Relic Arena — Hundred-Round Gauntlet

한국어 README · Data compendium · Patch notes

Current version: v1.0.4

An original single-player PvE auto-battler. Draft units, build origin/class synergies, manage a finite unit pool, forge items, and survive 100 escalating rounds. Fully client-side (Vite + React + TypeScript), deterministic seeded RNG, state persisted to localStorage.

All names, units, traits, items, icons, and copy are original. No third-party IP, assets, or references are used. Every icon is procedurally generated SVG — nothing is fetched.

Play online: https://pinehill99.github.io/relic-arena/

Development process

Relic Arena was built as a fully client-side game prototype, with the core rules separated from the React UI so the game can be tested without a browser. The implementation pass focused on three layers:

• Game model: typed unit, trait, item, monster, economy, shop, pool, and round definitions.
• Simulation engine: deterministic seeded RNG, auto-combat ticks, synergy scoring, item recipes, star upgrades, and a headless 100-round smoke test.
• Playable interface: an 8x8 board, bench, shop, inventory, inspector, event log, local save state, and one-click combat flow.

The balancing data is generated and audited with repeatable checks. The current validation suite confirms the roster counts, 8 basic items, 20 tier-1 items, 100 tier-2 recipes, shop odds, 100 generated rounds, and a full 100-round combat simulation.

Gameplay videos

The clips below show the public GitHub Pages build in play.

Open gameplay overview video

Open combat and interface video

1. Run instructions

npm install
npm run dev      # launches the game at http://localhost:5173

Other scripts:

npm run build    # type-check + production build
npm run verify   # headless: runs all count assertions + a 100-round combat smoke test
npm test         # vitest unit tests (counts, recipes, odds)

2. Controls and UI

• Top bar: current round / 100, difficulty multiplier, field combat power, run seed, New Run.
• Center: the 8×8 board. The top 4 rows are the enemy zone (shows the next round's enemy preview during prep, and live enemies during combat). The bottom 4 rows are your placement zone. Below the board is your 9-slot bench.
• Left rail: active synergies (tier-colored when active) and your item inventory.
• Right rail: a hover inspector (units, shop cards, items, traits, monsters) and a recent-events log.
• Bottom bar: HP, gold, level, XP bar, Buy XP, Reroll, the 5-slot shop, board count, and Start Combat.

Interactions (all click-based):

• Click a shop card to buy (if affordable and bench has room).
• Click a bench/board unit to select it, then click a board cell to place/move, or click an empty bench slot to bench it. Click an occupied cell to swap.
• Click an inventory item to select it, then click a unit to equip (max 3 items/unit). Equipping a component that completes a recipe auto-combines on the unit.
• Click one inventory item then another to combine them in the inventory.
• Hover anything to inspect it. Selecting a unit shows a Sell button in the inspector. Click an equipped item in the inspector to unequip.
• Press Start Combat to fight the round; combat is automatic.

3. Economy and XP

• Start: 100 HP, level 3, 8 gold, 5 shop slots.
• Reroll costs 2 gold. Buy XP costs 4 gold for 4 XP. Each completed round grants +2 XP automatically.
• Round income: base(round) + interest + winBonus + bossClearBonus, where base is 4/5/6/7 by round band, interest is min(5, floor(gold/10)), win bonus is +1, and a won boss round adds +4.
• Selling a unit refunds 70% of its total invested cost (min 1 gold).
• Losing a normal round costs HP equal to the number of surviving enemies. Losing a boss round (every 10th round) costs exactly 10 HP. HP ≤ 0 ends the run; clearing round 100 wins.

XP-to-next-level by current level: 2, 4, 6, 10, 20, 36, 56, 80, 100, then MAX at level 10. Board cap equals your level.

4. Unit pool and star-up

Copies are shared across one global pool, per cost:

Cost	Copies/unit	Unique units
1	29	14
2	22	13
3	18	12
4	12	11
5	10	10

Three 1-star copies auto-merge into a 2-star; three 2-stars into a 3-star. Star scaling is 1.00× / 1.75× / 2.80× on HP and AD. Selling returns the invested copies to the pool. Shop odds shift toward higher costs as your level rises (each level's odds sum to 100).

5. Traits — 10 origins and 10 classes

Synergies count unique fielded units only (bench excluded). Active thresholds light up bronze → silver → gold → prismatic.

• Origins (2/4/6): Ember (burn), Frost (attack-speed shred / freeze), Verdant (missing-HP heal), Storm (chain lightning), Iron (armor/MR + reflect), Void (resist penetration), Celestial (omnivamp + overheal shield), Tidal (mana on attack + CC), Shadow (crit + execute), Arcane (spell power + spell repeat).
• Classes (2/4/6, some 8): Vanguard (HP/armor), Duelist (stacking attack speed), Ranger (range + periodic AD), Mage (spell power + echo), Assassin (leap + crit damage), Cleric (heals), Engineer (turrets), Summoner (summon buffs), Guardian (start-of-combat shields), Warlock (spell vamp). Several units carry two classes; both count.

6. Items — why exactly 8 / 20 / 100

• 8 basic components (Blade, Rod, Vest, Cloak, Tear, Belt, Bow, Glove). Only basics drop from monsters.
• 20 tier-1 items. Counting a self-pair as two slots, each basic appears in five ingredient slots (self+self plus three distinct non-self partners), which yields exactly 8 × 5 / 2 = 20 unique combinations.
• 100 tier-2 completed items. Tier-2 recipes are directional: base tier-1 + catalyst tier-1. Each of the 20 tier-1 bases has exactly 5 allowed catalysts (baseIndex + {1,3,7,11,15} mod 20, self excluded), giving 20 × 5 = 100 unique completed items. Names follow ${base.prefix} ${catalyst.suffix}; stats are base×1.25 + catalyst×0.75.

Units hold up to 3 items. Equipping a component that completes a recipe combines automatically.

7. Round scaling

Rounds are generated procedurally (not hand-authored). difficulty = 1.066^(round-1), chapter = ceil(round/10). Normal enemy count = clamp(2 + floor(round/5) + floor(round/17), 2, 16). Monster HP scales by difficulty × role modifier; AD by 1.052^(round-1) × role modifier; spell power by 30 × difficulty. Every 10th round is a boss (a scaled elite-class statline with a signature skill) plus elites and minions drawn from the previous round.

Item-drop schedule is tuned so an average full run yields ~110–118 basics and a lucky run ~125–130 — roughly 28–32 completed items by round 100, enough to fully itemize a strong 9–10 unit board without flooding early. A per-type pity weight before round 30 prevents component starvation.

8. Field combat power

A readable summary score (not used to decide combat): per-unit (HP·0.16 + AD·4 + SP·3 + armor·1.6 + MR·1.4 + AS%·2 + cost·35 + starBonus) × itemMultiplier, summed and multiplied by 1 + 0.025 × activeTraitThresholds.

9. Known simplifications vs. production auto-battlers

• Combat is a real-time grid sim on a 100 ms tick with a 45 s timeout, but movement is cell-by-cell (no smooth interpolation) and pathing is greedy-nearest.
• Unit skills are resolved by archetype (damage burst / heal / shield / summon) rather than bespoke scripting for all 60 skills; flavor text matches each unit but mechanics are generalized.
• Origin/class effects implement the impactful subset (burn, slow, chain, heals, shields, pen, vamp, crit/execute, duelist ramp, turrets, summons); a few finer clauses are approximated.
• No PvP, no augments/portals, no carousel; PvE only. One save slot in localStorage.
• Boss "phase" skills are represented as a heavy burst plus crowd control rather than scripted multi-phase fights.

Determinism: a run is reproducible from its seed — shop rolls and drops advance a persisted RNG state, and each round's monsters/combat derive from the seed and round number.