Instructions
The basics
How to play
In this vertically scrolling shooter you are in the driving seat of a leaper - a light exploration vessel not completely unsimilar to a four-legged spider. Your objective is to locate and collect artifacts and bring them to automated recovery stations previously air-dropped in the area. Your edge is a Mark VII "Amiable" Automatic Missile Assembler kept to yourself from a previously successful run. Use it liberally to punch holes in anything that looks dangerous.
Default controls
The map
This is where you plan the next leg of your expedition. The map is divided into sectors of approximately equal size and radiation level. You can choose to move into any neighbouring sector for which you have radiation data. As the game starts this applies to a small part of the map only, but should you survive long enough you will eventually be able to visit it all.
A high radiation level (red) reduces the risk that everything of interest in the sector is already recovered by other actors, but in return the added danger lowers your own chance of survival. Low radiation sectors (green) are much safer to stay in, albeit generally worthless for finding artifacts.
A visited sector is marked. If you revisit a sector you'll find it empty of all artifacts and artificial lifeforms. The reason for this is unknown, but it is suspected that the failure to eliminate a threat triggers an emergency self-destruct protocol in the defense systems.
As you reach the distant edge of the known radiation map your leaper automatically backtracks through safe areas and returns to base camp for an overhaul. Here your map is updated with information from your sensors, expanding the area you can explore on your next venture into the unknown as well as marking the locations of bases and stations.
The behaviour of the directional controls near the edge of the unexplored is slightly extended:
When your arrow looks like this 
you stay in the completed sector on returning, allowing continued latitudinal movement.
Press the up key again and the single up arrow changes into 
. Now, after completing the sector, you get a score boost for each previously visited sector as you backtrack through them. Once back at the baseline you may continue with new expeditions.
Bases and stations are where you drop off the artifacts you find. You can visit an individual base or station once only, but if you reach the distant edge of a fully uncovered map, new bases and stations are dropped in all areas where you have successfully delivered artifacts.
Bases, found in high radiation areas, are represented by 
on the map.
Stations show up as 
and are found in mid-level radiation areas.
The green display below the map homes in on the distress beacons of unsuccessful explorers, showing their general direction and distance. While there won't be any survivors to rescue (or at least no witnesses to prove it) their leapers, if still intact, could well come in handy.
Status and supplies
This screen displays your current status. It shows the number of artifacts delivered as well as your rank, the best indicator of your success as an Archaist. After a set number of artifacts turned in, you are promoted to the next rung. The ultimate rank is thirteen promotions away. Reach it and you can retire safe in the knowledge that you, unlike the civilizations from which you scavenge, will never be forgotten by history.
Here is also a list of available upgrades. Install one of these by selecting it from the list and pressing the activate button. You may have multiple upgrades active simultaneously but only one of each kind. Upgrades remain in effect until deactivated or destroyed, except for the deradiator which must be discarded after use.
 | Heavy metal - an additional layer of shielding against radiation |
 | Beam shield - protects your leaper from incoming fire |
 | Scrambler - disrupts the enemy tracking devices |
 | Deradiator - a one-shot full radiation cleansing |
On the move
Score is gained by grabbing items, collecting and turning in artifacts and shooting aliens. Each 5 000 points you get gives access to another spare leaper. Colliding with anything that can't be picked up spells instant death. Avoid it.
The exposure meter measures the leaper's radiation level. When this gets too high the radiation shield is overloaded and you are exposed to the full force of radiation. This too results in a quick and painful death.
The artifact counter keeps track of the artifacts carried by your leaper. Leave these at a station or base to enjoy a timed bonus, protection against either collision or radiation. The duration of the effect is shown in the dynamic display and based on the number of artifacts brought at once. The more the better, but remember that each time you die you lose half of your undelivered artifacts so don't get greedy.
The distance you must travel through a sector before returning to the map screen increases with your score.
Difficulty levels and different objectives
Archaist allows almost any aspect of the gameplay to be fine-tuned to suit your preferences and abilities. This is done under the custom menu in the difficulty settings and is further described in the settings section.Should you not desire that level of control, the game also comes with four preconfigured and balanced difficulty settings ranging from very easy to hard.
There are also three different overarching goals to choose from under the game type settings:
- Explorer
- With less hostiles and more ruins, better rank is achieved by exploring as many sectors as possible. Locating sectors with extra lives counts higher towards this goal.
- Archaist
- The default setting as described throughout these instructions. Collect and deliver artifacts to climb the ranks.
- Hunter
- Here you gain promotions by killing as many aliens as possible with the drones counting double. The number of kills you rack up in a sector is shown in the dynamic display and each time you die, this number is halved. There are less ruins in each sector and a lot more enemies.
Two-player game
Two players can play the game at the same time, either together or against each other.In cooperative mode, lives, scores and items are pooled and shared. One's loss is a loss for both, so allocate items smartly and cover each other in battle. If the game ends for one player he may return to the game if the other player scores a new life. If alive, player one is always in charge of navigation on the map screen.
In competitive mode, you fight for all resources. Each player has his own set of bases where to turn in artifacts. The player who is first to complete a sector chooses where to go next on the map. If the game ends for one player, he may join in with a new game only if the other player survives to enter the next sector. For high score purposes, only the first of these games counts.
Additional settings for either of the modes are screen size and threats. See the settings section for more information on these.
High scores
As there are many billions of game setting combinations, each with its own set of challenges and quirks, comparing scores between the various configurations is just not fair. And since fair is boring, we have the all time high scores list which does exactly that.Each combination of settings has a list of its own too. If you are experimenting with different settings they are kind of pointless as chances are you'll never see a particular list again, but when you have favourite configurations you play repeatedly they provide a fair comparison of game results.
While not all settings are game altering enough to warrant a different high score list, most are. To distinguish between different high score lists, each list comes with a heading stating number of players, game type and difficulty. Lists for games played on custom difficulty also carry an ID consisting of four short words mapped to the current configuration. This ID has no other purpose than to make the list humanly identifiable.
Should you not be interested in high scores at all, you can turn them off completely in the scores menu.
