currency: kills pay it, Thread Spinners make it, and finishing a wave pays a bonus.
The ground.
Every tile walks through the same states: whole, cracked, fraying, and finally the Void. Decay eats at the page on a timer, faster beside the tear and beside ground that has already gone. The Anchor wards the ground around itself, and a Bridge Maker can lay a temporary crossing over a hole.
Enemies cannot normally cross the Void, and it never comes back on its own. A page you finish with holes in it still counts, so long as the Anchor stands.
Cut The Thread.
You can unmake your own ground. Cutting a tile turns it to Void and drops everything standing on it into the Unfinish’d, which is a kill and worth more Thread than shooting the same enemy. You cannot cut the last road between the tear and the Anchor, and cutting costs World Integrity, so the third star on some pages is a choice between a clean page and an easy hold.
Good habits.
- A Pusher shoves everything in reach one tile away. Push enemies into the Void for bonus Thread.
- Spend what you hold when the page makes Thread come in at half rate.
- Read the objectives on the right: each page’s three stars ask something different of you.