Emberwake: Survival: six braziers, forty-five seconds of fuel, one night

Most survivors-likes treat light as set dressing: a circle around the hero so you can see what to run from. Here light does the work. The lantern shoots on its own, braziers heal you and cook shadows, and each one burns for exactly forty-five seconds, which means standing still is against the rules rather than merely unwise.

One night, three hundred seconds

The ruins hold a single run: NIGHT = 300 seconds, no levels, no loading, no save file. It starts on a keypress and ends on either "DAWN BREAKS" or "THE FLAME GOES OUT". The whole night grows from one number: enemy health is scaled by 1 + t/300 · 1.3, so by sunrise a shade meets you roughly 2.3 times tougher than at the start, while spawn frequency climbs to 6.5 times the opening rate (1 + t/300 · 5.5). The four "surges of shadows", at 60, 120, 180 and 255 seconds, just switch that multiplier on early so you never have to wait for the finale to feel it.

At 210 seconds (3:30) the Moonmoth Matriarch descends: 3200 health, alternating a fan of shots, a dash and a moth summon, and an enrage once half her health is gone. You still have to hold the line for the remaining ninety seconds.

Braziers: the reason you cannot camp

Six bowls sit in a ring around the centre: three at radius 18, three at radius 24, spaced 60° apart, with two of them linked to neighbours by paths. Step within 2.3 m and hold for just under a second (prog += dt · 1.3) and the bowl catches.

A lit brazier gives you:

• +100 to score at once, plus a 45-damage fire wave out to 5.5 m at the moment of ignition
• a circle of light 6 m wide where shadows burn for 12 damage per second and crawl (speed cut to 0.2)
• 3 health per second while you stay inside that same circle

And here is the catch: fuel lasts exactly 45 seconds. A minute later the circle is dark and the bowl has to be kindled again. That single constraint generates the geometry of the run: six points spread far apart, the light at one of them dying before you get bored of the other, healing and burning available only inside the ring. Kindling is not an optional defensive bonus, it is the only way to keep the map working for you.

One detail explains the intent: on the title screen the central brazier burns with a fuel reserve of 999 seconds, and the moment the run starts it is put out (braziers[0].lit = 0). All six have to be lit by you, including the one at your back.

The lantern fires without you

The weapon needs no clicking. Each cycle the lantern looks for the nearest shadow within 15 m and spits embers at it. The first volley deals 10 damage every 0.62 s; at level five of Ember Bolt that is 30 damage every 0.38 s, and from level four bolts pierce through the target. With no enemy in range the lantern stays quiet, so camping an empty corner of the ruins means taking no damage and scoring nothing.

Critical hits land 12% of the time for double damage. Then come the blessings that change how the shooting works at all: Twin Flame adds an extra bolt per volley (up to four, spread 0.16 radian apart), Scatter Sparks break a hit into fragments, Storm Chain leaps lightning between three to seven enemies (16+7·level damage, recharge 3.4−0.35·level seconds), Sunburst clears everything around you (22+10·level damage out to 4+0.7·level metres), Cinder Halo sets orbiting cinders to work, and Bright Lantern widens your light until enemies inside it burn on their own (5 damage per second per level). Moon Ward absorbs one hit and recharges in 13−2·level seconds; Quick Wick cuts 8% off every cooldown at once.

Three cards and a pause to think

Gems bring experience: coal and moonstone are worth two score points per experience unit. The level threshold is 5 + 3l + l^1.6, rounded: level five costs 33, level ten 68, level fifteen 116. Every level-up opens three blessing cards, and picking one pauses the night, so you can actually read them. That is rarer in the genre than it sounds, where upgrades usually arrive at a run's full speed.

Six kinds of dark

Each one wants a different answer, and "just run past it" does not work on all of them:

• shades: 14 health, 2.7 speed, 8 damage — a wall that wins by numbers
• moths: 7 health, 4.4 speed — they come in swarms of five and are the hardest to catch
• crawlers: 34 health, 11 damage — slow, thick, and they hurt
• wraiths: 70 health, 12 damage — they keep their distance and fire a three-shot volley from 14 m
• golems: 220 health, 20 damage — heavy, immune to knockback, so never let one touch you
• the Matriarch: 3200 health, 22 damage — fan, dash, summon, then a rage at half health

Moths and the Matriarch never collide with your body, yet they burn in brazier light like everything else. Light is the only thing in the game that works on all six.

Score: what actually pays

Coal and moonstone pay 2 points per experience unit. Kills pay by type: shade 10, moth 8, crawler 20, wraith 60, golem 120, Matriarch 5000. A brazier is worth 100. Every 15 kills in a row raise the multiplier by 0.5, and the chain holds for 2.2 s — break it and you start over. Survive to dawn and you collect 3000 plus 20 for each point of health left, which is why walking out of the night whole beats merely walking out alive. That bonus is what turns Moon Ward and Hearthstone from insurance into scoring cards.

Controls

• WASD or arrows to move, Space or Shift to dash: 0.18 s of invulnerability, 1.1 s recharge, and Swift Boots shave 0.08 s per level
• 1/2/3 or click to pick a blessing, arrows to leaf through the cards
• Esc or P for pause, M for sound, left stick and A on a gamepad
• on a phone: an on-screen dpad and a dash button, and blessing cards open on tap
• it runs in the browser with nothing to download: three.js ships next to the game

Is it worth playing

A run costs five minutes, and the choice between staying in the light or running to the next bowl comes back every forty seconds. If the genre has tired you out on collecting numbers instead of steering a map, this one is about the map: Emberwake: Survival.