Horde

How to play

Horde: rules and tips

In short

• You lead a horde across an open battlefield. 1 to 8 players take part and bots fill the empty seats.
• Villagers join you when you walk through them.
• A bigger horde takes soldiers from a smaller one.
• A round lasts 3 minutes and the strongest horde wins.

Goal

Have the horde with the most Power when the round ends. Power is the number of soldiers in your horde.

The round

Everyone starts with 5 soldiers. All soldiers are the same, and every villager you pick up becomes one more soldier. The more soldiers you have, the wider your horde gets. A round lasts 3 minutes, and the room host can also pick 2 or 4.

• A horde more than a tenth stronger takes soldiers from a smaller one. When its centre reaches the smaller horde's flag, the flag falls and most soldiers switch sides or scatter.
• After your flag falls you come back in 3 seconds with 5 soldiers and a short shield. In the Last Clash at the end of the round nobody comes back.
• From the middle of the round the Fog closes in. Outside the circle a horde loses soldiers.
• The only button is the hero ability. Each hero has a different one: speed, protection, faster takeovers or drawing villagers in.

Gates, bridges and speed paths

• A plus gate adds soldiers, a ×2 gate doubles your whole horde and a toll takes soldiers away. You can use the same gate again only after a short wait.
• Bridges cross the rivers and gorges. A wide bridge carries even a horde of hundreds, while part of a big horde can fall off a narrow footbridge into the water.
• A light trail with arrows is a speed path. Step on it and your horde moves 40% faster for 5 seconds.

Items on the battlefield

Round items lie around the battlefield. Walk over one to take it, and after a while it shows up somewhere else.

• Wind Amulet: your horde is faster for 12 seconds.
• Growth Seed: 30 villagers spring up around your horde, or 12 if your horde is bigger than average.
• Iron Guard: for 14 seconds rivals absorb you more slowly and cannot knock down your flag. The two biggest hordes get only 7 seconds.
• Rallying Horn: nearby villagers join you at once.
• Mist Veil: for 16 seconds rivals near you are a quarter slower.
• Magnet: for 9 seconds you slowly pull in villagers, scattered soldiers and smaller hordes.

How to play

• Quick play: you join a public room with players you do not know. Once at least two people are in it, the round starts by itself within a minute.
• With friends: you create a private room and share the code. The host adds bots and splits players into teams.
• Practice: a round with bots that also works offline. It gives half Renown.

Renown and rank

Rounds give you Renown, which raises your rank. A win also gives a blueprint. Renown, rank, blueprints and heroes are shared with Hordolam. You pick your hero in the room before the round.

Controls

• Touch: put your finger in the lower part of the field and drag where the horde should go. The hero ability is the round button at the bottom right.
• Mouse: the horde follows the cursor while you hold the left button.
• Keyboard: arrow keys or W, A, S and D. Space uses the ability, 1 to 5 send a marker to teammates, Esc pauses.

Who it is for

The game is in the Minigames section, apart from the games for children, and it is hidden in kids mode. The fighting is cartoonish, and soldiers who are taken over simply run to another flag. There is no chat. In Quick play you also meet strangers. They can only send short preset messages, they can be blocked and reported, and the host can kick them between rounds. Bots always have the Bot label next to their name.

Drawings and sounds

HoyHop drew the characters, villages and battlefield, the same drawings as in Hordolam. Icons come from Phosphor Icons (MIT). Sounds are made right in the browser.