This guide will aid you in playing Shadow Codex, a hybrid word/RPG game available for iPhone on the App Store.

Contact

If you have a question, bug report, or comment, please e-mail me at tblabonne@gmail.com.

Character Attributes and Stats

Level - each level-up increases your total HP and MP.  Earn XP (experience) to increase your level.  Each level gets progressively harder to obtain over time.

ATT - Attack stat - measures how strong you are in combat for attacks.  Weapons can boost this stat.

DEF - Defense stat - measures how you can defend against weapon attacks in combat.  Armor can boost this stat.

INT - Intelligence stat - measures how fast magic regenerates in combat.  Accessories and other magical equipment can boost this stat.

LCK - Luck stat - measures how likely critical hits, gold, bombs, and multiplier gems appear.  Accessories can boost this stat.

Weight - all gear you carry weighs you down.  Your carrying capacity has limits.  Each unit over-weight causes a 1% decrease in both your ATT and DEF stats.  You can drop or sell gear to decrease weight as necessary through the management screen.

Gold - collect gold by completing quests, stealing gold from opponents, collecting it from gold letter tiles, or by mining (collecting challenges).  Gold can be used to buy new equipment and items from shops.

Equipment

You can equip one Weapon, one piece of Armor, and one Accessory at any time from the map screen.  Each can boost particular stats or add a special ability.  For example, some weapons increase chance of critical hit on top of your base LCK stat.  Others can increase magic, give a chance of a free attack, or increase chances of starting combat.

Weapons cost a specific amount of AP (action points) to gain an attack in combat.  Usually the stronger two-handed weapons require more AP to use but are more destructive.  Some weapons are also double-strike capable which can use two attacks at once.  These can lead to high critical attacks if you have high LCK.

Items

You can purchase items from shops or get them from enemy drops.  Items are either consumable (can be used in combat) or non-consumable.  Non-comsumable items are items that aid you in quests or are things to collect or to trade.  Consumable items can be used in combat to replenish health, magic, or cure some condition.  Once a consumable item is used, it is removed from your inventory forever, even if the battle is lost.

Spells

You can carry up to a fixed number of spells into combat at any time, therefore, spells can be equipped or unequipped at your choosing from the Spells page in character management.  If there is an open spell slot and you learn a new spell, it will be equipped automatically.

Spells cost a specific amount of MP to use and may have a recharge time.  Recharge time refers to a number of your turns that must pass before the spell will be available to cast again.  Some equipment can reduce the cost of certain spells, but only if that equipment is equipped.

Spells are either learned from completing quests or by receiving one randomly from an slain enemy.  Some spells are rarer than others so it may require multiple encounters to grab the spell.

Combat

You will spend most of your time in the game fighting enemies in turn-based combat that uses word spelling on a game board of random letters.  On each turn you can do one of the following:

1.  Spell a word - search for a word on the game board and then spell it out.  You can only select letters that are adjacent to the previously selected letter. You earn Action Points (AP) that are used to gain weapon attacks.  The currently equipped weapon dictates how much AP you need to gain an attack.  Stronger weapons require more AP and thus, better word spelling capability.  

If you score +12 AP or higher on a single word (also includes bombs and score multipliers), you will receive an extra turn.  If you spell words that are longer than 5 letters, you will get a little MP bonus as well.  Higher scoring words can be made by using rarer letters whenever possible.

2.  Attack - if you have a weapon attack banked, you can choose to use it.  Click/tap the Weapon icon on your equipment panel to use it.  There's a chance (based on your LCK stat) that you will deal a CRITICAL hit which improves the weapon strike by 50%.

3.  Cast a Spell - if you have spells equipped, you can select one to cast if it is not recharging.  Some spells use up a turn while others may not.  You can gain spells by slaying enemies or completing quests.  Note that you can only bring in a specific number of spells into combat and they can be equipped and unequipped like weapons and armor.

4.  Use an Item - switch to the Items panel and pick an item to use if you need healing for health or magic.  You can also use condition curing items too.  Once an item is used, it is gone forever.  Items can be obtained from enemy drops or buying from shops.

Special Tiles

In combat, you will see several special icons on tiles that appear randomly based on your LCK stat (or your opponent's):

1. Gem Multiplier - this causes any word spelled with this tile to receive double the AP!  These are powerful tiles to use.  Using two or more multipliers will not have any different effect.

2. Gold - spelling a word with this tile will give you +5 gold.  This gold is only awarded if you win the battle.

3. Sneak Attack - the sword icon will cause a special sneak attack against your opponent if you spell a word using this letter.

4. Bomb - the bomb icon will cause some of the surrounding letters to blow up and you will receive all of their AP points.  If you spell a high-scoring, complex word using a bomb, the bomb's effect will be even greater!

Conditions

You may cast spells or receive spell casts that cause a specific condition such as poisoning.

1. Poison Effect - you will receive -3 HP per turn when afflicted.  Use anti-venom items to cure.

2. Curse Effect - your MP will be stunted on each turn when afflicted.  Use anti-curse spells and items to cure.

3. Fear Effect - when you are afraid, you cannot use your primary weapon when afflicted.  Use wine item to cure.

4. Frozen Effect - when you are frozen, you cannot use your spells.  Use soup item to cure.

There are also conditions spells can cast on individual tiles.  If you are the victim of these casts, these tiles need to be cleared from the board or they will have a negative effect on you each turn.  They do not affect the caster, however, and disappear on their turn.  Fire tiles can cause -2 HP per tile per turn.  Curse tiles can cause -5 MP per tile per turn.  Spell words to clear the tiles or use a spell that clears them.

There may be other conditions that occur from various spell casts.  You can see current conditions applied to you by hovering/tap & hold on the skull icon in your portrait.

Map

On the map, you can move from location to location by clicking/tapping on a place you want to travel to.  During your travels, you may encounter an enemy blocking the roadway.  You must defeat this enemy or find an alternate route to get around it to get to your desired location.

When you arrive at a location, you can click/tap on that location to get a menu of things you can do.  You can find new quests, talk to people, visit a shop, battle an enemy, take a challenge, look for treasure chests, or manage your inventory.

You can zoom in or out by using your mouse wheel (desktop version) or by using pinch or spread gestures on touch screens.  You can pan the map with your mouse by holding the right mouse button and dragging (desktop version).  Or you can pan by moving your mouse to the edges of the screen and have the camera automatically pan in that direction (desktop version).

Your game is automatically saved when you start and complete quests or when you change something like your inventory, so there's no need to press a save button manually.

Quests and Challenges

Quests can be chosen by selecting the Quests... menu option at a map location that has quests available.  Over time, different map locations will have new quests available, so it is always a good idea to travel to previously visited places to check out new challenges.

Many quests are combat challenges to slay a particular enemy.  Some quests are also collecting challenges or endurance challenges.

Some quests are repeatable meaning that you can do these quests multiple times.

Endurance Challenges

In these challenges, you must quickly spell as many words as you can before the clock runs out!  Every time you gain the required score, you will pass a "gate".  If you pass enough gates, you will win the challenge.  On desktop version, to enter words quickly, use the right mouse button to confirm when you have a valid word.  

Look for multiplier gems to get high scores.  Also, if you spell longer words you will be rewarded with a little extra time bonus!

Collecting Challenges

These challenges allow you to mine for gold or jewels, harvest crops, or hunt and fish.  These use the same spelling gameplay as combat but are much faster-paced.  If you collect more than two of an item in a single word, you'll gain extra time on the clock!  You can earn gold and/or XP by completing these quests.  Usually these quests can be repeated.

Privacy

In short, no personally identifiable information is collected by this app.  Crash reports and diagnostics are sent completely anonymously.  No "cookies" or device-ID based tracking for ads are also used.

If you'd like to read the entire policy, please go here.