Heroes

Three playable heroes with distinct identities. Every hero obeys the one rule: their traits and upgrades change the effect of each step-caused attack — never how many attacks exist. Their weapons are shoes: thrown, swung or kicked.

The roster

Portraits show the game’s cosmetic outfits — the battle scene always renders the equipped outfit, while the selected gameplay hero decides the combat identity. The two never alias.

Wanderer

Steady power · available from the start

Steady Stride — no special trait; instead the biggest flat damage growth from upgrades and levels.

Recruit

Start

Damage per level

+2

Upgrades

5 boots-of-stride tiers

Trail Ranger

Spike damage · recruit at best area ≥ 2

Focus Strike — every 5th step attack of the current streak deals 3× damage, upgradeable to 5×.

Recruit

Best area ≥ 2

Damage per level

+1

Upgrades

4 aim tiers

Pathfinder Mage

Efficiency · recruit at best area ≥ 3

Overflow — damage beyond an enemy’s remaining health carries into the next enemy (overkill is never wasted).

Recruit

Best area ≥ 3

Damage per level

+1

Upgrades

4 arcane tiers

Recruitment reads your lifetime best area, so an ascension can never lock an already-recruited hero away again.

Shoes are the weapons

Heroes keep their looks — the weapons are their shoes, in a mix per hero: swung like a hammer, kicked like a boot, or thrown like a boomerang. One step still resolves as exactly one attack; the animation is feedback only.

Every outfit (Trailblazer, Ranger, Trail Knight, Pathfinder Mage) has all three attacks, so your look never limits your hero. With reduced motion the impact pose is shown as a still frame.

Damage composition

The damage of one step attack is composed exactly like this (all integer math):

base        = 1 (fresh run) or migrated damage
            + Σ flat damage of the selected hero’s owned upgrades
            + hero level × per-level damage of that hero
            × 2 for every 25 levels of that hero

renownBonus = ceil(base × renown × 25%)
trialBonus  = floor(trial clears bonus)          // see the Active Trial page

per attack  = base + renownBonus + trialBonus    // saturates at 10^15
            × focus multiplier                   // Trail Ranger, every 5th streak attack: 3×, 4× or 5×
            × 2                                  // Pathfinder Mage with Overflowing Soles, every 10th streak attack

• The streak counts attacks since the hero was chosen (or the last ascension). Switching heroes resets it, so cadences count from the new hero’s first attack.
• The Ranger’s focus multiplier is 3× base, +1× per owned rhythm upgrade (Rhythm Kick → 4×, Windstep Kick → 5×) — an average of 1.4×–2× per attack over a walk.
• The Mage’s Overflow can chain across enemies: an attack larger than the enemy’s remaining HP kills it and the excess hits the next (each defeated enemy still pays once). All other heroes discard overkill.
• The ceil on renown is the only upward rounding in the game; the trial bonus floors.

Upgrade ladders

Tiers are bought in order, per hero, with play-earned gold — whether or not that hero is selected. Flat bonuses apply only while their hero is selected. Costs and effects are shown before a two-tap confirm.

Wanderer — the stride ladder

Trail Ranger — the aim ladder

Pathfinder Mage — the arcane ladder

Endless hero levels

Beyond the tier ladders, every recruited hero has endless levels (rules v2+):

Selection and switching

• Choosing a hero is free and reversible at any time — a tap is a menu choice, never an attack.
• Switching resets the focus/surge streak; cadences count from the new hero’s first attack.
• A hero counts toward “walk with” badges only after a real approved step resolves an attack under that hero — picking a portrait alone doesn’t count.
• Cosmetic outfits (trailblazer, ranger, knight, mage looks) are a separate system; see Cosmetics.