How to play

You ink a hero on the board. The game looks at your drawing, picks the role it fits, and writes its whole kit: a passive, three skills, an ultimate, upgrade picks and its own voice. The game moves your own lines; nothing is redrawn. Then your hero fights on the board: 5v5 on three lanes, Blue Pen against Red Pen, against bots, online or with friends, or a 3v3 one-lane Practice against bots (your hero sheet makes a party link they open to draw their own hero and join your team).

Winning a match

• Knock down the pushpins (towers) along a lane. Each lane has its outer, inner and base pin; the next one can only be hit once the one in front falls.
• Pop the Inkwell in the other team's base to win. Its guard pins fall first.
• Minions (ink droplets, quills and inkpot cannons) march down every lane. The last hit on one gives you gold.
• The jungle sits between the lanes: its creatures give gold, and the Red Oni and Blue Kraken give their side's buff for 60 seconds.
• The Snail Scribble appears early and gives the whole team gold. The Big Scribble wakes later: beat it and it switches sides, walking down mid for your team.
• Terrain: inked walls stand in the jungle. Nothing walks, sees or shoots through them, and dashes stop at them; leaps and blinks go over. Use them to hide, to ambush and to break line of sight when you run.
• Day and night turn every few minutes (every 4 minutes; 2:30 in Practice). At night everyone sees less, except night heroes. Every hero is a ☀ day or a ☾ night hero, read from its drawing: in its own time its skills hit 12% harder, its elements last longer and it moves a little faster.
• The Final Page comes near the end: towers turn paper-thin and respawns get longer, so matches finish.

The six roles

Your hero's kit

• Basic attack: melee or ranged by role, moved by what your drawing holds (a sword slashes, a bow arcs, a cannon booms).
• Passive: always on, one of thirty, picked to fit the drawing.
• Three skills unlock at levels 1, 2 and 3; the ultimate at level 4. Skills grow stronger as you level.
• Upgrade picks at levels 5, 7, 9 and 12: one of two for each skill and the ultimate, so the same hero can be built different ways.
• Battle spell: one of eight, chosen on your hero's sheet before you play.

Elements and combos

Each skill has one of twelve elements, and they react. Teammates can set each other up.

Battle spells

Items

Gold from the match buys items, six slots, any time (the shop is behind your gold). Items reset every match. New players can let the recommended build buy itself.

Controls

Fair play

Nothing in a fight is random: no lucky crits, no random misses. Every hero is one of a kind, but each role's skills share the same power budget, and the balance is checked with thousands of bot matches. The game is free to play.