Game Guide – System

As you dive into the world Spaera, you might encounter many familiar yet different mechanics from what you’ve seen before. Here, we will introduce the core game system.

If you’ve played Spaera back in 2015, we have completely revamped Spaera’s Core puzzle mechanics. Color matching and cascade combos are now the new backbone!

Game Modes

Currently there are three game modes to choose from in the main menu

  • Online
    • Ranked: Play the story mode as you wait for challengers online from around the world!
    • Private:Play matches with your friend that don’t affect your online ranking
  • Story Mode: Play the story mode without any interruptions.
  • Versus: Have a friend over? Play against each other locally in this mode.

Selecting a hero

Once a mode is selected, a choice of 8 heroes shall be presented. Each hero has unique abilities and play styles. Experiment with all of them to see which hero fits best for you!

Basics

Like traditional puzzle games, pieces drop down from the top of the board.

  • You can rotate, shift, and accelerate the drop of the piece.
  • Match 3 or more blocks of the same color horizontally or vertically to clear.
  • Rainbow-colored blocks serve as wildcards and match any color
  • The objective of a match is to have the opponent overflow their board with blocks.

Cascades and Explosions

After matching a row or column, non-cleared blocks from the active piece will cascade or gravitate downwards, allowing for chains and combos. Cascading combos will trigger an explosion effect in two flavors. If the combos are aligned

  • Horizontally, the whole row will be cleared.
  • Vertically, all adjacent blocks to the left and right of the vertical column will be cleared.

If your active piece clears 2 different colors on landing, explosions will be instantly triggered without having to cascade into a combo.

Competing for the next piece

Notice how the next piece deck is in the middle of the screen and shared by both players. This means that whoever lands first gets the next piece.

Pro-tip: Plan your moves based on what piece you want next, or don’t want. Whoever’s piece is closer to the bottom is likely to land faster!

Orbs

Those shiny blue orbs present in certain pieces are the source of your hero’s powers. Clearing them will charge your orb meters. Orbs can be cleared by matching 3 of them or via explosions. Every 3 orbs cleared on the board counts as an orb on your hero’s orb meter.

Pro-tip: Wildcard blocks cause horizontal explosions – line them up with orbs for easy clears!

Orb Meter

When a hero has orbs on their orb meter, they can shatter the orbs to perform an ability based on the number of orbs present. For example, having 2 orbs means that the hero will perform their Level 2 ability, and so forth.

Pro-tip: Since the ability performed is based on the orb meter, plan carefully! Wanting to perform your Level 2 ability may mean that you don’t want to acquire that 3rd orb before you cast your ability.

Pro-tip 2: Casting an ability denies and absorbs your opponent’s current moving piece. Use this to your advantage!

Ability Types

Each hero has 4 abilities of different types as indicated by the icons next to their move names.

  • Attack Attacks affect the opponent’s board, such as directly growing it, producing holes in the board, or forbid the opponent from rotating their piece.
  • Defend Defend abilities are used for saving yourself, either directly removing lines from your board or morphing your board into a state that makes it easier to save yourself.
  • Tactical Tactical abilities can benefit, have no effect, or actually harm you, depending on the situation. These include abilities such as stealing your opponent’s orb meter, or remote controlling your opponent’s piece.
  • Hindrance Hindrance abilities are used to distract or annoy your opponents, such as preventing them from pressing down, or reversing their controls.

Timer based abilities

When a circle of red crystals appear on top of your hero’s portrait, that’s indication that you are under the affect of the opponent’s ability. These effects wear off over time, and can be reduced by dropping your piece. Timer-based abilities that buff yourself instead are indicated with green crystals.