THE STORY

It was a good place.

A quiet village at the edge of a forest. Animals grazed in the fields. Birds flew overhead. Nothing about that morning was different from the one before it.

Then the Bio-Lab came down.

At first, it was only a dot in the sky.

Then the dot grew.

Its shadow spread across the fields, swallowing the sunlight and turning the village dark. By the time anyone understood what they were seeing, the Bio-Lab was already on fire.

It crashed beyond the village.

The impact tore it open.

Something escaped.

The virus spread first. Then came the weapons the laboratory had been carrying, scattered across the land by the crash.

And something else came out of the wreckage.

Something alive.

Something that had been kept in a cage.

He ran.

The crash missed him.

The infection didn’t.

Somehow, he survived both.

The animals were not so lucky.

They were infected first. One by one, the grazing stopped. Their bodies swelled and twisted. They changed into something no longer recognizable.

And then they turned toward him.

There was no time to think about who he was or what kind of person he had been.

There was only one choice.

Fight.

He found a gun lying in the grass, thrown clear of the wreckage. He picked it up and fired.

When the first creature fell, he noticed something strange.

A bright substance had formed within it.

A serum.

He had no idea what it was.

He drank it anyway.

He expected death.

Instead, something inside him changed.

The infection had taken hold of him, but it had not taken him.

The serum had done something else.

It had given him a power.

Soon, he discovered that there were different kinds of serum.

Some could make him stronger. Others could give him abilities he never knew were possible.

But he could only use one at a time.

Every new serum meant a new choice.

And among them was something even more important.

A serum that could reverse the infection.

The cure.

It could return an infected animal or human to what they once were.

So he kept moving.

Through the infected fields.

Through the ruins.

Through places where the virus had spread farther than anyone imagined.

He hunted the creatures that carried serum, searching for new powers and searching for the one serum that could save the people and animals the infection had taken.

But he was not alone.

Something had survived the crash.

He didn’t know what it was. It seemed to understand the world around him, and somehow, it helped him survive.

He didn’t question it.

Not yet.

For now, he had other things to worry about.

The virus was spreading.

The infected were changing.

And somewhere among the creatures was the serum that could make him stronger—and the one that could save those who had been infected.

So he kept moving.

Hunting.

Searching.

Surviving.

And hoping that somewhere ahead, he would find the cure.

That is where his story begins.

HOW TO PLAY

You fight at range. Your companion fights up close, wears its own gear, and can die.
Gear and weapons equip themselves — walk over them and they are yours.
Clear a room and an arrow points at the door worth taking next.
Arrows also point at a serum or a portal on the floor, in its own colour.
Shots pass through an open gate, so you can fire into a room you cannot see.
Two weapons of the same tier can be fused in Equipment.
Every run is scored one to three stars, with three rotating missions.
Play it as an app: on serovore.com, your browser's menu offers Install app (on an iPhone: Share, then Add to Home Screen). Once it has been opened with a connection, it opens without one.
Coins are banked permanently — in every mode, even on a run you lose. Die in The World and you choose: Respawn or Save & Quit keeps the world for 30% of the coins you found that session; Back to Title is free and ends the world.

THE MODES

Training — a real floor on a fixed layout. It teaches one thing at a time, and the three rooms after the first each introduce a mode.
The World — no clock. It is saved, and it is yours to come back to.
War Zone — a sealed arena. Endless waves, each heavier than the last, with a warden every fifth wave.
Quick Run — one life and a clock you choose. Everything you are carrying converts to coins when it stops.

CONTROLLER

Plug in a controller and it just works. Touch and keyboard stay live at the same time, so you can put it down in the middle of a run and pick the phone back up.

Left stick or d-pad to move. Right stick aims — a real vector, not eight directions, so you can put a shot anywhere.

Right trigger or the bottom face button fires. Left trigger or the right face button is DASH. Left face button throws the net. Top face button toggles auto aim. Shoulder buttons switch weapons. View opens the map, Menu pauses and backs out of a menu.

In the menus the stick or the d-pad moves a highlight, the bottom face button presses what is lit and the right face button goes back.

Buttons are named by position, not by letter: the same physical button is A on one pad and Cross on another.

Any button but Menu and the d-pad can be changed in Options, then Change controls.

TOUCH CONTROLS

Left thumb, anywhere on the left half of the screen  —  move.
Nudge the stick gently (the inner ring)  —  aim without moving.
FIRE  —  shoot. Hold it and drag to aim in any direction.
DASH or JUMP  —  the action button for the view you are in.
NET  —  throw a net.
Tap the minimap to open the full map. Tap the health panel for Options, or the weapon panel for Equipment. Your phone's Back closes a menu or pauses the run.
Put the buttons where your thumbs are, and make them bigger or smaller: Options, then Change controls, then Touch.

KEYBOARD & MOUSE

W A S D or ARROW KEYS  —  move
J or Z or left-click  —  fire
K X SPACE L C SHIFT  —  the action button: DASH
R or E  —  throw a net
S or DOWN + action  —  drop through a platform
M  —  map: this room beside the whole world. Press again to close it.
I  —  Equipment  ·  P or ESC  —  pause, or back out of a menu  ·  F  —  fullscreen
These are the defaults: any key but ESC and F can be changed in Options, then Change controls.
In the menus: ARROW KEYS move a highlight, ENTER or SPACE press it, BACKSPACE goes back

AIMING

Auto Aim is ON when a run starts, in every mode — the weapon snaps to the nearest target in range, in any direction, and one no wall hides comes first.
Tap the AUTO AIM button on screen (or press T) to turn it off and place your own shots. That lasts the rest of the run; the next run starts with it on again.
On a desktop, move the mouse to aim and left-click or press J to fire.
On a phone, hold FIRE and drag in any direction.
Your companion aims for itself either way.

HOLD TO LATCH

Hold FIRE, NET or the action button for 6 seconds and it latches on — it keeps going with your thumb off the button.
A ring fills while you arm it, and the button turns green the moment it locks. Tap once to stop.
Holding any of them also simply repeats it, so you never need the latch to keep firing.

THE PLACE

Room — one screen. Clear it and an arrow points at the door worth taking next: somewhere you have not been, before somewhere you have.
Door — walk into it. A room remembers what you left in it.
Floor — a whole grid of rooms. Later floors are harder and pay better.
Map — tap the minimap. It opens one screen: this room beside the whole world. Tap anywhere to close it.

WHAT YOU PICK UP

Coins — banked permanently, in every mode, even on a run you lose (keeping a world you died in costs 30% of those found that session). Spend them on permanent upgrades from the home screen.
XP — levels you up inside the current run only.
Gear — equips itself. Four slots, and a higher tier is always better.
Weapon crate — a new gun. Two of the same tier can be fused in Equipment.
Heart — health. Ammo — rounds for every gun you carry.

THE SERUM

Everything that bleeds leaves blood on the floor, and the residue concentrates as it evaporates.
Once a room has shed enough, it precipitates into a glowing serum tube. It is marked on your map and it burns for 30 seconds.
Every creature in the room can smell it, and so can you.
Stand on the tube for 6 unbroken seconds to metabolise it. Step off, or let an enemy stand on it beside you, and the claim drains away.
A serum grants a permanent ability, and you can carry one at a time — so every new one is a choice.
An enemy that takes it first ascends into a boss-class mutation carrying that same power. Kill it and it may drop a vial, and you decide whether you or your companion drinks it.
Somewhere among them is the serum that reverses the infection. That one is the cure, and it is what the whole hunt is for.

THE NET

R or E, or the NET button, throws a net. Like dash and jump it is unlimited — tap for one, hold to keep throwing.
Anything caught is held for a few seconds and cannot act. While it thrashes you will see its tame chance: a wounded creature comes quietly, a healthy one does not.
A warden or an ascended creature is held only for a moment, then shrugs nets off for a while — and a warden is never tamed: it leaves only by dying.
Net a group and every creature under it is rolled separately, so a good throw into a pack is how you build a following — up to four.
Your companion can die. If it does, one of your tamed creatures takes the collar. If you have none, net something.

WHO YOU MEET

The infected — 130 species, every one of them an animal the virus took.
Wardens — bosses, with a health bar along the bottom of the screen. Kill one and the way on opens.
Elites and variants — tougher versions, outlined in their own colour, worth more when they fall.
Your companion — it followed you out of the wreckage, it fights up close, and it wears gear of its own.

THE BESTIARY

Every creature here is a real animal, living or extinct, that the outbreak has mutated — and each one fights the way the real animal does.
A BOMBARDIER BEETLE sprays boiling caustic. A HAGFISH slimes you and you slow to a crawl. A PEREGRINE FALCON climbs and stoops. A WOLVERINE will not disengage. A TARDIGRADE barely notices bullets.
Species names appear above their health bars. Learning them is most of the skill in reading a room before it reads you.

CLOUD SAVE & SCORES

☁ SAVE on the title keeps your progress in the cloud under your email, so you can carry on from another phone, a tablet or a computer. Type your email and a six-digit code arrives; type the code and that device stays signed in until you sign out. From then on the game saves to the cloud by itself every minute of a run, when a run ends and whenever you leave it, and opening it on another device loads your newest save by itself. If both devices have new progress, it loads neither: the SAVE screen shows you both and keeps the one you let go, so Put back the save it replaced can restore it. One device plays at a time: start a run on a second one and it offers to move your account there.

A save code carries a save with no account at all: Copy save code on one device, Load a save code on the other.

★ SCORES shows the best Quick Run and War Zone scores of everyone playing. Sign in and your runs go on the board under the name you chose in NAMES.

What is kept: your email, your save and the kind of device it came from, your best scores and the name you chose. Sign-in codes and request limits, which hold your email and the address you connect from, are deleted within two hours. Delete cloud data on the SAVE screen removes all of it. The whole privacy policy: serovore.com/privacy, and the terms of use: serovore.com/terms

CONTACT

SEROVORE is designed, written and drawn by Dr. Aditya B Mithun.
Questions, bugs, or anything you found that should not be there:
serovore@gmail.com