r7notes

Gameplay

2 min read

Gameplay Overview

CrawlCipher is a tactical, grid-based, turn-calculated action game described as a mix of Chess and Snake. It values spatial planning, resource management, and geometric positioning over raw reaction speeds.

The Core Loop

  1. Lock & Load: Equip your items and initiate the blockchain session lock.
  2. Deterministic Spawn: The game board (grid width, grid height, walls, food, enemies) is initialized deterministically based on the transaction seed.
  3. Navigate & Surive: Slither through the grid, avoiding walls, enemy bullets, and body self-collisions.
  4. Acquire Energy & Score: Eat food and eliminate enemy snails to maintain your energy level and increase your score multiplier.
  5. Circuit Activation: Bend and loop your body segments to activate overlapping weapon hitboxes (the Moving Circuit mechanic) to destroy obstacles and enemies.
  6. Extract: When the wave count or time objective is complete, the Exit Portal activates. Navigate the snake’s head to the portal and survive the countdown to extract.
  7. Unlock & Record: Submit the final session hash to release your locked blockchain assets and record your new scores.

UI Layout (Terminal Panel)

The Terminal interface displays several distinct panels:

+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| V0.2.0 | PILOT: RVOIDEX7                    [ARROWS] MOVE   |
+------------------------------------+------------------------+
|                                    |                        |
|                                    |   MISSION STATUS       |
|                                    |   Wave: 3/5            |
|             GAME GRID              |   Multiplier: x1.45    |
|                                    |   Score: 2450          |
|         (Snake Movement)           |                        |
|                                    |------------------------|
|                                    |   PILOT STATUS         |
|                                    |   Energy: [|||||..] 5/7|
|                                    |   Bonus:  [||...]   2  |
|                                    |                        |
+------------------------------------+------------------------+
| BACKPACK: [Pistol (10)] [Laser (2)] [Amplifier]             |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+

Controls

  • Arrow Keys / WASD: Change the snake’s heading direction. In Manual mode, each keypress advances the game by one tick (step).
  • Enter / Space: Dash or fire active weapons.
  • I / B: Toggle Backpack & Inventory UI overlay to equip/unequip modules.
  • Esc: Pause game / return to menu.

Graph View