VIGIL

Every attack you throw is a bet on your own hands.

Pick STRIKE and you have five seconds to live through. Pick SURGE and you have ten, and it will be angry for all of them. The blow only lands if you are still standing when the phase ends, so choosing the big swing is choosing the long night, and dying mid-swing lands nothing at all.

Five bosses. No upgrades between runs, no currency, no meta-progression. One boon after each kill and then straight back into it.

IT DESCENDS. Every phase you take, the boss drops a little lower and the box you fight in gets shorter. Grinding it down with the cheap attack is safe, and it costs you the room you are grinding in. Guard and it comes down faster. There is no attrition strategy that does not eventually put you in a slot.

EVERYTHING TELEGRAPHS. Beams draw thin before they fire thick. Rings show you their one open lane. Nothing here spawns already lethal, and there is no position on the board you can stand in and be safe. That last part was checked rather than assumed: a prober parks a motionless player on every cell of the arena and measures what never gets touched.

Drag to move. Trackpad, mouse or thumb. Arrow keys work and are worse.

M mutes.

Runs about three minutes if you are good, and rather more if you are not.