AlloyMindStudios
Player manual
Start a colony, understand your bots, and find your next move. Search for a word such as fuel, legs, raid or iCloud, or browse by topic. The guide works without an account.
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Choose New Colony on the title screen and follow the opening tutorial. Your first job is to keep the bots supplied while they establish a place to work and recharge. You can take your time: the colony continues at the speed you select.
Two small panels sit in the top corners, so most of the screen is your colony.
Drag one finger to pan around the colony and pinch to zoom. Zoomed out, you look down on the whole colony; as you zoom in, the camera tilts lower for a closer, side-on view. Tap a bot or building to open its card. The card tells you what it is doing and shows the actions available there.
With a trackpad or mouse, pinch or use the scroll wheel to zoom, and swipe with two fingers or drag with the right mouse button to pan. With a keyboard, the arrow keys or W A S D pan.
Tap a bot, then tap ◎ Follow on its card. The camera moves in close, sits lower and keeps the bot in view as it goes about its work. Buildings that get in the way turn see-through. You can still pinch to zoom.
To stop, drag the colony or tap ◎ Following on the bot's card. The camera eases back out to where you were.
The NEXT chip under your resources in the top-left panel is your short guide to the colony's next milestone. It shows one line; tap it to read the whole sentence, and tap again to fold it. If progress pauses, check it first: it can tell you to wait for a bot's request, collect resources or tap the Mainframe to place a building. You can hide it with Settings → Game → NEXT bar.
Tap the Mainframe and open its build list. Choose a ready blueprint, then tap a valid place in the yard. Your bots build it when the colony has the required scrap and a builder is available. If a plan is locked, its card and the NEXT line explain what it needs.
Bots gather scrap from veins and use it to build, repair and equip the colony. If construction is waiting, check the scrap count in the top bar. The Industry directive gives mining more attention when you need resources.
Bots process ore into fuel and use it to keep working. When fuel runs out, bots enter LOW POWER and slow down. Give mining priority with the Industry directive, let the miners work, and build a Fuel Depot when you need more storage. Adding bots faster than you can fuel them makes shortages worse.
Tap a bot to open its card at the bottom of the screen. It shows what the bot is doing now and its actions, such as Follow and Enter Chamber; Enter Chamber opens its full profile. Bots learn, form friendships and rivalries, and make their own choices. Their personalities are part of how the colony grows; you do not need to command every step.
Open Menu and tap its first button (it shows the current directive, such as ◈ Balanced ▾) to choose: Balanced, Industry, Research, Community or Defense. A directive shifts what the bots prioritize; Balanced is a steady default, while Industry helps when scrap or fuel is scarce. With a keyboard, keys 1 to 5 pick them. Speed has its own button beside Menu.
Tap the Fabricator and choose a bot to build: a Scout (50 scrap), a Hover (120) or a Brunt (250). The top of its card shows a live view inside the Fabricator, which works while a bot is being built; when the bot is done, the shutter rolls up and it rolls out. Each new bot adds a worker and a personality, but also adds to the colony's fuel needs.
Every build costs 20 fuel as well as its scrap, so a colony with plenty of scrap can still be unable to build. When fuel is short, the Fabricator's card says so: set some bots to Mining, or switch the directive to Industry, until fuel passes 20.
Bots save their own scrap for gadgets and get them fitted at the Mod Chamber. A few gadgets are available from the start; the rest are worked out by bots experimenting at the Lab. Tap the Lab to see what has been researched, what comes next and how close it is. The Lab also works out new legs for Hover bots.
Once the Lab stands, its experiments work out three leg sets for Hover bots, on the same list as the gadgets: the Tread Base after 3 experiments, the Ball Tire after 6 and Spider Legs after 8. Only Hover bots can take them. The head is the bot: its name, mind and memories stay the same whatever legs it walks on.
Changed your mind? Choose Its own legs in the same list: going back is free. The Fabricator does one refit at a time and none while it is building a bot or damaged. A bot that is out in the Wasteland or malfunctioning has to wait. In the Arena, legs are only for looks.
The Arsenal, the training yard under the glass-rimmed dome, is there from the start. Bots train there with their own scrap. The first drill makes a bot a defender, and each drill after that gives it its next weapon, for fighting off raiders and in the Arena. Every bot starts with one: Scout Repeater, Hover Laser, Brunt Mortar. Only Brunts mount the Missile Pod.
Tap the Arsenal to see how many bots are armed and the weapons in order. Prioritize Training Here switches the directive to Defense. In the full game, once the Lab has found the shield, a bot with every weapon it can carry and Intelligence 3 or more can be fitted with one there for 24 scrap.
The Mainframe grows with your bots' minds. When the colony's sharpest mind reaches 2.7, two smaller processing towers and two server cabinets rise out of the ground beside it. At 3.5, two more towers complete the ring. Its job stays the same: tap it for the build list (the sharpest mind is shown at the top), the Puzzle Archive and its device slot.
The Forge is a long, low hall. It opens on the Mainframe's build list once the Lab stands and the sharpest mind reaches 3.0, for 1,000 scrap and 60 turns. It does not arm bots; weapons come from the Arsenal. Its device slot takes a device that speeds up building or helps in the Arena. When the sharpest mind reaches 3.5, its wing grows out toward the colony.
The game does not need a connection for the colony or its bots' minds. Your colony saves itself every 8 turns and whenever you leave the app; a small green check next to the turn number means it has just been saved. When the app is closed, the colony can keep working for up to four hours. Tap Activity Log at the bottom left on your return to see what happened while you were away.
Sentry Towers help guard the yard. When the raid warning appears, look at its arrows to see where raiders are coming from. Your bots can defend nearby threats on their own, firing hologram cannons at the raiders. To post one bot somewhere, tap it during a warning or attack, tap ⚔ Send to defend, then tap where it should stand guard. ALL HANDS calls every available bot to one place when you need more help.
A raider that reaches the Fabricator's stockpile or a vein stuffs scrap into the loot pod on its back and runs for the edge of the map. Some drain fuel from the Charger or the Fuel Depot instead, and a raider may rob a bot salvaging out at a junk pile. Stop it before it gets away and it drops the pod: the scrap or fuel comes back to the colony. If it reaches the edge of the map, that loot is gone for good. If you leave the app during a raid, the raiders leave and the colony keeps what was in their pods.
The Arena is a turn-based fight. Your chosen bot has a ★; the other squad members act according to the tactic you set.
Anomalies lead to small, turn-based puzzles. Read the goal on the puzzle card, then use the direction buttons to move the bot and push objects into place. You can undo a move or restart. The first three anomaly levels are part of free Chapter 1.
In the full game, send a bot to a site on the Wasteland map. A trip can bring back finds and choices while your scout is away. Read the expedition cards to see what happened and choose when the journey asks for your help.
Later in the full game, the Telescope searches the sky for another world. Once it has found one, the Ark opens on the Mainframe's build list; the NEXT line guides its preparation. When the Ark is ready, tap it: choose up to three bots for the crew (one bot always stays behind), pick a Legacy Core for the next colony, and tap Launch the Ark, or Not yet to wait. The journey carries their story into the next colony.
In the full game, a world that builds the Ark Mk II gives her a launch pad of her own past the colony's buildings. For the last voyage, the Mk II is stripped to her hull and towed out to the space port at the end of a curving path. There the bots rebuild her as the Cradle Ark in three stages from the Mainframe's list: the reactor (needs the Lab), the crew pods (needs the Forge or the Relay) and the engines, each 1,200 scrap, 40 fuel and 50 turns. Tap her to bring the camera to the port. When she is whole, the whole colony goes aboard and she launches from the port in a plume of exhaust and smoke.
Chapter 1 is free; the full game is a one-time purchase. When you authorize the Lab, the game shows the full-game card. You can also open it any time from Settings → Game → Full game. You can keep playing Chapter 1 without unlocking the rest. There are no ads, subscriptions or virtual currency.
Open Settings → Game → Full game (or the full-game card at the Lab) and tap Restore purchase using the Apple Account linked to your unlock. The game also checks for existing access at launch. To use an offer code, go to Settings → iCloud & privacy → Redeem a code or use the link on the full-game card.
Check Settings → iCloud & privacy → iCloud saves and its status line. With iCloud saves on, your colonies can return after a reinstall or on another iPhone or iPad using the same account. With it off, deleting the app also deletes the local colonies.
The game asks once, on the title screen, before it counts anything: choose Yes, send counts or No thanks. Usage counts are anonymous tallies, like "a colony was founded", with no name, no email and nothing that points to you. You can change your answer any time in Settings → iCloud & privacy → Usage counts.
In the game, open Menu → Report a problem, or Settings → Help → Report a problem. You can review the report and add a screenshot before sending. You can also use the web support form, where an email is optional unless you want a reply. See the FAQ for quick answers about saves and game access.
In Settings → Game, Battery saver trades effects and frame rate for a cooler phone and longer battery; it also comes on by itself in Low Power Mode or when the phone gets hot. Detailed shadows lets grass, rocks and trees cast shadows, and Sharper shadows under it makes the sun's shadows crisper for a little speed.
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