Exploring
Exploring is a walk through the city, one block at a time. Every step costs one Explore Turn and turns something up: scraps, cash, reputation, a street fight, or something better. It runs on its own turns, never Energy, and anyone can play it from the start. It also has places worth going to. Three Leads a reset, a hidden cache only you can find, eleven landmarks, and a Most Wanted in every district.
The City
The city is a 60×60 grid of 3,600 blocks. You see the 15×15 blocks around you (11×11 on a phone), with your character in the middle. Each block is colored by who holds it in the Alignment War: blue for Heroes, red for Villains, grey for open ground. The two bases are bright cyan and amber.
- Blocks you haven't walked since the last reset are dimmed. The walked blocks clear at every reset.
- Blocks near you show a colored outline if they are special ground (see Terrain). Turn on Show terrain everywhere in City map, war & turns (under the board) to see the outlines on the whole board.
- Dashed lines mark where one district ends and the next begins.
- The city map, in City map, war & turns under the board, shows the whole city with the art underneath, your view as a white box, today's Leads, the landmarks, and any flag that is out.
Turns
- Your turns refill to 100 at every reset: noon and midnight, game time (Pacific). That's up to 200 a day.
- Turns don't carry over. Whatever is left when a reset hits goes back to exactly 100.
- Out of turns? Swap 1 Point for 25 turns, up to 10 swaps each reset, in City map, war & turns (it opens by itself when your turns run out).
- A Sidekick with Long Legs adds extra turns at every reset, on top of the 100.
- If you are not in the Alignment War, every reset puts you back in the middle of the city. If you are, you stay where you were.
Moving
- You need to be conscious to explore. If you're knocked out, heal at the Hospital first.
- Walk with the arrows, WASD or your arrow keys. On a phone the arrows sit in a row under the board. You can also tap any block to walk there.
- Tap a block next to you to step onto it. Tap a block farther away and you walk there by yourself, one ordinary step at a time. Every step still costs its turn and rolls its find. The walk stops after 30 steps, on anything worth a look (a fight, a Lead, a landmark, a friendly face), or when you tap Stop or press Esc.
- Things worth walking to that are off the board get a chip on the board's edge pointing at them, with how many blocks away they are. That covers your Leads, the nearest landmark you haven't visited this week, Whisper's stash, and in the war your base and the flags.
- Walking into the edge of the city costs nothing.
- Every so often Explore asks for a quick check before you keep walking, like the rest of the game. Until it's solved, steps are refused and cost nothing.
Your character
You walk the city as your side's masked rookie. Your character is male or female, as set in Settings, and faces the way you last walked. The same character walks the Hollow and the Gauntlet.
What a Step Turns Up
Every step rolls one find. At night the odds shift toward fights (see Night).
| Find | Day | Night | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scraps | 50% | 46% | 1–5 scraps; +1 on an Alley, +2 on a Crime Scene. |
| Cash | 20% | 20% | $20–$300 flat (not level-scaled); ×1.5 in Downtown, ×1.35 on a Rooftop. |
| Reputation | 10% | 10% | A quarter of what one Streets action pays at your Reputation: 4 at the start, rising to 8. Positive for Heroes, negative for Villains. |
| Street fight | 12% | 16% | A named thug from the district (see Street Fights). Win for EXP, lose some HP. |
| Special | 8% | 8% | 6–12 scraps, the best plain find. |
On top of that roll, any step can also bring a friendly face (1 in 40, in place of the find), a pawnable item (1 in 15) or a rare pet. If you are in the war, it can also bring a War Find.
Terrain
Every block has a fixed kind of ground. It never changes, so you can learn where the good ground is and go back to it. Plain street is 60% of the city.
| Ground | Share | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Street | 60% | Nothing extra. No outline on the board. |
| Alley | 12% | +1 scrap on a scraps find. |
| Crime Scene | 7% | +2 scraps on a scraps find. |
| Rooftop | 8% | Cash finds pay ×1.35. |
| Subway | 9% | Won street fights pay ×1.5 EXP. |
| Rare Spot | 3% | Pet finds are 4× as likely (1 in 400 becomes 1 in 100). |
Fresh Legs
The first moves of every reset pay more: moves 1–5 pay double and moves 6–10 pay ×1.5. It counts for the ordinary finds, street-fight EXP and the landmark bonus. It does not count for Leads, the hidden cache, Word of the Day, the Most Wanted or friendly faces, which pay for going somewhere, not for when you started.
Street Fights
A street fight is one of three named thugs from the district you are in. Your chance to win comes from your Power, Speed and Strength against a difficulty set by your level, and always lands between 55% and 95%.
- Win: 0.5% of the EXP your level needs. That's ×1.5 in the Subway, ×1.25 at night, and boosted by Fresh Legs and the Heights perk.
- Lose: 5–12 HP.
The Most Wanted
Every district has one Most Wanted. In a district whose Most Wanted you haven't beaten today, 1 in 20 street fights is them instead (1 in 15 at night). Your stats face three times a normal thug's difficulty, so your chance to win lands between 35% and 85%.
- Win: 5% of the EXP your level needs (+10% with the Heights perk), $1,500–3,000 and 25–50 scraps. Your takedown is announced to the whole city. That Most Wanted is gone for you until the next game day (midnight).
- Lose: 15–30 HP, and they get away. You can run into them again.
Friendly Faces
Not everyone on the street wants a fight. 1 in 40 steps, one of these five turns up instead of the normal find. Their gifts don't use Fresh Legs, but your side's district perks still count.
Daily Leads
Every reset brings three Leads: tip-offs at set coordinates, the same for every player. They show on the board, on the city map and in the Word on the Street list, nearest first with how far and which way. Tap one to walk there. Each pays once per reset. Leads are always at least 12 blocks apart and never on the outer edge of the city.
| Lead | Pays |
|---|---|
| Stash | 30–55 scraps |
| Drop | $1,200–2,200 |
| Wreck | 15–30 scraps and $600–1,100 |
Every reset has one of each kind. Leads ignore Fresh Legs; the Slums perk, flash events and your Sidekick still count.
Hot and Cold
Every reset, you get your own hidden cache somewhere in the city. Every player's is somewhere different. It has no marker anywhere. The only clue is the Hidden Cache reading at the top of the page, which changes as you walk:
After each step it also says whether you got closer or farther. Step on it for $600–1,000 and 20–40 scraps. The reading then says Found until the next reset brings a new cache. It's never on a base, a landmark or a Lead.
How to find it fast: walk one way until the reading says farther, then step back. You're now level with it on that line. Turn 90 degrees and do the same again. Most hunts take 15–50 turns.
Word of the Day
Three small jobs each reset, the same for everyone, shown in the Today tab beside the board, with progress bars. One always sends you somewhere, and the other two fill as you play:
| Go somewhere (one of) | As you play (two of) |
|---|---|
| Find a Lead | Win 3 street fights |
| Visit a landmark | Find 60 scraps |
| Find your hidden cache | Walk through 2 districts |
| Step on 3 rooftops |
Finish all three for $1,000 and 30 scraps, once per reset.
Landmarks and the Passport
Eleven named landmarks stand around the city. Your first visit to each one every game week pays 20–40 scraps (Fresh Legs and the Slums perk count) and counts toward missions. Game weeks start Monday. Any visit counts for the "Visit a landmark" job.
The passport, in the This week tab beside the board, shows which ones you've visited this week, one dot each. Tap a dot to walk there. Visit all 11 in one week for +150 scraps, once a week.
Night
From 8 PM to 6 AM game time (Pacific), the city gets rougher and the board goes dark, with a streetlight around you:
- Street fights rise from 12% to 16% of steps (taken from scraps finds).
- Won street fights pay +25% EXP.
- The Most Wanted turn up in 1 in 15 street fights instead of 1 in 20.
A purple Night chip at the top of the page shows when it's on.
Districts
The city has five districts. Whichever side holds a district gives everyone on that side its perk. Control is rechecked every hour from the blocks each side holds.
The bar above the board says how many districts your side holds. Tap it for the full list: who holds each one, and the perk your side gets from it.
A district can come under siege. While it lasts, blocks you take from players there pay double EXP and Rep, and a pulsing Siege chip with the time left appears above the board.
Weekly Boards
In the This week tab beside the board, three boards run for each game week (Monday to Monday):
- Blocks walked: every step.
- Thugs beaten: street fights won, Most Wanted included.
- Most Wanted: Most Wanted taken down.
Each board shows the top 5 and your own rank. When the week ends, the top 3 on each board are paid automatically: 500 / 300 / 150 scraps. Mayor and Minister accounts don't compete.
Streaks
Use at least one turn after the noon reset and before midnight, every day, and your streak grows. It's checked at midnight, so turns spent only in the morning don't count.
| Streak | Reward |
|---|---|
| 3 days | +15 scraps |
| 7 days | +1 Point |
| 14 days | +2 Points |
| 30 days | +5 Points |
Pets and Pawnables
Each district hides rare pets. Every step has a small chance to find one, 4× as likely on a Rare Spot. With a full carrier you're told the pet got away. Make room at the Pet Store to keep the next one.
| District | Pet | Chance per step |
|---|---|---|
| Slums | Raccoon | 1 in 400 |
| Downtown | Crow | 1 in 400 |
| Industrial | Police K9 · Iguana | 1 in 600 · 1 in 500 |
| Heights | Parrot | 1 in 600 |
| Mid-City | Black Cat · Fox | 1 in 800 · 1 in 600 |
Separately, every step has a 1 in 15 chance to turn up a pawnable item: 65% common, 28% uncommon, 7% rare. It goes straight to your Backpack. Sell it at the Pawn Shop.
In the Alignment War
Enlist at the Watchtower and Explore becomes the front line. The full rules are in Alignment Wars.
- Claiming a block costs 1 turn. Use the Claim block button on the board, or tick Auto-claim as I walk on the War line. With auto-claim, a step onto a claimable block costs 2 turns.
- The block must touch at least 2 blocks your side holds.
- Open block: always yours. It adds a tile to your side and pays nothing else.
- Enemy block nobody claimed (the ones each side starts the week with): always yours. Like an open block, the tile is the reward.
- Enemy block a player claimed: always yours too, no fight. Taking it from a player pays 0.2% of a level's EXP and some Rep, and it shows in both your Claim logs.
- Flags are automatic. Walk onto the enemy flag to grab it. It rides on your character, and a banner points home. Reach your base to capture it, for +15 to your side's score, War Points and 100 scraps. Step onto your own flag where it was dropped and it goes straight home. Lose a fight while carrying, and you drop it.
- Retreat to base takes you home for 10 turns.
- With at least 1 War Point, steps can also bring a War Find.
Tips
- Read the Word of the Day first. It tells you where to go this reset.
- You can't do everything in 100 turns. All three Leads, or the hidden cache and two Leads: pick a plan.
- Spend the first ten moves on purpose. Fresh Legs pays up to double on the ordinary finds.
- Hunting EXP? Walk Subway blocks, and play at night: more street fights, worth more.
- Missing a landmark this week? Tap its dot in the passport and walk there.