WINDOWS
LINUX
WHO INSISTS HE IS A WIZARD
SOFTWORKS
APPROVED
(UNDER DURESS)
Warning
THIS GAME IS FOR ADULTS ONLY (18+). IT IS NOT RATED BY ANY RATING BOARD. IT CONTAINS CARTOON GORE, SWEARING THAT LANDS, DARK JOKES, AND ROUGHLY FORTY-FIVE PEOPLE PROPOSITIONING ONE MAN WHO DOES NOT NOTICE. IT DOES NOT CONTAIN EXPLICIT SEX, REAL PEOPLE, OR A SINGLE PERSON WHO BELIEVES HE IS A WIZARD, EXCEPT HIM.
KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN. KEEP OUT OF REACH OF BLUD, WHO WILL READ IT AS A SPELLBOOK.
Health and safety
A very small percentage of individuals may experience flashing lights when the Moon Lantern goes off. A much larger percentage will experience a wizard explaining that it was a spell. Take a break every hour, as the Sage recommends, and every time Blud calls a key a wand.
Do not play while operating a crop crate. Do not sign anything Counselor Marrow hands you. Do not open the crate.
Care of your copy
- Android, Windows and Linux builds are the same game. Progress is saved in numbered slots; make as many as you like.
- Saves are written on every room change and when you leave the app. A damaged save loads its own backup. Deleting a slot deletes all of it.
- Do not blow into the APK. It does nothing and Vexa will hear about it.
Voices
Every line is spoken. The voices are synthetic. Their timbres were generated by a text-to-speech model from speech samples in the open VCTK research corpus (see Credits). The characters are fictional and are not endorsed by, or portraits of, the speakers. Blud and June are American. Everyone else has crossed the sea to doubt him.
Blud Ninzha is a private release. Bottomlands Softworks is not a company, and June stamped the cover anyway.
Contents
| The Story So Far | 4 |
| Getting Started | 6 |
| Controls: Android | 8 |
| Controls: PC and Gamepad | 9 |
| The Game Screen | 10 |
| The Pause Menu | 11 |
| The Wizard (Blud, and the five ways to be him) | 12 |
| The People of Puddleby | 14 |
| The Eight Relics | 16 |
| Items and Pickups | 18 |
| Map of the Bottomlands | 19 |
| Know Your Enemy | 20 |
| The Nine Lairs | 22 |
| Night and Hat Ranks | 24 |
| Wizard's Tips | 25 |
| Credits | 26 |
| Notes | 27 |
| Limited Warranty | 28 |
This booklet calls him a wizard throughout, because he asked, and because he is standing right behind me. He is a ninja. He has smoke bombs in his sock. Enjoy the game.
Thank you for choosing Blud Ninzha for your pocket, desk, or penguin. Please read this booklet completely before playing, then forget most of it, as he did.
The Story So Far
This land has a wizard problem.
Archmage Vexmire, the Board-Certified, stole the Eight Relics, sealed every road out of the Bottomlands with rubble, thorn, deep water, boulder, chasm, shadow, crystal and ward, and pissed off everyone. Seven diplomas hang in his citadel. Not one of them is real, but nobody has been able to get close enough to check.
Only a true wizard could stop him.
Meanwhile, at the swamp port, a quiet man in a very good suit was counting on nobody stopping him.
Unfortunately, the only one who answered the call was Blud Ninzha.
Blud: Wizard.
Narrator: A ninja. In a robe. In a wizard hat. His mother always called him artistic.
Every legend starts somewhere. This one begins in a drafty cottage on the edge of the Bottomlands, where a young man woke up twelve years ago, put on a pointed hat, and declared himself a wizard. He has no spellbook, no formal training, and a sword he insists is a wand. He believes in magic the way other people believe in breakfast: completely, and every single morning.
The villagers find him baffling. The local women find him adorable. Blud finds neither group relevant to wizardry.
Underneath the robe and the foolish hat is a man who has never once doubted himself, which makes one of him in the whole Bottomlands. Not the Sage. Not the town. Not, yet, the clerk behind the counter who writes down "wizard" without a smirk.
And so, on a morning just like any other, the wizard set out into the realm. First stop: the old Sage in Puddleby, who will point him at each of Vexmire's lairs, hand him a sword, and call it a sword.
Blud: It's a wizard hat. For a wizard. Me.
Eight lairs hold eight relics. Each relic opens one kind of sealed road, and each lair's master guards it for a reason. Beyond them waits the citadel, the Archmage, and the quiet man's ledger.
Half the town would like Blud to visit them instead. He hasn't noticed. He will not notice. The one person who never tries is the only one he does.
- Recover the Eight Relics from Vexmire's lairs.
- Bring June a report after each lair. She stamps it.
- Deliver Counselor Marrow's crates. (Do not open the crate.)
- Reach the Citadel and settle the wizard question once and for all.
- Take the hat off sometime. Let somebody see you.
Getting Started
The title screen
Press any button. The title menu offers Continue (your most recent slot), New Game, Load, Settings and Quit. New Game asks for a save slot; writing over a used slot asks you twice, because the game has met you.
Save slots
New Game offers the next free slot; there is no limit. Each slot is a whole wizard: level, gear, relics, stamps, hat rank. The game saves itself every time you cross a screen or doorway and whenever the app goes to the background. There is no save button. There is no need for one. Dying costs nothing but pride, and Blud has a spell for that.
Opening
A new game opens with a short storybook. Then you are in Puddleby with a sword on your back and a smoke bomb in your sock. Go see June in the big hall (the game nudges you there). The Sage points you at the first lair. Then go hit a slime.
Choose your school of magic
Right after the intro you pick a class. Blud insists they are all schools of wizardry. They are: Warrior, Rogue, Mage, Cleric and Ranger (page 13). At level 10 each class opens three subclasses. Passive slots open at levels 4, 12 and 30, rune slots at 5 and 25. Spells cost mana; casting the same one over and over costs more, and an empty bar makes it fizzle at half power. Later runs charge more. All of it is managed from the pause menu's LOADOUT page.
First-time hints
On your first run the game shows a controls card, tells you where to go first and which way the first lair lies, then reminds you about the shield the first time something hits you and about potions the first time your health gets low. It only does this once per save. After that you're a wizard, apparently.
Settings
Found on the title screen and in the pause menu: music, voice and sound volumes; Shake (screen shake) and, on phones, Vibrate; and Controls, where PC players rebind keys and reorder the ability bar.
Difficulty
There is no difficulty switch. The world has tiers: the meadow around Puddleby is gentle, and each sealed road you open leads somewhere meaner. Enemies drop better loot as they get nastier. Finishing the game and going again raises your Hat Rank, which is the game's way of saying "harder" without admitting the hat did anything.
Dying
When Blud runs out of health he is torn into several pieces and wakes up back at the start of the area, hat still on. The hat is always fine. The hat is suspicious. Nothing is lost. Cleared gates stay cleared, keys stay in your pocket, and the Narrator blames the monster.
Reading the hint bar
Text at the bottom of the play area is a bark: Blud, the Narrator or an enemy talking over the action. Barks never stop play. A framed box with a name over it is dialogue: press Wand to advance. Barks and dialogue are both voiced; turn Voice down in Settings if your household objects to the word "fuck" before breakfast.
June is at the counter in the Sage's hall in Puddleby. When she has news, the next lair's door stays shut until you've seen her, and the story line under the minimap turns gold to say so. One visit catches her up on everything. It auto-plays.
Controls: Android
The play area sits in the middle of the phone. The margins on either side are the controller.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Stick | Move. Touch anywhere near it and drag. Blud faces the way he walks; attacks and skills go that way. |
| Wand | Swing the wand (it is a sword; do not tell him). Also talk, buy, open chests and advance dialogue. |
| Spell | Use the equipped skill: Dash to begin with, then any relic you've picked in the menu. One Spell at a time. Shared cooldown. |
| Potion | Drink a potion. Heals 35% of your health. Monsters drop them; you carry up to five. |
| Shield | Hold to raise the shield. Blocks most of a hit from the front, slows you down, locks your facing. |
| Menu | Pause and menus. The phone's Back button opens it too. |
Four buttons and a menu on your first run. From run 2 the wand earns carved rune stones that appear in the margins as you earn them (page 24). The symbols are the game's own; no letters anywhere. A real gamepad hides the touch controls and takes over (page 9).
Controls: PC and Gamepad
Keyboard and mouse (Windows, Linux)
| Action | Keys |
|---|---|
| Move | WASD or the arrow keys |
| Attack / talk | J Space or left mouse button |
| Shield (hold) | K Shift or right mouse button |
| Potion | Q |
| Equipped skill | F |
| Pause | Esc Enter |
| Back out of a menu | Esc Bksp |
| Wand runes (run 2+) | RT flick, ZXCV quick-cast, Alt Gaze |
| Ability bar | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 |
The ability bar
PC players get a ten-slot bar in the side margin. Out of the box it reads 1 Dash, 2 Smoke Bombs, 3 Ember Sigil, 4 Tide Slippers, 5 Iron Gauntlets, 6 Grapple Line, 7 Moon Lantern, 8 Storm Staff, 9 Wizard's Writ, 0 Potion. A slot you don't own yet is dark. On PC every skill keeps its own cooldown, so you can chain them (on a phone they share one); the F key still fires whatever is equipped in the Spell slot. Keys and bar order are rebindable under Controls, and the game remembers.
Menus and unvoiced text swap the phone symbols for your keys, so "press Wand" reads "press J". Spoken lines don't.
Gamepad (any platform)
| Action | Pad |
|---|---|
| Move | D-pad or left stick |
| Attack / talk | Bottom face button |
| Equipped skill | Right face button, or right shoulder |
| Shield (hold) | Left face button, or left shoulder |
| Potion | Top face button |
| Pause | Start |
| Wand runes (run 2+) | Triggers flick, right stick quick-casts, left stick click is Gaze |
The pad's shield and potion sit opposite the touch diamond's. Blud is fine with it.
The Game Screen
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
1 Health, the bar and the number; it grows every level. The thin blue bar under it is mana: spells spend it, every hit you land refills it. At a quarter health the room's edge pulses red; under a tenth it pulses faster.
2 Potions carried (Potion button to drink).
3 Level and experience bar.
4 Gold.
5 Small keys for this lair. BOSS appears here when you hold the big key.
6 The Spell slot: your equipped skill, by its class name. Dash is "Shadow Step" to a Rogue.
7 Eight pips, one per relic. Lit when owned.
8 Where you are.
9 Minimap: rooms you've seen, the one you're in. On the overworld it's the whole land. Under it is the story line: what moves the story on next. It turns gold when the next lair is waiting on something, and that screen is outlined gold on the minimap even before you've been there.
10 A locked door. Small key, page 18.
11 Dialogue box. Press Wand. Barks (no box) play over the action.
12 A block. Solid. Walk around it; it won't.
The Pause Menu
Press Menu and you land on a three-page carousel. Swipe sideways on a phone, or use the tab row, to turn its pages:
Pause
- Equip a skill. Pick which relic sits on the Spell button. Left and right to browse, Wand to equip. Every relic you own is here, plus Dash. Tide Slippers never need equipping: once you own them you can walk on deep water, full stop.
- Save slots. See them all, switch, or wipe one.
- Volumes, Shake, Vibrate, Controls.
- Quit to title. Your game is already saved.
The header reads STORY (the one thing that moves the story on) and OPTIONAL (open side quests).
Gear
Weapon, off-hand, armor, ring and the rest. Drops are auto-equipped when they are plainly better, and every piece of it goes under the robe: nothing you wear will ever be drawn on Blud. The hat is the hat. Each lair's master drops one attuned legendary piece that grows with you on every level-up and is never replaced by a random drop. Vexmire drops two.
Loadout
Class, subclass, talents, passives, runes, crafting and companions, plus Errands: each side quest, its next step, which way to go and what it pays. From run 2, Wand runes lists the sockets Blud has carved. When the game has a choice waiting for you (a new level's talent, say), the HUD blinks ! choice: pause until you deal with it.
On PC, Esc backs out one page at a time. On Android, the phone's Back button does the same.
The Wizard
Occupation: Wizard (self-reported). Filed as: Wizard. Actually: a ninja in a red robe and a blue-violet pointed hat, with a sword he calls a wand, smoke bombs in a knitted spell sock, and the finest dash in the Bottomlands.
Earnest. Oblivious. Twenty-five years old and twelve years into the bit. Answers every come-on with wizard talk and means every word of it. His mom says he's artistic.
What he can do
 Swing | The sword. Fast, short, in the direction he faces. Mages and Clerics and Rangers also loose a bolt or an arrow with every swing. |
 Dash | Skill 0, free from the start. A burst forward that passes through attacks. Half a second to recharge. Five in four seconds earns a comment. |
 Shield | Hold Shield. Three quarters of a frontal hit never arrives. Walk speed drops by half. Does nothing about what's behind you. |
 Get hit | Flashes, gets knocked back, swears. Knockback can push him off a screen edge. He finds that humiliating, so don't. |
Vexmire: Stop dashing! Wizards do not dash! Wizards stroll, with dignity!
Five Schools of Magic
Chosen once after the intro. Every class clears every gate and uses every relic; what changes is how hard it hits, with what, and what else happens. At level 10 pick a subclass. Later hat ranks open a second class.
| Class | Blud calls it | Plays like |
|---|---|---|
| Warrior sword, greataxe, mace, shield | Wizard of the Sword | Tank. Big armor, taunts, cleaves. Gets hit so you don't. |
| Rogue sword, dagger, katana, throwing stars | Wizard of Stabbing | Melee damage. Crits, poison, blinks. Fragile, but hard to hit, and every stab heals a little. |
| Mage staff, wand, focus | Wizard (Actual, Allegedly) | Ranged spells. Area damage and control. Every swing throws a bolt. A little harder to hit. |
| Cleric mace, staff, scepter, shield | Wizard of Band-Aids | Healer. Keeps the party standing, buffs, zaps. |
| Ranger bow, crossbow, throwing stars, quiver | Wizard of Pointy Sticks, Thrown | Ranged physical damage, pets and traps. Every swing looses an arrow; every 8 seconds one is a snare that roots. A little harder to hit. |
Subclasses (level 10)
| Warrior | Guardian (Wizard of Standing There) · Berserker (of Yelling) · Paladin (of Being Right) |
| Rogue | Assassin (of Behind You) · Shadow Ninja (of Definitely Not Ninjutsu) · Duelist (of Personal Space) |
| Mage | Pyromancer (of Arson) · Frost Warden (of the Cold Shoulder) · Arcanist (of Reading the Manual) |
| Cleric | Priest (of Thoughts and Prayers) · Druid (of Moss) · Battle Bard (of Loud Noises) |
| Ranger | Sharpshooter (of Far Away) · Beastmaster (of Good Boys) · Trapper (of Stepping On It) |
Talents, passives and runes stack on top of all this from the LOADOUT page. Crowd control (daze, sleep, fear, stun and worse) unlocks per skill as you level, from level 8. Bosses and elites shrug most of it off, and anything you hit while it's asleep wakes up annoyed.
The People of Puddleby
The town clerk, at the counter in the Sage's hall. Kind, funny, dry. The only person in town who doesn't look at Blud like dessert, and the only one who writes "wizard" with no smirk. Bring her a report after every lair. She stamps it. The stamp changes.
A dry, filthy-minded old woman who hands Blud his sword, points him at each lair, and has waited fifty years for a man in a robe to knock on her door at night. Ask her where to go next. She knows. She also has opinions about how he holds his wand.
Stoned, broke, cowardly merchant-king of a "palace" on the east side of town. Took goblin cash advances for an enchanted crop crate. Sold exactly one ticket to his comedy night. Blud bought it, thinking it was a wizard recital.
Fortune teller. Smug. Has never been wrong, which is worse. Has a prophecy about the clerk's children and their light hair and will not stop mentioning it. Ten gold.
Grubbins' furious ex, out by Lake Moist. He forged her name on a guild loan. She has a plan, a cave for you to visit, and no patience left. Help her and the guild takes everything he owns.
The only honest men in the racket, paid 500 gold a month to grow nothing in a crate in Grubwood. Ezra: short, disciplined, up before the sun; Blud mistakes his advice for wizard training. Lyle: tall, gentle, outlived a wasting curse by twelve years. Their late brother Gideon was the small one.
Ran off with the comedy money. Claims to be the nephew of the legendary advocate Barnaby Halloran, with an A. He's Holloran with an O. Hiding in a cave in Briar Hollow with Margo's papers.
Former counselor. Disbarred for forging mortgage scrolls; now runs a crate dock at the swamp port. Turns up in shops and houses with a business opportunity that grows every time. Carry the crate. Don't open the crate.
Madge in Puddleby: no refunds, no crying. Tobble in Grubwood, the one true believer. Hesk at Lake Moist, one word at a time. Slick Rudy Pellum in Crag Butte, who sold the same haunted mortgage to the captain who arrested him. Everything's legal. Ish.
Pim, Dorra, Oswin, Wren, Bertram, Gertie, Bram, Ottilie. Knock on doors: rumors, directions, turnip problems, and in nearly every case a proposition. Pim never flirts. He answers the rest with staff technique.
The Eight Relics
One per lair, found mid-dungeon in a big chest. You need it to reach that lair's boss, and the boss will have opinions about it. Outside, each relic clears one kind of sealed road for good. Equip it on the Spell button from the menu (PC: it's also on the bar).
Drop a bomb ahead; it blows after a short fuse. Breaks rubble and cracked lair walls. Gloop's Grotto. Blud calls them evocation orbs. Nobody else does.
Throw a fire bolt the way you face. Burns thorn hedges. Also the only thing that lights a dark screen at night (page 24). The Brimstone Lounge. Actual fire magic. He was fucking unbearable about it.
Passive. Walk on deep water, always, no button. Thornwood Chapel. Comfortable, magical, and fluffy. He would never admit the fluffy part.
A heavy punch one tile ahead. Smashes boulders. The Drowned Bathhouse. He calls it a force spell. It is punching.
Fire a hook up to eight tiles; it pulls Blud across a chasm to the first floor beyond. Duneslop's Sand Emporium. His name is Gerald. He's a rope. Don't make it weird.
A flash of moonlight around Blud. Burns away shadow veils and lights dark rooms. Gash Mine. Held under his chin to tell ghost stories to a skeleton.
A line of lightning five tiles ahead. Shatters crystal barriers. The Unlit Crypt. A real wizard staff, in the hands of a ninja. The staff seemed fine with it.
Brandish it: magic wards within a couple of tiles dissolve. Office of Wizard Licensing. Signed. Stamped. His name spelled wrong. Legally, he is still not a wizard.
Cooldowns
| Skill | Dash | Bombs | Ember | Gauntlets | Grapple | Lantern | Staff | Writ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seconds | 0.55 | 3 | 1.2 | 2.5 | 3 | 4 | 2.5 | 4 |
Base numbers. Your class, talents and runes change damage, reach and cooldown; the Slippers have none. Every relic also hurts enemies, so a Smoke Bomb is a weapon, not just a key.
Blocked? Walk into a sealed road without its relic and Blud tells you what he's missing. Walk into one with the relic equipped and press Spell. Cleared gates stay cleared forever, on both sides of a lair doorway.
Items and Pickups
Dropped by monsters. Restores health on touch. Pickups pop a "+" so you see what you got, and blink before they vanish.
Shops and the smith. Nastier monsters drop more. Marrow pays in it. Rudy launders it.
Press Potion. Heals 35% of your health. Carry up to five. Monsters drop them; Rudy has a back room.
Opens one locked door in the lair you found it in. Keys stay with their lair.
Opens the boss door. BOSS lights up on the HUD when you have it. You'll need the lair's relic to reach it.
Press Wand. Keys, gold, gear, and once per lair, in a big one, the relic. Caves hide chests too.
Every boss drops one; Margo and Rudy's back room have more. Each adds to maximum mana, for good, in every run after.
Weapons, off-hands, armor, rings. Dropped, bought, crafted. Worn under the robe. Each lair's master leaves one legendary piece, re-forged every level-up.
Stand at a pedestal to see what it is, what it costs and whether you can afford it. Press Wand to buy. Five shops, each better.
Map of the Bottomlands
144 screens, 16 across by 9 down. D = lair, S = shop, H = house, C = cave. Hand-drawn by the cartographer's office, which is June.
| Region | Entered by | Lair |
|---|---|---|
| Puddle Downs and Puddleby (meadow, start) | walking | Gloop's Grotto |
| Grubwood (forest) | rubble: Smoke Bombs | The Brimstone Lounge |
| Briar Hollow (thorny forest) | thorns: Ember Sigil | Thornwood Chapel |
| Lake Moist (swamp) | deep water: Tide Slippers | The Drowned Bathhouse |
| Crag Butte (desert) | boulders: Iron Gauntlets | Duneslop's Sand Emporium |
| The Gash (canyon) | chasm: Grapple Line | Gash Mine |
| Gloomfen (dark swamp) | shadow: Moon Lantern | The Unlit Crypt |
| Spire Heights (ash) | crystal: Storm Staff | Office of Wizard Licensing |
| Citadel approach (in the Gash) | ward: Wizard's Writ | Citadel of Vexmire |
The land is the same for everyone and does not change between games, so the map on this page is the map. Puddleby sits in the south-middle: the Sage's hall, Madge's shop, Grubbins' palace and Quince's tent are all within a screen of the start. The Hollowbrooks farm in Grubwood; Margo lives by the lake. The way forward is always: Sage, lair, relic, report, repeat.
Know Your Enemy
Every family comes in a colour per region and gets meaner the further you get from Puddleby. Elites are bigger, tougher and better dressed. All of them call him ninja.
Hops at you. Dies in one or two swings, in a satisfying amount of goo. Comes in packs. Turnips taste better than you. Probably.
Keeps its distance and lobs stones. Dash through the shot or raise the shield and walk it down. Rude.
Erratic chaser. A pest, not a killer: hits soft, dies fast. Flaps about, then dives. Swing when it commits. Or don't; it's a bat.
Slow, armored chaser. Tanky, but it swings slow: you get a breath between hits. Circle it; it turns like a cart. The shield helps. So does not being there.
Ranged and floaty. Keeps away and shoots. Chase it into a corner, or let a bolt, arrow or relic do the chasing.
What's left of them
Monsters come apart. Gibs fly, decals stay on the floor, and the Narrator calls it a spell. Dungeon floors remember. Kill streaks get a comment; so does standing in it.
Drops
Hearts, gold, potions and gear. The nastier the monster (kind, level, elite), the better the drop. Keep an eye on the floor after a fight; pickups blink and leave.
Elites
Marked out, bigger, harder. Resist crowd control. Worth it.
Status effects, theirs and yours
| Effect | What it does |
|---|---|
| Daze | Brief stumble. Dash learns it at level 10. |
| Mez / Sleep | Out cold until hit. The hit wakes it. |
| Panic / Fear | Runs the wrong way. Good. Bosses ignore sleep and fear. |
| Stun / Root / Slow | Stops it, pins it or drags it. Bosses and elites shake these off fast. |
| Blind / Silence | Can't find you; can't cast. The same effect twice in a row lands for half as long, then not at all for a bit. |
| Burn / Poison / Bleed | Damage over time. Spreads, sometimes. Accidental arson is a build. |
Boss shields
Every lair master starts shielded. While it's up your sword bounces. Something you found in that lair cracks it and staggers the boss; then stab, then do it again. At half health they panic, in character, and their moves get worse.
The Nine Lairs
Each lair: rooms, locked doors, small keys, a big chest with the relic, the big key, the boss. Every boss starts shielded and has signature moves, with worse ones past half health. A ring filling on the floor means something is about to land there: move. Beating a boss drops a Gold Star and an attuned legendary. Which relic cracks which shield is at the bottom of page 23, printed the way the Sage would tell you.
Gloop, Keeper of Rubble. A slime king who can't see knees. Lobs globs in high arcs: watch the ring and step off it. Past half health he spawns pups; clear them or they'll swarm you. Gives: Smoke Bombs.
Vexa, hellfire party girl and the most aggressive flirt in the game. Blows kisses in a fan aimed right at you; sidestep. Every few seconds a pink ring pulls Blud toward her: dash out of it, hard. Past half health the floor starts catching fire in patches. She also likes to get inside your head. Hold Menu to skip a scene if you must. Gives: Ember Sigil.
Pastor Prickwell of the Church of the Prickly Truth. Every sermon is innuendo he swears is botanical. Sends rows of thorns across the chapel with one gap in each: find it and stand in it. Something in his chapel is wetter than it looks; his shield can't take it. Gives: Tide Slippers.
Big Soapy Lou, a huge sentient bar of soap who gets into every crack, professionally. Winds up, then slides the length of the bath: when he leans back, get out of the lane. Bubbles drift after you; pop them with the sword or let them float by. The arena is deep water. Gives: Iron Gauntlets.
Duneslop, sand salesman. Have you ever considered buying sand? Burrows, then erupts under the ring that appears beneath you: keep walking and it erupts behind you. Up close he throws a cone of sand; don't stand in front of him. Past half health he digs more often. Gives: Grapple Line.
Foreman Grimbelly, union-busting mine foreman with a pickaxe and a gut. Thinks you're the new hire. Swings the pick when you're close, so hit and back off. Rocks fall from the ceiling under rings: watch the floor, not him. Past half health he brings in new hires. Gives: Moon Lantern.
Count Dimly, a vampire terrified of the dark who keeps his crypt unlit for ambience. Blinks across the room and throws bolts in a cross, up, down, left, right: stand on a diagonal. Calls bats when lonely. Gives: Storm Staff.
The Brackish Thing, an apologetic licensing horror. Please take a number. Tentacles slam a whole row or column of the office: the ring shows which, so step off the line. An ink cloud hides it; keep moving. Past half health the slams come in a spiral. Gives: Wizard's Writ, which it denies, then approves.
Archmage Vexmire, the Board-Certified. Certified. Accredited. Seven diplomas. Smoke bombs, dashing, a sword: he has paperwork that says you're a ninja. What he does with eight stolen relics is not for a booklet to say. Bring everything.
Shields: Gloop, Smoke Bombs · Vexa, Ember Sigil · Prickwell, the pond (Tide Slippers) · Lou, Iron Gauntlets · Duneslop, Grapple Line · Grimbelly, Moon Lantern · Dimly, Storm Staff · Brackish Thing, the Writ · Vexmire, the Writ. The relic it hoards is the relic it hates.
Night and Hat Ranks
Once Blud owns the Ember Sigil the overworld keeps your device's hours: dusk at six, full dark from half past eight to five, dawn at seven. Each dark screen stays dark until the Ember Sigil lands on it; then it stays lit till morning. Lairs and houses don't care what time it is.
Hat Rank
Win, and the game offers you another go from the same slot. The hat gets taller, the monsters get meaner, you keep the legendary pieces you earned, and the land looks different enough that you'll notice. From run 2 the wand earns rune sockets, carved after a boss falls: run 2 flicks between relics, run 3 quick-casts them and holds to face the nearest foe, run 4 charges a held Spell, run 5 all of it. Side quests come back every run. Run 1 looks like it came off an eight-bit cartridge. What run 2 looks like is for run 2. There are more after that.
And after that
There is more after you win. Keep the hat on. Somewhere down the road there's a ranch.
Vexa, shielded. The wand bounces until something cracks it.
Wizard's Tips
Dash through, not away. The dash passes through attacks. Face the shot and dash into it. Then hit the thing that shot you.
Hold the shield when you're not sure. It eats three quarters of a frontal hit. It does nothing for your back. Knights and bosses telegraph; shield, then punish.
Drink at half. Potions heal a third. A red pulsing rim means a quarter health: you're late. Don't be late.
The relic is also a weapon. Bombs hurt. Fire hurts. The punch really hurts. Lairs are full of things that die to the relic you just found.
Talk to everyone twice. Rumors point at caves, caves hold chests of loot and gold, and every boss leaves a Gold Star.
Lost in a lair? Check the minimap. A locked door means a key you haven't found; the big chest is always before the boss key.
Boss not taking damage? Shielded. Think about what you just found in this lair, and what it does. Hit the boss with it; the stagger is your window.
Watch for the ring! Every area attack fills a ring on the floor before it lands. Empty ring: fine. Full ring: you're not there any more.
Half health, new rules. Every boss changes at half. Save a potion for the second half, not the first.
Watch the floor after a fight. Pickups blink, then they're gone. Gold runs out faster than you think and Madge doesn't do credit.
Do the side quests. The Stolen Gig, The Brothers' Crate, the Secret Caches. A gold ! marks who has news. They pay; the story never waits on them.
Report in. When the line under the minimap turns gold, go see June. The next lair stays shut till you do.
Dying is free. Try things. The game never punishes an experiment. It just narrates it.
"Two hands, firm grip, lots of wrist. Wizards practice daily." He is talking about the wand. He is always talking about the wand.
Credits
STARRING
| Blud Ninzha | as a wizard |
| June | the only one who believed him |
| The Sage | unimpressed, throughout |
| The Narrator | who kept saying ninja |
| King Grubbins | baked |
| Margo | still furious |
| Ezra and Lyle Hollowbrook | short; tall |
| Mother Quince | right again |
| Dex Holloran | nephew, allegedly |
| Counselor Marrow | disbarred |
| Madge, Tobble, Hesk, Slick Rudy | very legal |
THE OPPOSITION
Gloop · Vexa · Pastor Prickwell · Big Soapy Lou · Duneslop · Foreman Grimbelly · Count Dimly · The Brackish Thing · Archmage Vexmire
Blud Ninzha: made by Chris.
Art, music, sound: made in code. Every sprite, tile and tune is drawn and synthesised by the game itself; nothing on these pages was painted by hand.
Voices: IndexTTS2 (bilibili), bilibili Model Use License.
Voice timbres: VCTK Corpus 0.92, Yamagishi, Veaux, MacDonald; CSTR, Univ. of Edinburgh; doi:10.7488/ds/2645; CC BY 4.0, modified; speakers do not endorse this game.
Engine: Godot Engine, MIT license, (c) 2014-present Godot Engine contributors, (c) 2007-2014 Juan Linietsky, Ariel Manzur. Full licence texts ship as LICENSES.txt.
Every name in this game is invented. Any resemblance to a real wizard is a coincidence, and he'd like to meet them.
Notes
For maps, keys, rumors, and the names of everyone who propositioned him this week.
Limited Warranty
Bottomlands Softworks ("the Publisher", which does not exist) warrants to the original purchaser (you, who paid nothing) that this game will be free from defects in material and workmanship for a period of ninety (90) days from the date it was sideloaded, or until the first time a slime calls Blud a ninja, whichever comes first.
If a defect covered by this warranty occurs during the warranty period, the Publisher will, at its option, repair the game, replace the game, or have the Narrator explain that it was a spell. This warranty does not cover damage caused by misuse, unreasonable use, neglect, opening the crate, signing anything Counselor Marrow hands you, or stamping yourself with June's stamp again.
Not covered
- Any claim that Blud is, was, or will become a wizard.
- Sand. Sand gets everywhere. Duneslop warned you.
- Goo on the hat. Left side. Other left.
- Loss of dignity while crossing a chasm.
- Gold Stars of unknown origin.
- Propositions declined through failure to notice.
Service
For service, bring a report to the counter in the Sage's hall after each lair. It will be stamped "approved-ish". Further service upgrades the stamp. The Publisher makes no warranty regarding the stamp.
THE PUBLISHER SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE CONSEQUENCES OF DASHING FIVE TIMES IN FOUR SECONDS IN FRONT OF AN ARCHMAGE. SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OF WIZARDS, SO THE ABOVE MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU. THIS WARRANTY GIVES YOU SPECIFIC LEGAL RIGHTS. BLUD HAS A WRIT THAT SAYS HE HAS THEM TOO. IT IS SPELLED WRONG.
"I FILE WHAT PEOPLE TELL ME."
Eight relics. Nine lairs. One town that cannot stop hitting on him. A ninja in a robe and a wizard hat who will, against all evidence, save the Bottomlands, and might, if he takes the hat off, let somebody see him.
Android · Windows · Linux
Every line voiced · Save slots without limit · Five classes, fifteen subclasses · Hat Ranks for the stubborn · More after you win
APPROVED
(UNDER DURESS)
Bottomlands Softworks · Blud Ninzha v1.0 · Adults only (18+). Not rated by any rating board. · Made in code · Printed nowhere
He's still not a wizard.