How to play Carve the Fate

The goal

Fight your way down through 4 depths — The Barrows, The Drowned Vaults, The Flesh Engine and The Ironwood. Each depth is a branching map that ends in a boss. Win battles, spend what you earn on a better bag of dice, and defeat the last boss to win the run. If your HP reaches zero the run is over — death is permanent — but the unlocks and achievements you earned stay with you.

Starting a run

Press Start on the title screen. You choose how you want to play (see Controls), then pick a bloodline. Each bloodline has its own HP, starting gold, starting dice and passive rule. 4 are in the game: Viking, Necromancer, Marauder and Skald.

You can also enter a fixed seed to replay a particular run, or take on the Daily Descent: one shared seed and bloodline each day, one attempt.

Your turn: roll, lock, reroll, strike

1. Roll. At the start of your turn every die in your bag is rolled (a bag holds up to 8 dice).
2. Lock. Tap dice to lock the ones you want to keep.
3. Reroll. Reroll everything that isn't locked. You have 2 rerolls each turn, so choose carefully.
4. Strike. Play a ritual — a pattern your dice form. The ritual fires, the dice it used are spent, and the enemies take their turn.

You normally play one ritual per turn. Your block and HP carry on while the fight lasts; when every enemy is defeated, the battle is won.

Faces and symbols

A die face is one of four things:

• a number, which feeds pairs, runs and totals;
• a symbol — Sword (offence), Shield (defence), Bone (raises the dead), Skull (curses and drains), Cross (healing) or Reroll (banks an extra reroll);
• a Wild, which completes whatever pattern helps you most;
• a Blank, which counts for nothing.

The full face list for every die is in the dice guide.

Rituals

There are 29 rituals in the game. Some read numbers — a pair, three of a kind, a straight of four — and some read symbols, such as three Swords or two Crosses. Several bloodlines have rituals only they can use. The complete list, with what each one does, is in the ritual guide.

Two rituals are worth knowing on day one: Disrupt and Shove can shatter an enemy's charging attack before it lands (see below).

Enemies and what they intend

Every enemy shows its next move before it makes it. An attack hits for a stated amount; a defend raises its own block; a charge winds up for one or more turns and then lands a much heavier blow. A charge can be interrupted with a ritual that shatters it. Some enemies inflict statuses such as Poison, Curse or Rot (Rot steals rerolls until a Cleanse purges it), summon allies, or heal themselves. Bosses often break one rule of normal play — read their description before you fight. Every enemy is listed in the bestiary.

The map

Each depth is a branching map of 8 floors. At every step you choose which connected node to visit next:

Battle

A fight for gold and a choice of rewards.

Elite

A tougher fight that pays gold and a choice of relics; elites don't appear on the first floors.

Peddler (shop)

Spend gold: dice cost 30, runes 25, relics 60, a heal 15 (restores 25 HP) and removing a die from your bag 20.

Campfire

Rest to heal 40% of your max HP, toughen up for +6 max HP, or spend the fire upgrading one die face. You choose once.

Treasure

No fight: gold and a choice of relics.

Event

A short story with choices — a bone carver, a wandering smith, a sleeping giant. Some cost HP, some pay off. See the event list.

Boss

Waits at the bottom of every depth. Beating it pays gold and a choice of relics.

You recover 12 HP after each encounter and a further portion when you descend to the next depth, so you can't simply refuse to rest.

Building your bag

Winning fights offers you new dice and runes. A rune must be carved into a die — some rewrite a face, others add a triggered effect — and if there's no good home for it you can cast it away. Relics are permanent passive powers that change how your rolls are counted. At a campfire you can upgrade a face: raise a number, double it, turn a blank into a Wild, or carve a plain face into a Sword, Shield or Bone. See the dice, rune and relic guides.

A bag does not have to be big: you can pay the peddler to remove a die, and a tight, focused bag is often stronger than a crowded one. The most reliable builds pick a theme — Swords and Shields, Bones and Skulls, or high pairs and straights — and commit.

Controls

Carve the Fate is played entirely by tap or click — there are no keyboard shortcuts or gamepad controls. It is designed portrait-first for phones and shown in a phone-shaped frame on larger screens.

• Tap a die to lock or unlock it.
• Tap Reroll to throw the unlocked dice again.
• Tap Strike to play a ritual.
• Tap an enemy to focus it; focused attacks land on it.

In Settings you can choose between two combat styles — Lock, then strike (you pick exactly which dice to spend) and Strike, then choose (the game lists every ritual your roll can form and spends the dice for you) — plus music and effects volume, text size, animation speed and reduced motion.

Saving and progression

Your run saves automatically in your browser's local storage, and Continue on the title screen resumes it. Settings, run history and unlocks are stored on your device too. Clear your browser data and they go with it. If you sign in with a free Zonto account (optional), progress and achievements sync across devices. Some dice, relics, rituals and bloodlines are unlocked by achievements — such as winning a run — and appear in the Codex once found. See the privacy policy for exactly what is stored.