DERELICT

How to play: every rule, with the numbers the game really uses.

The run

One dead starship a day, the same for everyone. You start in its airlock with a tank of air. Read the logs, take what you can carry, and come back out through the airlock before the air runs out. If it runs out aboard, you score nothing.

Every step costs 1 air. Going through a door costs 1 more. Climbing a ladder to another deck is a step.
You carry 3 things. There's more salvage aboard than that, so taking is choosing. Standing on a find takes it; with full hands you can swap.
Each log you read is worth 25 and doesn't take a hand. It also points you at a cache: the salvage farthest from the airlock, worth 100 more.
Your air is set for each ship: enough to reach about half of what's aboard and come back. Par is what a careful walker who knew where everything was would bring out on part of that air. Beat it.

Tap a square to see the way there and what it costs; tap it again to walk it. Arrow keys or WASD take one step. E or Space climbs a ladder, T lights the torch.

The cutting torch

You carry a cutting torch with 3 charges. Light it and pick a direction: it burns through a wall, or a jammed door, and you step into the gap for 2 air more than a step. The gap stays open for the rest of the run. A sealed room you cut into never charges you for its seal. Often the torch is the short way home.

Turned on a hole in the hull beside you, the torch welds a plate over it instead, for a charge and 2 air. A venting room with no holes left stops venting. Not the hole you came aboard by.

Rooms that cost you

Sealed rooms cost 4 air to force your way in, unless you cut in or a terminal drops the seals.
Rooms with thick air (radiation, fog, frost, failed scrubbers) cost 1 more air for every step inside.
Rooms that hurt (live wires, tripwires, loose hull plates) cost 5 air on the way in.
A room with a hole in the hull is venting. Walk in and the air going out drags you a square towards the hole, for 1 more air, once each time you come in. Planned walks count the drag. Weld the hole shut and it stops.
Two ships in three have a one-way door: its latch is jammed on one side, so from there it won't open. It's latched on the side farther from the airlock, so the trip back is the long one. Go round or burn through it; there is always another way round.

The map tells you which rooms are which before you go in. What's lying in a room you only see once you look inside.

The ship is still dying

Every 10 steps something gives, near where you are:

a door jams, and forcing it costs 4 more (or cut it);
smoke spreads into a room, so every step in there costs 1 more;
a fire breaks out, costing 2 more a step, and it spreads to a room next door each time the ship gives again;
or a seam leaks and you lose 3 air at once.

It's the same ship for the same walk: everyone who takes your steps meets the same failures.

What else is aboard

A survivor. Two ships in three have someone still alive, shut in a room away from the airlock. Reach them and they follow you: every move costs 1 more air. Get them out and the run is worth 75 more. A fire that reaches their room first means you're too late.
Oxygen canisters. One or two lie in rooms well out from the airlock. Each gives back 15 air, but never more than you boarded with, so taking one early wastes it. Fire blows them.
A maintenance drone. Two ships in three have one walking the same beat back and forth on one deck, a square a step. Walk into it, or pass it in a doorway, and its welder costs 6 air.
A terminal. Two ships in three have one still on emergency power. Stand at it and it does one job, once: vent its deck (puts out fires, clears smoke), open the doors (frees jammed doors and drops the seals on its deck), or light the map (shows what's in every room on every deck).

Conditions

About one ship in two comes aboard with a condition, shown on the title card:

Blackout: the lights are dead. You see 3 squares by your own light, not whole rooms.
Reactor: something below is burning, so most of what gives is fire.
Stress: the frame is failing, and the ship gives every 7 steps instead of every 10.

The board, challenges and medals

You get one counted run on each daily ship. Every finished run that brings something out goes on the day's board. The server checks the score by replaying your moves on the same ship, so the scores are real. Ties go to whoever kept more air. Once your run is in, you can watch the best run of the day.

Copy your result and the link in it challenges a friend: they see your score before they board. After their own run they see who won, and can watch your route.

Each ship also has a bounty, one medal it pays for. It earns the medal and adds nothing to the score. All the medals:

Practice

Practice ships are endless and random, and nothing on them counts for the board. What you bring out banks credits for suit upgrades on later practice ships: air tanks (8 air each), harness slots and torch cells. The daily ship is always played in the plain suit, so the board stays fair. Try a practice ship.

Every ship in Derelict is drawn by Bulkhead, a deck-plan editor for tabletop games. Today's ship is a free map: download it.