The Guide

How to move

You can turn back, but only if your shadow is far enough behind you. The closer it walks, the less room you have to change your mind. On a keyboard, the arrow keys work too.

The rules of the deep

Each chapter brings one new rule. The board shows all of them in the same quiet colours.

Stars

How many times you tried never counts. Only the way you finally walked.

The Journey

The Journey is the way down: a short prologue and four chapters. Every chapter has eighteen places, one new rule, and a guardian at the end.

Prologue · Shadow

I · Keys

II · Portals

III · Fragile bridges

IV · Shadow plates

Places and the guardian

Places open one by one. The nineteenth is the guardian: a harder board that keeps the chapter's emblem. Beat it and the next chapter opens.

Chapter cards

Swipe the cards to move between chapters; the places of the card in the middle show below. Tap that card again to read its opening words once more. The thin bar on each card fills with stars: green for the main places, violet once a way down into the Abyss is open, blood red when every star of the chapter is yours.

The road ahead

Swipe past the last chapter and the Journey shows what is coming:

• Chapter V · Lost lights, coming next. Some lights went astray.
• Still dark. More chapters may wait between. The deep will tell.
• The last chapter · The hearth. Already waiting at the very bottom. A fire waits for two.

Every day

Tides

The water moves the walls. Up to five new mazes a day, each one built just for you. Choose the depth: Shallow (an easy walk), Deep (a real puzzle) or Abyss (few come back). Tides use only the rules you have already met. A tide stays yours all day; new water comes at midnight, and the screen counts down to it.

No tide comes back for a whole year.

Lantern Path

Three lanterns are lit each day: the near, the far and the last. Everyone in the world walks to the same three lights that day, so you can compare your way with friends. Light at least one each day to keep your streak. New lanterns come at midnight.

The near and the far lantern are new every day. The last lantern comes back only after a year.

Other lights and the Builder

Other lights are mazes drawn by other players, and by the studio. Walk them, and vote for the best.

Filter by how far you got (not walked, ★, ★★, ★★★; pick several to see what is left to play), and sort by votes either way.

The Builder

Get through chapter III and you can draw your own maze: small, medium or large, a shadow two to five steps behind, and every rule you have met. Check proves there is a way through; Play lets you try it yourself; Share gives it to the other lights. A maze that is already out there, even one of the game's own, cannot be shared again: change something to make it yours.

Something wrong with a board? Pause, then “Report this board”. Three reports hide it until the studio looks.

What you can earn

emblem, not yet

emblem: every place and the guardian

violet aura: all three ways down

blood aura: the Abyss at ★★★

crown: every place at ★★★

Your profile keeps the rest: stars of the Journey and of the Abyss, tides walked, lanterns lit, days in a row, boards walked and votes given, your own boards and how many walked them.

Lights and hints

• Lights. You carry five. Being caught or starting again puts one out; a new one comes every half hour, or three at once after a short ad. The prologue, the guardians and the Abyss never cost a light.
• Hint. One a day, two when you are signed in, and one more for an ad. It lights the next two to four steps, up to the next thing that matters. Never the whole way.
• Premium. Lights and hints without end, and no ads. Premium + Builder adds the Builder.

Early access: while the game is young, everything is free.

Your light, your progress

Playing without an account

During the beta everyone comes in with an invite and an account (see The beta). What follows is how it will work after it.

You won't need an account to play. Your stars, emblems, tides and lanterns live on this device only, in this browser or this app. The game gives the device a random code and knows nothing else about you.

That also means your progress can be lost:

• when you clear this browser's data, or play in a private window,
• when you uninstall the app, or move to a new phone,
• on an iPhone, Safari may forget a page you have not opened for a week (adding the game to your Home Screen helps).

Without an account, your devices don't know each other. Your phone and your computer are two different lights, and nothing carries over between them.

With an account

Open My profile and sign in with Google, Apple or your e-mail. There is no password: with your e-mail we send a six-digit code each time you sign in on a new device. Your progress, Premium and boards then follow you to every device: the browser, Android and iPhone. Nothing is lost when you sign in: the game keeps the better of both. The same e-mail is the same account, whichever way you sign in. Signed in, you get two free hints a day instead of one.

The game never stops you to ask. A guest sees one quiet line on the home screen, “Playing as a guest · Sign in”, and a word before buying Premium and after sharing a first board. Signed in, you are never asked.

Signing out saves your light to your account and leaves this device clean, safe on a shared phone. Deleting your account removes it with your progress, for good.

The beta

The beta is open to invited players. Nothing of the game opens before you are in:

1. Open the game and type the invite code you were given.
2. Sign in with Google, or with your e-mail: we send a six-digit code, valid for ten minutes. Type it, and you are in.
3. Next time on the same device you are simply in. On a new device, sign in again (leave the invite empty: your account is already in the beta).

No code in your inbox? It comes from hello@threestepsbehind.com. Look in spam or Promotions, and add the address to your contacts. After a minute you can ask for a new code.

Then just play. Three short questions will find you along the way, a minute each, on the home screen and never in the middle of a board:

1. First steps, after the prologue: did the shadow make sense?
2. Getting deeper, after chapter II: the difficulty, Tides and Other lights.
3. Building lights, once the Builder is yours: the Builder, Other lights, Lantern Path, and what would bring you back.

Every game you play already tells us where places are too hard or too easy (the moves, never you). The questions tell us what the moves can't.

Questions