Main Activities

The Gauntlet

The Gauntlet is an endless, push-your-luck combat run. You fight floor after floor of escalating enemies, building a growing pot of cash and loot as you climb — but your health carries between floors, and a single loss forfeits everything you haven't banked. How deep you dare to push is the whole game.

The Run

You need to be conscious to enter, walk or fight. If you're knocked out partway through a run, you can still bank your pot; heal at the Hospital to keep going.

Entering is free. Instead of a fight cost, each step you take in a room costs 1 Energy (drawn from the same pool as the Arena and Street) — but fighting through the guarded door is free, and bumping a wall costs nothing. Only one run is active at a time.

Every floor starts in a room you walk through — move your character around to grab pickups (see below), then reach the exit. The exit is guarded by that floor's foe, so to leave you have to fight your way out.

Win a floor — its cash is added to your pot, you earn EXP and Reputation (heroes gain rep, villains lose it — their infamy), you get a chance at a loot drop, and you pick one of three boons before moving on.
Your health persists — damage carries from floor to floor. Only small heal pickups in the rooms, the Patch Up and Vitality boons, and Smelling Salts from your Lunchbox bring it back, so attrition is what eventually ends most runs.
Lose a fight — the run is over and the entire un-banked pot, cash and loot, is gone. A door fight that's still going after 30 rounds also counts as a loss. The EXP, rep and stat gains you earned along the way are yours to keep, and your deepest floor still counts for the leaderboards.
Bank & Walk — once you've cleared floor 1, cash out safely at any time between fights (until then, the only way out of the first room is through its guard). The pot's cash goes straight into your bank and every pooled item drops into your inventory. On the room screen you hold the Bank button for a moment, so a stray tap can never end your run (a key press banks straight away).

On a phone, a run takes the whole screen. Back returns you to the normal page, and the run waits exactly where you left it — it never moves on its own.

Your Opposition

Who you face depends on your alignment, and it's always the other side of the law:

Villains cut a path through the city's protectors — beat cops, SWAT, vigilantes, and the heroes who come to stop you.
Heroes hold the line against an escalating crime wave — dealers, enforcers, lieutenants, and the kingpins who run them.

Every guard and boss has its own drawn art. Every opponent's stats scale off your own power times a floor factor, so the Gauntlet stays a real challenge whether you're a fresh recruit or a maxed-out veteran — nobody trivializes it, nobody gets one-shot on floor one.

Zones

Every ten floors the run goes deeper into the building: Street Level (floors 1–10), The Basements (11–20), The Tunnels (21–30), The Vaults (31–40) and The Pit (41 and down). Each zone has its own rooms, light and fight backdrop. Zones change how a floor looks, not how hard it is.

Rooms

Before each fight you walk the floor's room. Tap a tile to see the shortest path you know to it and tap it again to walk it (a tile right next to you is one tap), use the arrow pad under the room on a phone, or the arrow keys, WASD or the number pad. The room starts dark: you see about two tiles around you, the minimap fills in as you explore, and until you've spotted the exit an arrow points the way to the door.

Along the way you'll find cash into the pot, a small heal, a small run-long boost to a random combat stat, a pawnable item (shown by name when grabbed), a little energy back, food that drops into your Lunchbox if it has room, and wandering runts (see below). What you can't see are the traps — some tiles are rigged, and stepping on one costs HP (a room can never knock you out; it floors you at 1 HP). Walls make every room a different shape, and every room's size, layout, and contents are randomized.

The Fight Stage

When you fight the guard, the fight plays out on a stage: your fighter against theirs, with both HP bars, every hit, dodge and heal, and the fight log line by line underneath. Play it at 2×, Skip to the end, or Watch again once it's over. Your rewards and the next boon choice wait until it finishes. Fight sounds are off until you turn them on with the speaker button.

The Threat Read

The guard at the door shows how the fight looks from where you stand right now — your current health, your boons and your pet — as one of four reads, with roughly how often you'd win:

Easy — you win about 9 in 10 or better.
Even — you win most of the time, but not always.
Risky — about a coin flip.
Deadly — you lose more often than you win.

The read changes as your health does, so check it again after a trap or before a boss. It's an estimate from quick practice fights of the real engine, not a promise.

Growing Stronger — Runts, Temp Boosts & Permanent Gains

The Gauntlet is a real progression path. Every fight — and every runt you cross — grows your character:

Runts — little wandering critters (three per side, each tied to a stat: speed, power, or strength). One-shot them for a sliver of EXP, a small run-long boost to their stat, and a permanent gain to that stat of 90% of the Gym's base gain for your level. Some bite back for a little HP. No rep.
Door fights — beating a floor's guard grants EXP, a run-long boost to one combat stat, and 70% of the base gain permanently to one random stat, plus rep.
Bosses — a bigger EXP payout, a run-long boost to all combat stats, 95% of the base gain permanently to each stat, and extra rep.

The run-long boosts stack in the buff bar at the top of the page and compound as you go, making deep runs hit harder and harder. The permanent gains stick to your character forever, like the Gym.

"Base gain" is the first line of the Gym's per-train breakdown: what one train gives at your level before anything else. Intel, the Gym's boosts (the weekly war ranking, the Weight Vest, sidekick skills) and momentum don't apply in the Gauntlet, so a runt is worth well under one of your real Gym trains. That's on purpose: the Gauntlet also pays cash, loot and EXP, so its stats sit below the Gym's.

The Deep Floors (past 40)

Up to floor 40 your opponents copy your base stats, so every boon you stack puts you further ahead. Past floor 40 they start adapting: they copy a growing share of your boosted stats too, a little at first (about 5% of your boosts by floor 60) and more the deeper you go (about 15% by floor 100). Stacking boons alone stops being enough. Reaching floor 60 is very doable; floor 100 takes a strong build, good boon choices and a bit of luck.

The pot keeps growing every floor past 40, just steadily rather than faster and faster.

Bosses

Every 5th floor a named boss stands in your way — tougher, tankier, and worth a much bigger pot spike. Every 15th floor is an elite nemesis, the marquee threat of your side's roster. Each side has six bosses, and each one first appears on the same floor every run. Bosses always drop loot.

Boons, Rerolls & Tempt Fate

After each cleared floor you choose one of three boons:

Patch Up — heal part of your max HP now.
Quickstep, Brute Force, Ironhide — a boost to Speed, Power or Strength for the rest of the run.
Vitality — more max HP for the rest of the run, and it heals you for the extra.
Greed — more cash from every remaining floor. It stacks up to +100% at most and stops being offered once you hit that.
Scavenger — a better loot chance for the rest of the run.
Second Wind — once, a fight that would knock you out leaves you at 1 HP instead, with your pot safe. You're still facing the same guard, so bank or fight them again. It isn't offered while you're already holding one.

Boons after a boss are twice as strong as the ones after a regular floor, and every card shows its exact value before you pick.

Tiers — every card except Second Wind rolls a tier: Common (6 in 10), Rare (3 in 10) or Epic (1 in 10). A Rare card is half again as strong as a Common, and an Epic more than twice as strong.
Reroll — don't like the draw? Redraw all three cards once per choice for 10% of your unbanked pot.
Tempt Fate — skip the safe pick for a big reward (a large stat boost, a cash bonus, rare loot or a big heal) tied to a curse (lost health, lower max HP, a weaker stat, or tougher foes for a few floors). Its cash bonus counts toward the +100% Greed cap, so it only adds the room you have left under it, and it isn't offered once you're within 50% of the cap. High risk, high reward — every run plays out differently.

The Back Way

After most wins you choose which door to take next. The main door is the usual floor. The Back Way is a riskier route: the guard on that floor is 25% stronger, but the floor pays 50% more into your pot and your next boon choice includes at least one Rare or better card. The Back Way never leads into a boss floor, and both doors show their threat read before you pick.

The Front Page

Between runs, the Gauntlet's front page shows your fighter facing the next boss waiting for you, your deepest floor and your place in the city. The Way Down tracks the zones you've cleared and the bosses you've beaten; the bosses you haven't reached yet stay in the shadows. Two boards rank the deepest runs of the last 7 days and of all time, and your last run is summed up in a line.

Rewards

Cash — the pot grows with every floor, faster through floor 40 and steadily after that, and higher-level players earn more per floor. Boss floors pay a big spike, and the Back Way pays extra. Pushing deep is the whole temptation.
Loot — pawnable items, with better rarity odds the deeper you go. Bosses are guaranteed drops.
Achievements — for reaching deep floors, slaying bosses, and banking big.
Leaderboards — your deepest floor ever is ranked on the Hall of Fame and the Gauntlet's all-time board, and your deepest run of the last 7 days on its weekly board.

Tips

Banking is always free and always safe — the hard question is never whether you can win the next floor, but whether the pot you'd lose is worth the risk.
Watch your health more than the threat read: a fight you'll win can still leave you too low for the next one.
Take the Back Way when you're healthy. It pays well, but the tougher fight costs HP you'll need later.
Save your heals and Second Wind for the run into a boss floor.
Past floor 40 the enemies adapt to your boons, so plan for it: keep Second Wind for the deep floors, take Patch Up or Vitality when you are low, and think about banking before a boss floor.
Greed tops out at +100%. Once you have it, spend your picks on staying alive.
Your active Pet fights alongside you here, same as in the Arena.