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Nothing here is hand-drawn. Each level is assembled by code from its world and level number, which normally means a fresh layout on every attempt. This one seeds the generator from those two numbers, so level 4 of the Desert is built identically whether it is your first attempt or your fortieth.

That combination is worth understanding because it decides how you should approach a hard section. The level is not going to reroll into something kinder, and it is not going to surprise you either. Every death hands you information you get to keep, and the arrangement of saws, the archer on the ledge and the gap you keep missing will all be exactly where they were.

It also means the difficulty is honest. When a level feels unfair, you can settle the question by running it again rather than wondering whether the generator dealt you a bad hand.

Holding the shield stops arrows, but only those arriving from the direction you are facing. Turn away and you are open, which sounds obvious until you notice how often the game asks you to move one way while something is shooting from the other.

This is the central tension of the archer fights. Retreating from an archer means turning your back on it, and standing to block means giving up ground you may need. The way through is usually to advance into the arrow rather than away from it - block, close the distance, and cut the archer down - because backing off simply extends the time you spend exposed.

Later worlds lean on this hard. Berlin in particular likes putting shooters on both sides of you, and there is no shield stance that answers both, so the answer becomes choosing which one to kill first and accepting a hit from the other.

Four of the five you fight the same basic way. Soldiers come at you, heavies take more hitting, archers shoot from range and bombers throw things - all of them die to a sword swing on the ground once you are in position.

Gliders do not. They can only be brought down with a jump attack, which means the one enemy that attacks from the air is also the one that forces you to leave the ground to deal with it. That is deliberately awkward: jumping costs you the ability to block and puts you somewhere you cannot change direction, so a glider arriving during a ground fight is a genuine problem rather than another target.

If you are losing health without knowing where it went, gliders are usually the answer. They are the only enemy the game expects you to solve with a different verb.

Blue flags are checkpoints and red flags end the level, and the points reflect how the game wants you to treat them - 100 for a blue, 500 for a red. Blue flags are placed mid-level rather than at the start, so the run from level opening to first checkpoint is the stretch you may end up replaying most.

Because there is no penalty for dying beyond lost ground, the sensible approach on a difficult level is to secure the checkpoint before doing anything risky. Reaching a blue flag with low health is almost always better than fighting one more group for the points.

The boss levels are the exception - there is nowhere to bank progress mid-fight, so the mini-boss at level 5 and the world boss at level 10 both have to be done in one attempt from wherever you last saved.

The worlds run Forest, Desert, Snow Peaks, Factory 999, Mines and Berlin, and they are not just palette swaps - each brings its own hazards alongside the enemy mix. Factory 999 has moving saws where the Forest had none, and the Mines are built around what is underneath you rather than what is in front.

Each world holds two bosses, and the scoring quietly tells you how the difficulty curve runs: the Forest Guardian is worth 1,200 points and the Berlin Raid Chief 1,900, with everything in between rising steadily. The mini-bosses sit lower, from 800 in the Forest up to around 1,150 later on.

Clearing all six leaves the Giant Stickman Mech, which is the reason the campaign exists. It is a real ending rather than a score screen, which is worth something in a browser game.