RUST CITY RUMBLE

The loop

Rust City Rumble is a roguelite street brawler: classic belt-scroll combat wrapped in an endless, wave-after-wave survival run.

1. Start a run. You drop into a randomly generated street (arena).
2. Survive the waves. Enemies arrive wave after wave — gentle at first, then more numerous, faster, tougher, and stranger the deeper you go.
3. Collect resources. Beaten enemies and smashed crates drop coins (spend at shops) and XP (level up). Coins are auto-collected.
4. Level up → pick a power. Each level you choose one of a few random upgrade cards. They stack — this is how a run snowballs.
5. Clear & advance. Wipe out the last wave and a STAGE COMPLETE recap pops above you — kills, damage dealt & taken, DPS, and the score that stage earned. Then walk to the right-hand exit (no teleporting) to roll into a randomized shop — stat boosts, max stamina, techniques, boons — and on into the next street, where you enter from the left.
6. Bosses. Every 3rd street ends with a stage boss; other streets can field a beefed-up "Bruiser" mini-boss on the final wave.
7. Permadeath. Die and the run is over — all upgrades, purchases, and stats are wiped and the city regenerates. But you bank GRIT.
8. Spend GRIT on permanent unlocks at the title screen; they carry across every future run.

Controls

Gamepad: left stick / D-pad move (double-tap a direction runs), X/Square punch, Y/Triangle kick, B/Circle grab & pick up, A/Cross jump, RB (right bumper) for your ultimate, hold LB / LT / RT to run, Start pauses (and confirms in menus). Punch and kick are pure attacks — only the grab button picks things up, so you never snag a body mid-combo. The opening ENTER GAME splash takes any controller button too, not just a click, so a pad-only player can get straight in.

Pause menu (Esc / Start): the game freezes and an options panel opens where you can set SFX and music volume independently (saved between sessions) or END RUN to bank your GRIT and return to the main menu. The same volume controls live on the title screen under SETTINGS, which also has toggles for the title music, a SCREEN SHAKE on/off switch (turn it off for a comfortable, motion-free camera), and a UI SCALE option. The UI auto-scales with your resolution so menus and the HUD stay readable on a big/hi-res screen (e.g. a 4K TV); UI SCALE lets you nudge it further — SMALL / AUTO / LARGE / X-LARGE / HUGE. All are saved. The game also keeps its aspect ratio: on an ultrawide monitor the action stays 16:9 with black bars at the sides (instead of zooming in), and the HUD hugs the play area.

Run meter: centered at the top of the screen during a run is a fancy ticking run timer (⏱️) and a live KO counter (💀) — your elapsed time pulses every second and the kill count pops as bodies drop, so you always know how long and how hard this run has been going.

Jukebox: the title-screen SETTINGS screen lets you preview the whole soundtrack. Step through the tracks with ←/→ and press confirm to play the highlighted one on the spot; whichever track is playing shows a small animated equalizer, and leaving SETTINGS stops it. It's handy for hearing each tune, though a run still rolls its own random track when it begins.

Rebind anything: the CONTROLS menu on the title screen lets you remap every action for keyboard and gamepad (switch device with ←→), or reset to defaults. Bindings are saved.

Attacks only connect within a depth lane — line up using the blob shadows. Keep connecting and your 3rd hit is a finisher: punch strings end in a launching uppercut, kick strings in a 360 spin kick. With the SHOCKWAVE power-up, finishers blast everyone around you.

Knocked down: the gang won't politely wait for you to stand — while you're flat on the ground a goon will occasionally stomp you for a hit. It's throttled (only one every so often, never a pile-on) and a stomp grants you a brief moment of i-frames, so it can't spiral into a chain-stomp KO — but lying there isn't free, so get up and move. Your get-up rise and the brief invulnerability afterward are still safe; only the moment you're flat is fair game.

Low-health stun: when you are knocked down at very low stamina, you stagger back up stunned and seeing stars for a moment, unable to move or attack. You are fully exposed while it lasts — the gang can hit you, so it is a genuinely dangerous spot. Back off or pop a defensive ultimate if you can. The CLEAR HEAD power-up shortens the stun, and the ADRENALINE shop item (WILL) gets you back on your feet faster in the first place.

Grapple: a low-health enemy you knock down likewise staggers back up stunned and seeing stars, unable to move or attack for about two seconds. Stand over any downed or stunned foe and press the dedicated grab button (B on a gamepad, D on the keyboard) to hoist them overhead like a heavy object — punch and kick never grab, so you'll never snatch one up by accident. You can walk and turn freely while carrying them. While you hold them (~5s): punch to slam them straight down like a trashcan — flooring enemies in front and pounding the body itself — or kick to hurl them, bowling over other enemies and hurting the one you threw. Slam enough and the body breaks (KO'd); otherwise after ~5s they wrench free. Both thrown weapons and hurled bodies can also pelt enemies that are already down on the ground, so you can finish off a pile of KO'd foes.

Core stats

Nine stats. Most start at 15 and cap at 99; Max Power (stamina) starts at 63 and caps at 255. Stats are raised by shop purchases (see Shops) and by a +1 to every stat on each level-up (on top of the power-up card you pick), and several are amplified further by run mods (see Power-ups). Press Tab in-game for a live sheet with the EFFECTIVE values; its power-up pick-rate is for the current run. Your lifetime totals — runs, deaths, KOs, total damage, power-ups taken, and DPS per weapon — live on the title screen under STATS, and a recap of the run you just finished shows on the game-over screen.

What each stat translates to (at start vs maxed)

Knocked-down enemies are vulnerable the instant they're back on their feet — no get-up invulnerability — so keep the pressure on (they flicker only while truly invulnerable). You can also punch/kick them while they're down (ground-and-pound). You still get a brief wake-up window after your own knockdowns so you can't be loop-juggled.

Power-ups (level-up cards)

How obtained: every time you level up, you're shown 3 random cards (4 with the OPEN MIND meta unlock) and pick one. They stack up to each card's max. Rarity controls how often a card is offered — COMMON freely, RARE less so, and EPIC (the build-defining ones) rarely. Your LUCK stat raises the odds of RARE/EPIC cards showing up. The last column shows the cumulative effect at each stack. On the level-up screen, any card you already own shows an OWNED ×N badge with pips for how many more stacks remain, so you can see your progress toward its max at a glance. The three ULTIMATE cards (OVERCHARGED CORE, EXTENDED FIELD, WIDE BLAST) upgrade the ultimate you already carry from the start of the run. Most cards beyond the basics start locked and are unlocked permanently with STREET CRED (see the collection); a handful are character signatures, offered only to that fighter.

Synergies

You don't buy or pick synergies — they fuse on their own the moment you've collected the right combination of cards and shop items in a run. For example, the VAMPIRE TOUCH + HAYMAKER cards fuse BLOOD FRENZY the instant you own both. It's what you pick up during the run that counts — meta unlocks and starting bonuses don't fuse anything on their own. When one fuses it sets off fireworks and a banner, and its emoji pins under your player tag so you can see your active powers at a glance; the first time you ever discover one it banks +3 STREET CRED and joins your codex. Finding every synergy is part of the chase — go experiment with combos.

Synergies are what carry a run the extra distance — they're your god-tier spike. The elemental attacks (🔥 burn, ❄️ freeze, ⚡ chain lightning, 🧪 acid, 💥 splash) hit more than one foe on their own, and combining their cards fuses bigger ones. The deepest are TRIPLE synergies that need three cards at once — e.g. ELEMENTAL GOD (EMBER FISTS + FROST GRIP + LIVE WIRE) calls down meteors. Highlighted entries below marked TRIPLE are these god-tier fusions.

Overloads (combo bursts)

OVERLOADS are a third tier of power, sitting above the passive synergies and your single ultimate — the "synergies of synergies." You don't pick or buy them. Each one is locked until you fuse a specific PAIR of synergies that go together — for example, STORM FISTS + STORM LORD unlock CHAIN STORM. The moment both halves of a pair are active a banner announces the unlock, and from then on that overload fires on its own the instant your combo crosses its milestone.

Your combo counts every hit you land since you last took damage (the RAMPAGE counter above your head), so reaching a milestone means stringing that many clean hits without getting touched — a pure skill gate on top of the synergy unlock. Get hit and the combo resets to zero; build it back up and your unlocked overloads re-arm for the next streak.

Because each pair is demanding (some need a TRIPLE synergy, so up to four or five specific cards), overloads are rare, build-defining payoffs — assembling the right synergies is how you earn them. They escalate as the combo climbs, from a crowd-wide ice freeze at 20 to a screen-wiping laser at 90+, and several scale up with related mods (more chain arcs with LIVE WIRE, more meteors with ELEMENTAL GOD). The two TIMED overloads (OVERCLOCK, UNTOUCHABLE) layer on top of an active ultimate. Each fires once per streak; the finale (MELTDOWN) then re-detonates every 25 hits beyond combo 90.

Build toward a pair on purpose: pick the cards that fuse both synergies, then keep an untouchable combo going to set the overload off. The better you dodge and the longer the chain, the more of your unlocked overloads detonate in a single rampage.

Characters & Ultimates

How obtained: KIP is free; unlock the rest with GRIT at the title under CHARACTERS, then choose who you play. Each has one ultimate, and you have it from the start of every run — no unlocking. The meter charges as you land hits, and when it's full you press Q (or RB on a gamepad) to unleash it.

Ultimates (signature abilities)

Each character has exactly one ultimate — the only ability with its own meter. It is tied to the character, so picking who you play is picking your ultimate.

You start with it: your ultimate is available from the first second of every run — there's no luck-of-the-draw unlock to chase. What you build up over a run is how strong it is, through shop items and level-up cards.

Charging: the ULT meter fills from 0 → 100 by landing hits — a small amount each time one of your attacks connects (kills no longer charge it directly). It's tuned to be a clutch payoff: expect to fill it roughly once every couple of streets of solid fighting. Speed that up with your ult-charge mods — OVERCHARGE (+30% per stack, level-up card), ENERGY DRINK (+25%, shop), and POWER SURGE (+15% per level, meta unlock).

Levelling it up: three ULT upgrade cards ride in your level-up pool — OVERCHARGED CORE (+25% ultimate damage), EXTENDED FIELD (+25% duration), and WIDE BLAST (+25% range) — and they stack. Pick them up as you descend to keep your ultimate scaling with the fight.

Using it: when the meter is full, press Q on the keyboard, or RB — the right bumper — on a gamepad, to unleash it. INSTANT ultimates fire and resolve at once; TIMED ultimates grant a buff for their duration, during which you glow and the meter can't begin to recharge until the buff ends.

Shops

How obtained: each cleared street opens a randomized stall that offers four of the items below, at prices that climb with depth and wobble by about ±20%. It does not heal you for free — your stamina carries over between streets, so if you're hurt, buy a heal (STREET FEAST or PROTEIN STACK) along with whatever else you can afford, then descend to the next, deadlier street.

Stat purchases permanently raise that stat for the run; "mod" items grant the same kind of boons as the level-up cards.

Permanent unlocks (GRIT)

How obtained: GRIT = 5 × streets you CLEARED + ⌊kills ÷ 4⌋ (then × any STREET LEGEND bonus). It must be earned — dying on street 1 having done nothing gives 0. Spend it at the title screen under UPGRADES; these persist forever and seed each new run. You can RESET from that menu at any time to refund every GRIT you've spent and clear all unlocks, so you can reallocate your build.

A RUN-START STATS panel runs alongside the list: it shows the loadout a fresh run would begin with under your current unlocks, and highlighting an unlock previews the before → after it would buy you — so you can see exactly what each purchase does before you spend.

Street Cred & the collection

STREET CRED is a second currency, separate from GRIT. Where GRIT buys permanent run-start power, Street Cred unlocks breadth — new cards and shop items that join your offered pool for good. You earn a little each run (deeper streets + kills, with a bonus for a new deepest street) and a chunk the first time you discover each synergy.

The whole catalog — 92 entries (39 level-up cards, 30 shop items, 23 synergies) — lives on the title screen under STREET CRED, with your completion %. A brand-new fighter starts with only 6 random UTILITY unlocks (no damage cards, no synergy ingredients — those have to be earned); the remaining 63 cards/items are all locked and bought one at a time with Street Cred — including every damage card, elemental attack, and build-defining pick. It's a deliberately long chase: expect around 100 runs to fully unlock the catalog (fewer if you push deep streets), so there's a fresh goal in front of you every time you come back.

Highlighting any entry on the STREET CRED screen shows what it does and a live before → after stat preview — for a fresh run with your selected character, or against your actual build if you open it mid-run — so you can see exactly what unlocking it would buy you. Synergies show the combo that fuses them.

Scoreboard

Every run ends with a score that rewards going deep above all else: it is street reached × 1000, plus 25 per kill, plus half a point per point of damage dealt (your leftover cash chips in too). Pushing one street further is worth more than a whole stage of grinding, so the board tracks how far you got first and how hard you hit second.

The SCOREBOARD screen has two views (toggle with ←/→):

• 🌐 WORLDWIDE TOP 10 — a single shared leaderboard everyone submits to, served live from the game's scoreboard API. There are only ten slots: if you can't beat the current #10, you can't post. Crack the top ten and your run goes up for the whole world to see. The server scores every submission itself and enforces the cut, so the board is the same for everybody.
• 🏠 MY RUNS — your personal hall of fame, stored on this device: every run you submit here, kept best-first, regardless of the worldwide cut.

When a run ends, the game-over screen tells you whether it cracked the worldwide top ten, then offers a submit step: dial in three arcade-style initials and confirm. Your run always saves to MY RUNS, and — if it qualified — posts to the worldwide board too, dropping you onto it with your rank highlighted. Each entry records your score, kills, damage, deepest street, time survived, and the character you played.

If the worldwide board can't be reached, the game still runs and your runs still save to MY RUNS — you just won't see the global list until it's back.

Techniques

How obtained: bought from shops (they appear in the shop pool). Each changes how an attack button behaves for the rest of the run.

• ACRO CIRCUS — Jump while running to launch into a spinning somersault attack, which cuts clean through dodging strikers.
• STONE HANDS — Mash the punch key for a relentless two-hit jab flurry — pure pressure, with no launching finisher to interrupt it.
• DRAGON FEET — Mash the kick key for a storm of two-hit kicks.
• GRAND SLAM — Swing and slam your held weapons with rapid, relentless fury.

Difficulty & run pacing

Everything scales with street depth (street 1 is depth 0): enemy stats, how many spawn, how fast they spawn, and which classes show up all ramp upward as you go, and the streets never stop coming.

Past the first three streets the crowd grows — but gently. The headcount steps up about +25% every three streets (streets 1–3 base, 4–6 ×1.25, 7–9 ×1.5, …), and the on-screen count is capped at 11 so it never floods. What ramps harder is how mean they are: every three streets the gang also takes +15% combat stats and +30% HP, so deep streets get dangerous more than they get crowded. Bosses carry a huge health pool (roughly 4× their base, plus depth scaling) and guard far more aggressively — they're a real fight, not a speed bump.

Combat tempo (Phase pacing): the fight starts slow and weighty — early swings visibly wind up before they land, for both you and the gang. It then accelerates: you attack faster as you level (every level adds AGILITY) and the gang attacks faster the deeper you descend. Early streets are a measured brawl; late streets are a blur — which is exactly when your upgrades, synergies, and ultimate are meant to carry you.

Formulas: waves = min(6, 3 + ⌊depth/2⌋) · swarm ×= depth < 3 ? 1 : 1 + 0.25·(⌊(depth−3)/3⌋+1) · enemies per wave = (3 + ⌊depth×0.8⌋ + waveIndex) × swarm · max on screen = min(11, swarm-scaled 3 + ⌊depth/3⌋) · enemy stats ×(1 + 0.15·step), HP ×(1 + 0.3·step) where step = swarm tier · spawn gap = max(0.45s, 1.4s − depth×0.12 − wave×0.05) ÷ √swarm · a stage boss closes every 3rd street.

XP & leveling

Each kill grants XP (≈ 2 × class value × depth scaling; bosses give a lot). Level 1→2 costs 8 XP; each level then costs ×1.32 the last.

Every level-up does two things: you pick one power-up card, and all ten core stats tick up by +1 automatically (capped). So even before the card, each level makes you hit harder, move faster, take less, and luck into rarer cards — a steady all-around power climb. It does NOT heal you, though: stamina is precious and only comes back when you buy it — shop heal items, or regen / lifesteal from SECOND WIND, VAMPIRE TOUCH, etc.

Enemies

Base archetype stats below (HP shown at depth 0; everything scales up with depth). The class mix is drawn per street from depth bands, so the variety fans out across a run: the first couple of streets are just brawlers and runners, then boxers and strikers join, then the heavies, leapers, and WOLVES show up mid-run, with speeders and finally the hulking brutes waiting in the deep streets. Each one fights differently — quick jab combos, sways and counters, telegraphed smashes, flying-kick pounces, and the feral WOLF that ignores weapons and lunges in to bite.

Within a wave, every goon of the same class rolls its own street-wear — hats, colored gloves, shades, chains, and kicks — so five of the same enemy still read as a crowd of individuals rather than clones.

Long-reach weapons: the deeper streets start littering 2x4 boards and steel poles (and the deeper you go, the more of them). An armed goon — a runner or a bruiser — who snatches one up can jab you from well outside fist range, so a weapon on the ground is a threat as much as a prize. Grab it yourself (the D button) and that long reach is suddenly yours.

Poise is how many combo hits a foe soaks before a heavy or a finisher floors them — regular goons drop on the first heavy (poise 0), but the big bruisers (HEAVY, BRUTE) shrug off a 3-punch string and have to be worn down. Guard is the chance to block an UNARMED punch or kick: pick up a weapon, or land a heavy hit / finisher (uppercut, spin kick, running bash/slide, jump kick), to break their guard. Bruisers also do more than jab — they wind up a telegraphed lunging smash and will grab and swing a loose pipe or hurl a crate.

Boss rotation

Stage bosses appear in this order (looping), one every 3rd street, each enraging at half health. Every boss has heavy poise — they soak a long combo before they're knocked down, and they get back up far faster than a goon, so you have to chip them down rather than juggle them. Each one also defends differently: the chargers (TORQUE, PISTON) barely guard and eat hits, while the bruisers (BRUTUS, CROAK, VANCE) wall up behind a heavy block — so weapons and finishers matter most against them. A red BOSS ▼ marker floats over the boss on screen so you always know who to focus.

Day, night & weather

Every run has a time of day that eases from daylight at the start into dusk and then full night as you descend — with a per-run offset, so some runs open mid-morning and others already at sunset. The transition crossfades street to street: the sky deepens to a cool blue and the light eases down a touch. Night stays brightly lit on purpose — the "night" read comes from that blue sky and the glowing neon, not from plunging the lights — so the action is always clear and fun to fight in.

After dark the city lights up: street lamps, traffic signals, lit windows, and the storefront and shop signs all glow like neon, each wrapped in a soft halo that fades in as night falls. By day they sit dark and quiet.

A fair share of runs bring rain, and when it comes it rolls through as a weather front rather than a constant drizzle: it arrives a street or two in, lingers for a couple of streets, then clears away. So you get to watch the storm roll in and roll back out across a run instead of it either never showing or never leaving. The rain comes down in streaks that follow the camera, kicks up splashes where it strikes the ground, washes the sky and fog a darker, desaturated grey, and every so often throws a lightning flash and a thunderclap over the steady downpour. It is purely atmospheric, though — weather never changes how the fight itself plays. A banner (⛈ RAIN or 🌙 NIGHTFALL) announces it as you step onto a street. (Day/night and rain are outdoor only — step inside a venue and it's always evenly lit and dry.)

Venues — the indoor landmarks

A run is built in districts: a couple of outdoor streets, then the district climaxes inside a big interior venue — which is also the boss stop (every 3rd street). You fight your way down the block, then the doors open on a landmark where the boss is waiting. There are five venues:

Indoors changes the rules: the runaway car never spawns inside, and there's no rain or nightfall — venues are evenly lit. Everything in them is interactive: smash the fixtures for coins and a weapon, grab the environmental weapons (the gang grabs and throws them too — mind the bowling balls), and — best of all — knock an enemy into a prop and it smashes the prop AND hurts the goon. Bowl a thug into an arcade cabinet and watch it blow up in a shower of sparks.

Maze & hazards (every arena, indoors and out): the field is broken up by a maze of SOLID barriers — dumpsters, jersey barricades, crate stacks, planters, concrete pillars — that you and the gang have to weave around (more of them the deeper you go), so no street is a flat empty box. Floor hazards now come in four flavors and are rolled fresh rather than the same wet floor every time: ⚡ WIRES DOWN — severed cables dangling from a venue's ceiling down to the floor (you can walk in front of or behind the strands; the patch under their sparking tips shocks + staggers), 💧 water and 🛢️ oil slicks (lose traction at speed), and 🔥 fire (burns on contact). Dry outdoor streets get the oil/fire kinds (never a random puddle — and no ceiling, so no wires), so streets and venues feel distinct.

Music

The soundtrack comes in two sets of songs, both routed through the music-volume slider (and the M mute). The title screen rotates a set of "Rust City Rumble" theme songs — the same lyrics performed in three styles (trap/rage, hard rock, and 80s synth); one plays at random, and when it ends another is chosen. During a run, one of six instrumental stage tracks is drawn for the run and reshuffles to a new one whenever it finishes. You can preview any of them — the title themes (TITLE 1..N) and the stage tracks (TRACK 1..N) — in the title-screen SETTINGS → jukebox (←/→ to switch, confirm to play; the one playing shows an animated equalizer); SFX and music levels are independent.

Title theme — "RUST CITY RUMBLE" lyrics

[intro]
Yeah... Rust City Rumble
Lights up — let's go

[hook]
Rust City Rumble, feel the concrete shake
Rust City Rumble, more than you can take
Fists up, lights on, every night we grind
Rust City Rumble, leave 'em all behind
(Rumble, rumble) Rust City Rumble
(Rumble, rumble) Survive the Rust City Rumble

[verse]
KIP on the corner with the brass knuckles tight
ROSA move fast, she a blur in the night
BRUNO like a tank, he don't ever back down
DUKE swing heavy, put 'em all in the ground
MERCY keep you breathin' when the health gettin' low
VEX bend the void, watch the whole crowd go
Pick your fighter, lace them steel toes up
Track shoes ready, energy drink, fill the cup

[hook]
Rust City Rumble, feel the concrete shake
Rust City Rumble, more than you can take
Fists up, lights on, every night we grind
Rust City Rumble, leave 'em all behind

[verse]
Cash in at the PAWN KINGS, spend it at the bar
GADGET GARAGE got the gauntlet, raise the bar
NOODLE NOOK, dragon noodles, spicy ramen heat
STAR ARCADE flicker while I'm light on my feet
Haymaker landin', thunder in my glove
Nine lives tickin', push come to shove
Iron fists, fast hands, grand slam swing
Coin magnet pullin' every shiny thing

[breakdown]
Survive... survive...
Rust City never sleep
Rust City in too deep
Fists up... here we go

[verse]
WRENCH KINGS comin' with the TORQUE on lock
NEON RATS scatter when the LUX hit the block
MUDLARKS crawl and the CROAK gonna fall
GREASE CAPS, PISTON, gonna wreck 'em all
DETENTION SQUAD, BRUTUS at the gate
NIGHT OWLS hootin' but they up too late
VANCE at the end with the VANDALS in a line
Survive Rust City, one more time

[hook]
Rust City Rumble, feel the concrete shake
Rust City Rumble, more than you can take
Fists up, lights on, every night we grind
Rust City Rumble, leave 'em all behind
(Rumble, rumble) Rust City Rumble
(Rumble, rumble) Survive the Rust City Rumble

[outro]
Rust City Rumble...
Yeah... we run this town