THERMOMORPHS

Two slimes, one board, one beat (1 s) at a time. Each beat you fill 2 slots; when the beat ends, both slimes act at the same time. Your temperature and hardness decide your form, and your form decides your moves.

🏆 How to win

• Knock the foe out (HP 0). Everyone starts with 200 HP and 50 MP.
• Both out in the same beat: the one with less overkill wins, then the one who dealt more damage, then the first to hit.
• After 180 beats, the bigger share of HP left wins.
• Best of 3: first to win 2 rounds. 2v2: the last team standing. FFA·4: the last slime standing.

🎮 Controls

• Keyboard: ←↑→↓ directions · Q ⚔ attack · W ✦ magic · E ⬢ compress · R 💧 relax · Backspace or Esc clears your slots. The keys work on any keyboard layout.
• Touch: the arrow pad on one side, the four action buttons on the other. Tap a slot to clear both.
• Each press fills the next free slot; with both full, more presses are ignored. The ring by your slots counts down the beat.
• The icon in the middle of the arrows shows your form's magic and whether it is ready. The ghost marker on the state square shows where your queued slots will take you. Small icons next to your form name show whether the other forms' magic is ready (each form has its own cooldown).

🌡 State = form

• Two axes from −100 to +100. On the state square temperature runs up and down (hot ↑, cold ↓) and hardness runs across (soft ←, hard →). From ±34 you leave the neutral middle.
• 🟢 SLIME neither hard nor soft · 💧 WATER soft, not hot · ♨️ GAS soft and hot · 🪨 STONE hard · 🧊 ICE hard and cold · 🌋 MAGMA hard and hot.
• Crit: an axis at ±90 or beyond = your hits deal ×1.5. Hot crit (+90 °C) costs you 3 HP every beat. The four corners are crit forms (so their hits deal ×1.5 too): ⚡ PLASMA, 🔥 FIRE GOLEM, 👻 GHOST, 🧊 ICE BLOCK.

⚔ Moves

• → one step. The same arrow twice: 2 cells if you are soft (else 1). Two different arrows: a diagonal if soft (else only the first).
• Two opposite arrows (←→ or ↑↓) = your form magic (table below).
• Q attack: 20 slash, reach 2 (diagonal neighbours too). QQ heavy strike: 80 crush, then you can't move next beat. WATER: a 3-hit combo (3 × 15). GAS: ghost strike (60).
• W magic (20 MP): a bolt along your row or column, up to 5 cells. Hot = 🔥 fire 40 (may burn), cold = ❄️ ice 34, otherwise ⚡ shock 32 (stuns 1 beat). GAS casts a hot cloud instead: fire 30 to every foe within 3 steps. WW = double cast: twice the power for 40 MP.
• E compress (+50 hardness) · R relax (−50) · EE phase shift to STONE (hardness 80) · RR phase shift to WATER (hardness −80, −20 °C).
• WE heat up · WR cool down: 50 °C when soft, 30 in between, 10 when hard.
• QW elemental strike (10 MP): 20 slash + 20 of your element, reach 2.
• EQ parry: you take 75 % of a physical hit and 25 % bounces back; if they struck, your riposte (30) stuns them.
• R+arrow = your form's dash (see Special moves). Soft forms dash 2 cells for 10 MP and pass through slimes on the way: WATER slips past physical hits, GAS past every aimed hit. Hard forms ram, MAGMA fire-dashes, the FIRE GOLEM jumps, PLASMA blinks. Every other SLIME does a plain dash (see Special moves). Q+arrow is always a plain attack + step.
• An empty beat = 💤 rest: +10 MP and +5 HP when both axes are off 0, half with one, nothing at 0 / 0 or as a GHOST. Each axis then drifts 1 toward 0. MP also refills +2 every beat.

✨ Form magic (opposite arrows)

Reach = steps in any direction, unless “in line”. Damage then depends on the target (ice hits deal 15 % less: DOUSE and BLIZZARD deal 42 to a SLIME). An ICE BLOCK reflects all form magic except GOO SPIT. On cooldown or without MP the magic fizzles. Each form's magic has its own cooldown, and it keeps ticking while you are in another form: switching forms lets you cast more often, the MP cost stays. (Online matches keep the previous rules until the server is updated.)

🦘 Special moves

• Hard forms (🪨 STONE, 🧊 ICE): R+arrow = ram: you charge along the ground up to 3 cells, stop at the first slime in the way and hit it (stone stuns, ice hits with ice). Knocks the foe back 1 cell, you lose 30 hardness, 4-beat cooldown (pressed earlier, it fizzles). A dash dodges it, a parry reflects it.
• 🔥 MAGMA: R+arrow = fire dash: you charge along the ground up to 3 cells and crash into the first slime in the way: crush + fire and it always burns (5 × 3 beats), knocks it back 1 cell, 4-beat cooldown, no MP. You stay MAGMA (hardness never drops below the hard edge).
• WATER: the R+arrow dash goes through slimes; right next to one it becomes a 🐸 leapfrog over it (ice damage, dodges that beat's hits, 2-beat cooldown).
• 🟢 SLIME (medium hardness, hot or neutral): R+arrow = 💨 plain dash: up to 2 cells for 10 MP, no cooldown. It does not go through: it stops in front of the first slime in the way and just plops into it (no damage). Your hardness does not change. A cold SLIME frost-passes instead.
• ❄️ Frost slime (cold, neither hard nor soft): R+arrow next to a slime = frost pass right through it (ice damage, may frost), and you relax. No cooldown.
• ⚡ PLASMA (+90 °C and hardness −90): R+arrow = blink up to 3 cells (over slimes, to the farthest free cell), then chain lightning from where you land: shock 25 to the nearest foe within 4 cells (in 2v2 / FFA it arcs to 2 more for 15), 3-beat cooldown; QQ casts it too. Form magic (opposite arrows) = 💥 NOVA (30 MP): 2 beats of wind-up frozen in place (the yellow zone, radius 3: get out!), then shock 40 + stun 2 to everyone inside, and you reset to 0 / 0. WE = the quick EMP (20 MP): 1 beat of wind-up (radius 2), then shock 10 + stun 2. Knocked out of PLASMA by GOO SPIT or DOUSE, it fires at once (AUTO-EMP).
• ☄️ FIRE GOLEM (+90 °C and hardness 90): R+arrow = meteor jump onto the nearest foe within 4 cells (over anything): fire + burn, knocks it back 1 cell, and the landing scorches everyone within 1 cell (fire 20, may burn). 4-beat cooldown. After landing you leave the form: hardness drops to 0, you stay hot.
• 👻 GHOST (hardness −90, not hot): immune to physical hits, your attacks become spirit magic (can't be parried) that heals you 30 %, and you float through slimes. Your form magic is SOUL STEAL. The price: you melt 12 HP every beat, magic hurts you more, no rest bonus.
• 🧊 ICE BLOCK (−90 °C and hardness 90): magic bounces back at the caster at half power, but a heavy strike cracks it (+50 %) and GOO SPIT resets it.

🛡 Defence & statuses

• E alone (no attack or magic) = 🛡 block while you compress: physical hits −30 % plus ¼ of your hardness (max 75 %), halved against crush.
• R alone = 💨 dodge while you relax: a 30 % chance (plus ¼ of your softness) to avoid a physical hit or a launch; GAS dodges magic too.
• 🔥 Burn: 5 damage per beat. ⚡ Stun: you lose your beat. ❄ Frost: you take 30 % more damage. A fire or ice hit only leaves its status if the target ends up past the hot / cold line (+34 / −34 °C).
• ❄ Cold slimes (−34 °C or less): a burn or stun waits frozen until they warm up, then it thaws and runs. Fire on a cold slime heats it twice as much.

🔥 Fire wall

• From beat 40 (beat 30 in rounds 2–3 of Best of 3) the outer ring of the board catches fire, then one more ring every 10 beats, until only the middle 2 × 2 is left (1v1: beat 60; 2v2 / FFA on the bigger board: beat 70).
• A 3-2-1 countdown on the ring warns you first. A burning cell deals 12 damage and +20 °C and pushes you inward; the heat lingers for 2 beats. Arrows into next beat's fire are refused.

👥 2v2 / FFA

• Targets are picked for you (the nearest enemy); form magic only hits enemies. Fire and ice on one foe in the same beat = thermal shock (+20 damage).

💡 Tips

• “⚠ You're in their line” = their bolt can reach you: step off the row and column.
• Rest a little off 0 / 0: dead centre gives no rest bonus.
• GOO SPIT is free and answers every crit form; a heavy strike shatters an Ice Block.
• Keep 15 MP for your form magic, and get to the middle before the fire wall.
• New? Pick AI: Easy and Slow start in the options: the first beats are 3× slower and speed up until the fire wall starts (matches vs AI only).
• Sound in the options: Music (beat-synced music and effects), Beat assist (no music: soft ticks on the beat, a quieter count-in tick before it, and short cues when a move or magic is ready, HP is low, the fire wall closes or a foe charges NOVA / EMP; good with your own music) or Off; the slider sets the volume. Saved on this device.