the further she goes, the worse she looks. that's the point.
There is no experience bar. Her power is her decay: the road cracks the porcelain, the house melts her, and the night hands her wings, hearts, and weapons. This page is everything she can become, and everything that scores.
The HUD shows four notches, bottom-left. On the road (level 1) each notch lights as she passes roughly another quarter of the way. Every stage changes how she looks, reddens the moon, and detunes the music-box lullaby a little more.
It sticks. Past the road she stays at full creep for the rest of the game.
Death resets it. Lose every heart and the retry starts her porcelain-clean. She earns the cracks all over again, and the shards with them.
Full creep unlocks porcelain shards. At stage 3 every kick (X) also flings a spinning shard of her own porcelain: a short-range thrown weapon that hurts whatever it lands on, the dog included. It is the only ranged attack she has on foot.
A fifth notch, a red gone almost black. This one isn't earned by walking.
Where: in the boy's house (level 2), lighting the second candle checkpoint. "she is annoyed." Half of her runs to ink and drips as she walks.
It's story-bound. Levels 3, 4 and 5 start already melted; that candle already burned. Dying in the house and retrying re-earns it at the second candle.
The saucer's dome keeps the light off her. Fly past the candles and the melt waits until she steps out.
She starts with five. Every heart she earns adds a new container to the HUD, in rows of ten. Ten at once earns the OVERFULL badge.
Always one heart, even at full health.
Every win pays one heart. The doll toss pays one per bucket: three buckets, three hearts.
Five borrowed hearts, shown green. They go home when she leaves; every heart she owned before boarding walks out with her.
Enemy contact. A pit (after a second in the dark the last lantern pulls her back). Vermin cost half. The dog's bite. On the last heart, the dark keeps her.
How: survive one minute in a level and a purple dragon with no eyes arrives and follows her. Jump onto its back.
Powers: free flight on the arrows. Z breathes a short gust of flame. X spits a flame ball that roasts anything it touches. C hops off.
The price: spectral valkyries climb after her while she rides, up to three at a time, spear-first, tougher than bats. Dismount and they withdraw.
How: every so often a silver door full of stars appears ahead, counting down. Reach it within three seconds.
Powers: +5 borrowed hearts, free flight, Z fires laser beams, the tractor beam under the dome lifts any enemy she hovers over and X fires the passenger back out as a projectile. C bails out.
The price: two to five jet fighters scramble with missiles. Near the end of the level the saucer starts smoking: eject in time, or the explosion costs a heart.
Entirely optional, always tucked somewhere high in the back half, glinting faintly.
Four are hidden along level 1: platform tops, over ravines, one impossibly high, one behind the dollhouse, one where the wall is cracked. Find all four and "she sees": the SHE SEES badge, and the tag at the end pays double.
Level 2. +500 and the HER BRAIDS badge.
Level 3. +500 and the HER IVORY TEETH badge.
Level 4. +500 and the HER FINGERNAILS badge.
Level 5. +500 and the HER PORCELAIN HEART badge.
One number behind every "% finished": 5 parts + 4 bosses + 10 minigames + 19 achievements, equally weighted. Tab on the pause screen shows the list.
Points carry across levels. Dying keeps the level but resets the level's score, so a clean run is worth more than a stubborn one.
| Tag the boy at the dollhouse | 1,000 |
| …having found all four button eyes | +1,000 |
| Each button eye | 200 |
| Each lost part (braids, teeth, nails, heart) | 500 |
| Snap a spider's web (three hits on the thread) | 200 |
| Send the dog off (three hits) | 250 |
| Down a jet (laser, or tractor-beam throw) | 300 |
| Valkyrie | 300 |
| Bear, mountain lion, mummy | 250 |
| Snake, wolf, goat, owl, cobra | 200 |
| Rat | 150 |
| Bat, spider, cockroach, scarab | 100 |
| Ant | 50 |
| The pale boy: each thrown bat or roach that lands | 500 |
| …stomping a bat or roach to arm it | 50 |
| …the spell breaks | 1,000 |
| The werewolf: each candelabra hit | 400 |
| …he breaks through the wall | 1,500 |
| The yeti: each icicle hit | 400 |
| …a fist at half power | 150 |
| …he escapes down the tunnel | 1,500 |
| The gold-masked god: each dagger hit | 400 |
| …the mask falls | 2,000 |
| Doll toss, per bucket landed (three buckets) | 300 |
| Balloon darts, per pop / three-of-four win | 100 / +200 |
| Coffin shuffle, right coffin | 200 |
| Fortune teller (tarot pairs): 800, minus 100 per extra flip | 100–800 |
| Bell toll: a true toll / a decent swing | 200 / 50 |
| Crow gallery, per crow | 150 |
| Grave dig, the right grave / a wrong one | 300 / 50 |
| Glyph rite, four words said back | 400 |
| Scarab race, the right beetle | 300 |
| Spear gauntlet, three gates dashed | 400 |
A perfect line through all ten games with every bucket landed is worth about 4,300 and ten hearts. Every boss on first contact is another 6,000 plus the hits. The rest is bats.