Game Mechanics
Master the core mechanics of DreamShift to dominate your runs. Understanding these systems is key to victory.
🌟 The Three Visions
Each Vision represents a distinct playstyle with unique cards, heroes, and mechanics.
Fire
Aggressive Offense
Fire excels at dealing massive burst damage and applying burn effects. Burn both damages enemies AND reduces their damage output.
Strengths
- + High burst damage
- + Burn = DoT + damage reduction
- + Strong Combustion finishers
Weaknesses
- - Limited healing
- - Burn stacks decay over time
- - Relies on aggressive plays
Key Mechanics
- • Burn stacking (2 dmg + 10% debuff/stack)
- • Combustion (consume burn for burst)
- • AoE damage
Ice
Control & Disruption
Ice focuses on controlling the battlefield through freeze and chill effects. Ideal for strategic players who plan ahead.
Strengths
- + Strong crowd control
- + Excellent survivability
- + Disrupts enemy patterns
Weaknesses
- - Lower raw damage
- - Slow buildup
- - Relies on combos
Key Mechanics
- • Freeze chains
- • Shatter (bonus damage to frozen)
- • Chill stacking
Nature
Attrition & Sustain
Nature wins through outlasting enemies with healing, poison, and powerful Seeds that grow stronger over time.
Strengths
- + Excellent sustain
- + Poison stacks permanently
- + Seeds provide passive benefits
Weaknesses
- - Slow damage
- - Weak to burst
- - Seeds need time to grow
Key Mechanics
- • Poison stacking
- • Nature Seeds (grow through lifecycle)
- • Replant cost scaling
🎴 Card Types
Cards are categorized into four types, each serving a different purpose in combat.
Attack
Deal direct damage to enemies. Most efficient way to eliminate threats.
Heal
Restore HP to heroes. Essential for sustain in longer fights.
Spell
Magical abilities with various effects. Often apply status effects or deal special damage.
Utility
Defensive and utility abilities. Provide buffs, draw cards, or protection.
💎 Mana System
Mana is your primary resource for playing cards each turn. Managing it wisely is key to victory.
Basic Mana
You start each turn with 3 mana. Mana refreshes completely at the start of your turn.
Most cards cost 1-3 mana. Plan your turns to maximize value from your available mana.
Mana Burn
Powerful cards with Mana Burn reduce your mana on the next turn.
A card with cost 3 and Mana Burn 1 plays for 3 mana now, but your next turn starts with only 2 mana instead of 3.
Mana Burn Strategy
- 🔥 Use Mana Burn cards when you can afford a weaker next turn (e.g., finishing off enemies)
- 🔥 Cards with Mana Burn 2 are extremely powerful but leave you with only 1 mana next turn
- 🔥 Multiple Mana Burn effects stack - be careful not to burn yourself out completely!
🃏 Deck Building
Your starting deck contains multiple copies of basic cards and unique powerful cards.
Starting Deck (32 cards)
Why Multiple Copies?
- • Makes powerful cards feel special when drawn
- • Creates strategic depth in upgrade decisions
- • Each copy upgrades independently
- • Deck thinning becomes valuable (future feature)
Self-Damage Cards
Some powerful cards deal damage to a random hero as a cost. This creates interesting risk/reward decisions.
- 💀 Sprint - Draw 2 cards, a random hero takes 2 damage. Free but risky!
- 💀 Blood Pact (Sprint Evo A) - Draw 3 cards, take 3 damage. Maximum draw power.
- 💀 Upgrades add armor to mitigate the self-damage, making them safer at higher levels.
⚡ Status Effects
Status effects modify combat behavior. Understanding them is crucial for advanced strategies.
Burn
fireDeals 2 damage per stack at end of turn. Enemies deal 10% less damage per stack (max 50%). Stacks decrease by 1 each turn.
Freeze
iceSkip the next action. Frozen units cannot attack or use abilities. Each application has a 33% chance to fail, then Control Resistance applies.
Chill
iceDeals 33% less damage for the duration. Ice-themed debuff.
Poison
natureDeals 1 damage per stack at end of turn. Stacks do NOT decrease over time.
Regen
natureHeals HP at the start of each turn for the duration.
Root
natureImmobilizes the target, causing them to skip their attack. Applied by Nature Seeds.
Sleep
natureTarget is asleep and skips actions. Wakes up when damaged. Applied by Nature Seeds.
Weak
Reduces attack damage dealt by 25%.
Vulnerable
Increases damage taken by 50%.
Armor
Absorbs incoming damage before HP is affected. Resets at end of turn.
🎮 Game Flow
A typical run follows this progression through the dungeon.
Run Start
Choose your Vision. Begin with a deck of 32 cards (basic cards x3, common x2, unique x1).
Floor Navigation
Progress through 30 floors across 3 stages. Each floor presents combat, events, or shops.
Combat
Turn-based card battles. Play cards from your hand, manage mana, defeat all enemies.
Rewards
After combat, choose card rewards, gold, or healing. Upgrade cards at key moments.
Boss Fights
Face stage bosses at floors 10, 20, and 30. Multi-phase fights that test everything.
💰 Gold System
Gold is earned after each combat victory. The amount depends on the enemies you defeat and the stage you're in.
Dynamic Rewards
Gold = Stage Base + Enemy Values (with 20% variance)
Stage Scaling
Spending Gold
- 🏗️ Build Structures - Construct vision-specific buildings that provide passive combat benefits
- ⬆️ Upgrade Structures - Enhance structures to unlock more powerful effects (with success chance)
- 🌱 Plant Seeds (Nature) - Seeds have dynamic pricing based on how many you've planted
💰 Bribe System
Spend gold to bribe enemies before combat, removing them from the encounter.
How It Works
Pre-combat phase, after viewing enemy composition
Maximum 1 bribe attempt per combat
Gold is spent regardless of success or failure
Bribe Costs by Archetype
Smoothstep Probability Curve
Success chance follows a smoothstep curve, rewarding medium bids:
Minimal chance increase - inefficient
Rapid chance growth - sweet spot!
Diminishing returns - less efficient
🧪 Consumables
Single-use items found during your run. Use them wisely to turn the tide of battle.
Inventory
You can carry at most 3 consumables at a time. Must use or discard when full.
Found as combat rewards, in chests, or through events.
Usage
Use 1 consumable per phase (between combats). Choose carefully!
Use consumables in the reward phase after combat, before the next fight.
Effect Timing
Consumable Tiers
Drop Rates by Encounter
Normal Combat
Elite Combat
Boss Combat
Vision-Restricted Consumables
Some consumables are locked to specific Visions (Fire, Ice, or Nature). These provide vision-specific benefits like structure upgrades or status effect application. You can only find these when playing that Vision.
✨ Foil Cards
Foil cards are special cosmetic variants with stunning holographic visual effects.
What are Foil Cards?
Foil cards feature holographic shimmer, rainbow refractions, sparkle particles, and a 3D tilt effect that responds to your mouse movement.
Once unlocked, a foil version persists across all runs. Every copy of that card in your deck will have the foil effect.
How to Obtain
Complete a full run to earn a random foil card unlock. The harder the victory, the better your chances!
Additional unlock methods will be added in future updates.
Storm defenses and shell damage
The Frost Tyrant’s storm deals 32 fixed damage to every living hero before incoming modifiers. Armor and Frost Shield absorb it. Taunt and Evade do not protect the party. Chill, Weak and normal-hit reductions do not reduce it; Vulnerable increases the damage received.
Direct damage can exhaust Armor and break the shell, cancelling the storm. Damage over time can pass through Armor without breaking the shell. A due storm replaces the normal burst. Freeze or Sleep may skip the action, but the public clock still advances; Root does not stop the storm.
Read a multi-hit profile as damage per hit: each normal hit resolves defense and reactions separately. The same hero can be hit repeatedly. A burst resolves together; control applied during it stops the next action, while a form change or the attacker’s death ends the current burst.