Gameplay is as simple and standard for a survivor game as you would expect. You only need to worry about movement while auto aim and firing take care of anything that comes near you. However, there is no experience to collect or level up system that lets you choose perks or upgrades. Instead, you gain random upgrades by collecting green power ups.
These upgrades can improve all kinds of things, such as increasing damage, adding more projectiles to your main weapon, or increasing your pickup range. You can also find new weapons, but they generally come from large chests that are rewarded for defeating various bosses that appear every few minutes. There is also a red power up, which you generally want to ignore because picking it up increases enemy strength.
However, stronger enemies also increase your overall score, which leads to new perks and weapons being unlocked after the end of a run. Of course, you need to earn enough points to fill the upgrade bar, and each full bar unlocks something new. The amount of points you earn never goes away and continues to stack across all runs. Everything you unlock then has a chance of appearing in future runs.
Enemies also drop coins, which are used to buy things from shops. Each shop only sells one upgrade, but it respins with a different upgrade after a while. Shops remain in place after you buy from them, but they will not offer anything else until they respawn. However, this is rarely an issue because shops constantly appear and disappear all over the stage. Some are even free, while others let you spin for a random reward.
There are five stages, but beating them is not simply a matter of survival. You also need to repair your ship. This is done by cutting down trees and mining rocks, and you start the process by moving close to an object. You need to stand still while gathering resources, but you can still attack. You need a lot of resources, and you have half an hour to complete a stage.
Since mining and gathering can be very slow, it is vital to get upgrades for your tool. There is no limit to the levels of your weapons, stats, or tool, so you can reach some crazy numbers if you survive long enough. For the tool, its level determines how many resources drop from a tree or rock. So, if you manage to boost it to a high level, say 90, you can finish gathering everything in only a few minutes.
Another thing you can find is treasure piles, which usually drop coins and green power ups, but they also have a chance of containing a relic. Relics are another requirement for beating a stage. Each stage has 20 relics, but you can only find one per run. A relic is always protected by a strong boss, and if you manage to gather enough resources and obtain a relic, you can call your ship and escape.
Nothing stops you from simply playing for points, and you can even try to survive until the timer reaches zero. However, that is when you definitely need to leave because enemies become stronger with every passing second. If you succeed, you receive a decent amount of points for unlockables and unlock perks for the stage where you found the relic. Each additional relic further improves the perk.
However, this takes a very long time. Since there are five stages with 20 relics each, you need to complete 100 successful runs to beat the entire game. This can become tiring very quickly because the runs do not get any easier. Grinding through difficult runs for a single extra relic can feel especially unrewarding when the bonus it provides is relatively small, while the unlockables mostly amount to changes in what can appear during a run.
