Your people are blue. The red god's people are red. You win when every red home and red walker is gone.
The island is big, and the red god starts somewhere out in the clouds. You only see the land your people have explored, and red homes and people only while your people are near them.
Your people are men (tunics, short hair) and women (dresses, long hair). Men build the homes: a man builds a home on any free flat tile, and go off exploring to find flat land when there’s none nearby. The more flat land round a home, the bigger it can grow: tent, hut, cottage, house, manor, tower and castle. But a home only grows as its people get stronger, so the strongest homes become the castles. While a home is still growing into what its land allows, most of its people stay to build it up and fewer go off to settle. Strong men will walk further to find land with room for a castle. Women look for a home with a single man in it and move in with him. With no single man near, a woman goes along with a man who is off to build one. A castle with a wide spread of flat land round it (7 by 7 tiles) becomes a Great Castle, the biggest home of all. Its walls take up the 3 by 3 tiles round it, so that land must be level too.
Every home wants to be a castle. When a house or bigger has grown strong and a smaller home of your own next door is in its way, the smaller home’s people move out to settle somewhere new, and the bigger home takes the land.
While people are at home their energy grows. Only a couple has children: the little bar under a couple’s home (the one with a pink heart) fills up, and when it’s full a child walks out, a boy or a girl, to settle new land, so your population keeps growing. A single man’s home (an empty heart) has no children and grows slowly until a woman moves in. The bigger the home, the faster its energy grows and the faster new people walk out. Up on the high snowy ground homes grow at about half the pace, and people walking there feel the cold. Homes on land that stops being flat fall down.
Each hilltop has a tall pointed spike with a ring of lower land round it. Nothing can be built on rock.
Watch for the red god's hand: it hovers wherever red is shaping the land or about to strike. Before each of its powers lands, a storm cloud gathers over the spot with a countdown, and the ground under it is ringed in red. Your people under it run and the rest point at the sky. You have a few seconds to act: call them away, raise land against a wave, or strike back. A red hand rises over any home of yours the red god destroys.
When something happens off the screen, a pill at the edge points the way, and the little map shows a ring there. Tap the pill to go and look.
When blue and red walkers meet they square up and trade blows. Each blow knocks some strength off (you’ll see the numbers fly), and the stronger fighter usually wins. A walker attacking a home fights the people inside at the door; win and the home changes sides.
Tap Powers to use one. Each power recharges after use, from about 20 seconds for Swamp up to two minutes for Volcano and seven minutes for Armageddon. They all start the world charging up, so the bigger powers become ready over the first few minutes. The number on the Powers button says how many are ready. Powers that need a place ask you to tap the land; the others need a second tap to make sure. Every world has all seven powers, for both gods. On the early worlds the red god uses them sparingly and rarely brings out the big ones; as the worlds get harder it uses them more often and more cleverly. On the daily world it is a fair match.
Drag to look around, pinch (or use the mouse wheel) to zoom, or tap the little map. 1× speeds the game up to 2× and 3×. On a keyboard: F flatten, R raise, L lower, A ankh, Space pause.
Win a world to open the next. Win within its target time for three stars, within half as long again for two. The daily world is the same for everyone and changes at midnight UK time.
Sign in with Google to get on the leaderboards: Most stars across the 20 worlds, and the fastest wins of today’s world. Signing in also keeps your progress on every device.