How To Play

Getting started in Waves is very easy however there are a lot of different systems that must be mastered in order to get high scores.

## The Ship

You are represented by a small ball with a cross design on it. This is your ship. Your ship moves and reacts just as a ball would meaning it has a small amount of momentum when you change direction. Unlike other shooters where you can turn on a dime the Ship. This makes the ship behave more fluidly but is less responsive. Getting used to how the ship handles is the first skill to master.

## The Guns

Waves released with a single weapon but later added a second during a free update.

### Scatter Gun

The Scatter Gun is the default weapon in Waves. It has a high rate of fire and spits out lots of bullets in a wide arc. Most enemies are killed by just one bullet hit although some can take a lot more. The Scatter Gun is fairly inaccurate but fires so fast that aiming isn't a problem.

### Beam Laser

The Beam Laser was added as a promotional weapon during the Developers Kickstarter campaign in February 2014. It was left in the game and can be enabled in the Gameplay options in the Settings screen.

The Beam Laser is a continuous Beam that is 100% accurate and does a small amount of damage with each tick. It's strengths are that it is very good at killing enemies with a lot of health quickly but has difficulty dealing with big swarms.

## Time Buffer (aka Slowmo)

The Time Buffer (or Slowmo) lets the player slow down time for a short period. During this time you are slightly more agile than normal and your aiming is unaffected. This makes it great for getting out of tight spots where your reflexes might not be up to the task.

You get about 3 seconds of Slowmo from a full charge and it will regenerate over time.

All points scored while in Slowmo are worth double.

## Bombs

Bombs kill everything in a small area around the Ship.

Bombs are awarded every time you get a 10X combo multiplier however they must be used before the combo ends or they are lost.

You will know when a bomb is available because the announcer will say "Bomb Ready", there will be a high pitched beeping noise and the Combo meter will flash red.

Bombs are the secret to keeping your combo meter high as kills scored with a bomb build the combo meter. It is very possible to get a new bomb by using a bomb and thus chaining them together.

## Combos

The combo meter is to the right of your ship.

Every time you kill 3 enemies in quick succession your combo will increase by 1. If you don't kill any enemies for a short time the combo will end.

While a combo is in effect all the points you scored during it will be multiplied by that number.

*As an example: Killing an enemy is worth 1 point. To get your Combo meter to 10X you have to kill 30 enemies. Killing them one at a time would get you 30 points but killing them as part of a combo would get you 300.*

Points earned during a combo are only added to your score when the combo ends.

## Multiplier & Levels

Most enemies will drop small blue pickups when killed. These pickups when collected give you experience points which count towards your next level.

Your level only lasts for each round and is tied to the difficulty, what enemies spawn, how fast they spawn and when Multipliers appear.

When you Level Up a blue Multiplier will appear somewhere in the level for a brief time. Touching the Multiplier will "bank" it increasing your Score Multiplier by 1 (this is permanent unlike your Combo multiplier). Now all points scored will be multiplied by this number making that 10X combo worth twice as much (for example).

## Lives

Not all of the game modes support lives; some of them give you infinite lives and instead have a time limit.

How many lives you have remaining is displayed at the top of the screen. If you have infinite lives the symbol for Infinity will be displayed instead.

Extra Lives can be gained in some game modes.

## Point Blank Kills

Killing enemies while they are within the circle around your ship will double their points. This combined with Slowmo, a 100X Combo Multiplier and a X10 Score Multiplier can make a 1 point enemy worth 4000 points.