Isle of Arrows – Survival Guide

Introduction to some basics and what to expect from your first hours in the game.

How to Survive

Difficulty

The game is a roguelite. It is meant to be harder, you will fail sooner or later.

That said, you will get better in terms of your own skill and get better cards, as you progress. The first few runs and hours are a bit frustrating, as you dont seem to make progress. However, with unlocking more powerful cards after each run, your success or progression increases.

Resources

There are a few Key resources. I wont go into detail, as the tutorial explains them well enough.

Those are:

• Bridges – Build outside your island.
• Explosives – Destroy buildings or obstacles.
• Money – Get another card, buy at black market.
• Life – If you run out, you are dead.
• Flags – Very Important to increase your island (and maze) size.

Other resources

Path length – You place path tiles to increase your maze lenght. The longer the path, the more towers you can place and the longer your enemy needs to your base.

Especially the first 3 resources are very scarce. Use them only, when you have to. Cling to them whenever you can and only make a purchase, when you deem it necessary to not lose a life next turn. Gauging this can be a bit hard at the beginning, but becomes more natural later on.

Tile Placement

Tile placement is the key skill in this game. You get a random tile every round and can skip them with money.

What you want to achieve:

Your towers should have as much opportunity to attack the enemies as possible. Simply said, more attack opportunity, more damage, more efficiency, more bang for the buck.

Difficulties:

Some towers come with added tiles, like water. Those are best placed in the outskirts, with the water tile not blocking key positions for more defense towers or cards.

Bonus Tiles:

Duplication (place the tower again somewhere else) or elevated positions (More range). Those are obviously fantastic bonusses. Exploit them as much as possible. More range or another super powerful tower come in very handy.

Multiple Paths:

At some point, you will get multiple paths to deal with. They start with the lowest wave strength and ramp up over time, just like your main path.

Ideally, you can build your maze in a way, that allows your already existing towers to help out on this lane (just make sure, that the enemies arrive at different times, so that they can be picked apart individually). See where this is going? Efficiency! Get as much out of your setup as possible.