Play Guide

Welcome to the quick Guide on how to play Head Rush. Here we deliver you all information you need that you are well prepared for your next big run!

Basics First!

Before we can dive really into the topic, we need to make sure that our players are familiar at least with the basics. At this point we assume that you already played your first run and know how to control your character, if not here´s a quick reminder:

Swipe left: move left

Swipe right: move right

Swipe up: jump

Swipe down: roll down

Great the controls are now in our hands! Now we can take a closer look at our Gameplay-Interface or HUD. We start from the top and go down. In the upper reight corner you have 2 numbers, the first one represents your amount of credits (currency) you´ve collected so far in this single run. The number below it shows you the distance you´ve run so far. It works quite simple because instead of meters or miles, we use the Tile-Distance. Very simple: every map is made out of different courses e.g. one is a cliff and the other one is a jump part over a river. Whenever you passed one of those courses or tiles your (yellow) number will increase by +2. Directly below there are your player´s hearts, if you lose one, it will appear in grey. Under your hearts there is the character´s ability icon, depending on the class. At the Bottom right corner there is your ability activate button, which will appear, if your character´s ability must be activated by yourself. Lastly, in bottom left corner you´ll have the pause button, if you press it you can either pause the game and decide to continue or fully end your current run.

Character Classes

So now that we know how we can control our characters, we only need to to knw them. Currently there are 4 different character classes or how we call them: Ability Classes:

Durabilty

Boost

Collector

Jumper

And YES the color has a specific meaning, which defines the rarity and progression of the certain Ability Classes. The rarity "Common" are here all cards of the Collector Class, "Uncommon" are all Durability Class Cards, "Rare" all cards of the Boost Class and "Epic", which include all cards of the Jumper Class. Every Ability Class of course has their own unique ability and brings up a certain way on how to use them in the game. As an example the Boost Class gives you characters that are made for fast and far runs, while Collector Class characters are made to play more safe and collect more credits - it totally depends on your preferences, so get creative! Now it´s time to explain very quick how each ability works - hopefully you all remembered the colors:

The Durability Class is a passive class, which means that you dont have to interact via a button to activate the ability. Luckily it´s very easy to understand the ability: if you lose your third heart, the ability automatically activates, you get one heart and the cooldown of 60 seconds.

The Boost Class is an active class, where you need to be focused or else you run into the water. Here you have a Button at the corner, if you press it the ability activates and you get a stim boost for 5 seconds (this is a fix duration, which cannot be changed by upgrades for now). After the ability deactivates you get a 50 second Cooldown.

The Collector Class is a worthy one because it actually helps you in your progression. You have again a button to activate the ability, which works likes a magnet and collects all surrounding credits you pass for a total of 10 seconds. After that, it will automatically recharge in 60 seconds.

The Jumper Class is an infinity class because there is no cooldown. If you press the button on the screen, you get a double jump, which can save you from several possible deaths in the game.

Leveling and Upgrading

Till this point we know exactly how our characters work and are familiar with the controls. Now we get to the more complex part - the progression! At first we deal with the leveling and upgrading system and in order to fully understand this system, it´s crucial to know that you level your characters by collecting them as cards. Every collectable or playable item has their own unique card, which can only be collected by buying Cardpacks with your credits or crystals. On how they exactly work is a thing we will deal with later in this guide. So to conclude this a bit up: every character has their own level, there is no maximum level! To reach a new level you need to collect a specific amount of cards. Every level-up increases the amount of required cards by 20%. Here a quick overview on how much cards are required for the first upgrade:

Durabilty: 150 cards

Boost: 130 cards

Collector: 140 cards

Jumper: 120 cards

It may sound a lot, but if you´re into the game it gets easier. The hard part comes now because leveling up your characters gives you always a purpose: XP, which will always be given and Ability Upgrades, but those only till a specific level!

Durabilty: Level 1-7

Boost: level 1-6

Collector: Level 1-9

Jumper: Level 1-4

After your character of one of those classes pass their "max" level, any further upgrades won´t have an effect on your characters abilities. Any upgrade can improve the following things: the cooldown ability, general character movement speed and general character jump velocity.

Cardpacks

Lootboxes or other similar mechanics are quite normal in the mobile game industry, but we decided to make it more fair, especially for players who don´t want to spend any money. Thats why we implemented our cardpacks and firstly, we will deal with the way on how to get one of these before checking each one individually. Cardpacks give you, depending on the player progression, all items you can collect and unlocked such as credits, crystals or cards. You can either get them through the Cardpack-Shop by spending a specific amount of credits OR crystals. Another way is that good players get a guaranteed Trophy-Cardpack, if they reach a certain Tile-distance or trophy. So that we are now familiar on how to get them it's crucial to know how they work. As mentioned we implemented a slightly different system that we first wanted to test. Normally, mechanics like these are dealing with probabilities of their items. We did it different because instead of probabilities we are dealing with a Random Range. Here is an example: You open a Common Cardpack and you get a specific number of Cards, let´s just assume you get 5x Lumberjack. The next Common Cardpack gives you 6x Lumberjack, why is that so? Well the Random Range System has always a minimum amount of cards you can get, based on their rarity and a maximum amount of cards you can get, based on the rarity. Now let´s go over every single Cardpack and take a look at what they offer, shall we?

Common Cardpack: guaranteed 4 cycles, contains: Credits (range between 11 and 18), Durability character cards ( range between 3 and 7), Collector character cards (range between 3 and 7).

Rare Cardpack: guaranteed 6 cycles, contains: Credits (range between 20 and 25), Crystals (range between 3 and 5), Durability character cards ( range between 7 and 13), Collector character cards (range between 7 and 13), Boost character cards (range between 1 and 5).

Gold Cardpack: guaranteed 9 cycles, contains: Credits (range between 33 and 37), Crystals (range between 6 and 9), Durability character cards (range between 13 and 21), Collector character cards (range between 13 and 21), Boost character cards (range between 9 and 15)

Trophy Cardpack: guaranteed 11 cycles, contains: Credits (range between 35 and 42), Crystals (range between 8 and 12), Durability character cards ( range between 15 and 23), Collector character cards (range between 15 and 23), Boost character cards (range between 11 and 18)

Magic Cardpack: guaranteed 13 cycles, contains: Credits (range between 53 and 97), Crystals (range between 11 and 17), Durability character cards ( range between 16 and 32), Collector character cards (range between 16 and 32), Boost character cards (range between 13 and 20), Jumper character cards (range between 20 and 26).

Another huge advantage of our system is that you can get a specific item twice or even more in one Cardpack because of our Random Range System. As mentioned this system is a test for us as well and based on the player´s feedback, we will work on it to improve it to the maximum, but that´s it for the Cardpacks. Now we finally arrived a point where we can say: YOU´VE MADE IT! Congratulations and now it's time to explore all you can at Head Rush - the track is now your´s!