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You take on the role of Marika, with the initial goal of escaping the encampment and finding Rayda. Additional objectives will reveal themselves as the story unfolds.
Your general goal is to help Marika gain new skills and abilities. She will need them to surivive in increasingly dangerous Vallan compounds.
Marika gains new skills and abilities by earning and spending experience points (EXP). Experience points are spent by reading books. To learn from a book, Marika will need to both find the book and earn the require EXP. Higher-level books may have other requirement, such as meeting an intelligence level, accomplishing a feat, or having learned a prerequisite skill.
Marika earns experience points by completing the game’s levels (referred to as areas). The total amount of experience points she can spend is the sum of the high scores in each area. Hence, if an area is replayed, the previous high score must be exceeded before more experience points are awarded.
Completing the area’s objectives and collecting EXP orbs significantly add to the score. Being victorious in combat also adds to the score—but sometimes Marika may be better off by avoiding a fight.
EXP orbs are often arranged in groups. Quickly collecting the entire group of orbs will add a bonus. Cool!
There are many other ways to gain experience that you’ll learn as the game progresses. Some bonuses that seem minor when you first encounter them may become very significant later.
Marika can earn style bonuses at the end of the level. Style bonuses are feats, such as quickly collecting every group of EXP orbs, not taking any damage in the area, completing the area within a short time frame, or finding all of the books and gold. Style bonuses can add a hefty bonus—so much so that they may even double the area score!
Marika will also receive a “Rogue Rating” rank at the end of the level. An “A” or “S” rank awards a large bonus. Can you help Marika earn a perfect rank, “P”, of 800 points? Rogue Rating ranks also contribute to other factors in the game, such as Marika’s reputation with key NPCs.
Style bonus points contribute the most to Rogue Rating, while deaths lower it.
Tip! Don’t be discouraged by a low Rogue Rating rank! You have to clear the area to take any permanent collectables (like books) out of it. Taking permanents out of the area is the highest priority. Areas can be replayed at any time. If you want to earn a high rank, it will be easier to make another attempt after Marika gains new skills.
Some collectable items, such as books or gold that award permanent bonuses, can only be taken from an area once. These items are replaced with “dummy variants” when an area is replayed so that their points and style bonuses can still be earned.
Marika is counting on you to keep a close eye on her health.
Hitpoints (HP) determine how many hits Marika can take before she dies. The skill “Sanctuary” will let her take one additional hit at 0 HP, except from falling.
Endurance (MV) determines how hard Marika can push herself before she needs rest. Certain skills can mitigate many of the negative effects of tiring out, but her better moves will still be less effective.
If Marika dies, your choices are to rebirth or accept fate. Accepting the fate will drop her back to the world map. From there, you can try another area or retry the failed area—starting from the beginning. Rebirth will allow you to return Marika to the last Save Point Ankh Statue she used. Marika will be restored to full health and endurance, but her Rogue Rating rank will be penalized.
Marika will be injured if she falls from a height greather than 2/3 of a screen, so be careful with those jumps!
There are four common elixirs that Marika can find. These items are added to her inventory when collected, and can be saved for use in any area. The elixirs have both temporary and permanent effects. Elixirs can only be taken from an area once, so use them wisely!
The Emerald Elixir restores health. If Marika has a lot of HP, she may need to drink multiple emerald elixirs to regain full health.
The Sapphire Elixir restores health to full and raises maximum life by 3 HP. These elixirs are especially valuable early in the game!
The Ruby Elixir restores energy to full and raises maximum energy by 1 MV.
The Gold Elixir temporarily raises Marika’s strength. Gold elixirs are rare, so they should be saved for urgent situations!
These are other, rare elixirs that Marika can find. Keep an eye out for them!
Healing elixirs restore health over time. If Marika has learned the skill “Sanctuary”, this effectively gives her near-immortality. When she takes a fatal hit and is dropped to 0 HP, she will quickly be brought up to 1 HP. She can then take another fatal blow and be dropped to 0 HP instead of killed. As long as she doesn’t take two fatal blows in very quick succession, she will be immortal until the healing effect wears off.
Marika can find and wear armor. Armor reduces damage by a certain percentage, up to a certain limit.
Example: An armor item could reduce damage taken by 50% up to 25 points. If she were to take 100 HP damage, this armor would only protect her from 25 of those points, leading her to take 75 points damage.
Certain enemy NPCs also wear armor! Trial and error will eventually reveal which enemies are armored. She can also find and learn a high enough level of the skill “Scry Enemy”.
Wearing armor encumbers Marika, thus reducing her maximum endurance (MV). Marika’s maximum MV cannot be reduced below half of its unencumbered value. This means Marika may need to gain MV to wear the heavier armors. Don’t forget that ruby potions raise Marika’s maximum endurance!
The most common armor items protect Marika’s legs (boots), torso (tunic), and arms (bracers). She cannot wear more than one item for each of these parts of her body. The armor also only protects against damage to the part of her body that it covers. Bracers won’t do any good if she stubs her toes on the stairs!
Some armor items have negative effects, so be sure to inspect each item carefully! Do the advantages outweigh the disadvantages?
Eventually, Marika will find rings. Unlike other equipment, she can wear as many rings as she wants. As is with armor, rings have both positive and negative effects, so she may want to shuffle them around when necessary.
The heart collectable restores Marika’s health. Unlike the Emerald and Sapphire Elixirs, the heart is consumed when Marika touches it. Each heart is worth 6 “ticks”. Each tick will heal Marika by one HP. Once her health is full, each extra tick awards 50 points.
Heart ticks that are not needed for healing also add to the area’s style bonus—so you must decide if you want to consume a heart for health or for points.
Marika’s friend Desaka runs a store in Lyrika Village. One of the upgrades she sells will increase the number of HP each heart tick restores.
The first heart upgrade costs 5 Denarii (or one gold coin). The cost \(C\) of the heart upgrade at level \(L\) is computed using a variation of Binet’s Formula.
Tip! Upgrading the heart to level 2 (healing 12 HP instead of 6 HP) is a good first purchase to make.
In high level areas, Marika will find hearts that have a higher number of ticks.
Tip! While at the beginning of the game the maximum point value of a heart is modest, eventually hearts become a significant source of EXP. Be sure to level up the heart so that there will be more leftover ticks to contribute to score.
A variety of special weapons can be found in almost every area. They come in two basic types: thrown and shot.
The number of special weapon uses can be seen in the weapon card display on the lower-left corner of the screen. The figure above shows that Marika has no special weapon equipped (so, her fists), and an infinite number of uses.
Special weapons can be selected from the inventory screen.
Special weapons can also be “bookmarked”. Bookmarked weapons are shown in the small tiles next to the weapon card.
Bookmarks are automatically assigned the first time a weapon is collected until all bookmarks are used. They can also be reassigned to your preferences in the inventory screen. Select the weapon in the inventory screen, then select one of the bookmark buttons to reassign the bookmark.
Bookmarked weapons can be selected by using the [cycle-select] button. If you’re playing with a keyboard, you can also select a bookmarked weapon using the number keys 1-8.
Thrown weapons travel in an arc trajectory. You can hold down the [action 2] button to begin a throw. The angle Marika will throw the weapon at will increase. When you release the [action 2] button, she will throw the weapon. The throw is cancelled if the angle exceeds 90 degrees.
The most common type of thrown weapon is the axe. The axe is invaluable, but will take some time to master!
You’ll discover the rest of the thrown weapons with time.
Shooting weapons travel in a straight line. The most common type of shooting weapon is the throwing knife. Like with axes, there are other kinds of shooting weapons that you will discover later.
Shooting weapons must be aimed. To aim, hold down the [action 2] button. Then use the [left] and [right] buttons to pan the camera (if able to). Use [up] and [down] to aim. You can cancel the shot by aiming completely to the floor.
In Chapter 1, there are two skills which are very useful for making effective use of thrown weapons.
Algebra will help her do the mental math needed to better predict where the weapon will go.
Aiming will allow her to both throw and aim while running. Without that skill, she can only use weapons while standing still.
Scout also adds the ability to pan the camera while aiming a shooting weapon
At the completion of an area, leftover special weapons contribute to the style bonus score. They do not contribute to the Rogue Rating rank, though.
Marika cannot take special weapons out of an area, so be sure to use them!
Various shops will sell special weapons. Marika will start each area with the weapons she has purchased.
These purchases are permanent. That means, for instance, if Marika buys an iron axe from Desaka then she will begin every area with an iron axe.
As you might expect, the special weapons are useful for both defense and offense.
However, special weapons are also useful for manipulating the environment! Axes and knives can be used to take out sensors and defensive structures.
In the illustration above, you may figure that Marika will want to take out the turret. However, she should take out the sensor that is to its lower-left. The turret is well armored, but the sensor is fragile. The more you, and Marika, learn about Vallan technology, the easier it will be to find ideal targets.
Projectile weapons can also take out gas lamps. (They cannot take out electric lamps, though). Sensors and enemy NPCs cannot see Marika if she is in the shadows, so use light (or its absence) strategically!
Books are among the most valuable special items. To spend her hard-earned experience points, Marika will need to find books to read. The EXP cost to read from a book is listed in its page in the inventory screen. Some books have other requirements, such as a minimum intelligence stat or prerequisite skill.
All books are permanent items. Like elixirs and gold, they can only be retrieved from an area once. (On area replays, “dummy books” will be available so that the style points for collecting books can still be earned).
Marika does not have to read a book as soon as she finds one. Unread books can be carried out of the area. This is one reason why you should prioritize clearing an area regardless of score.
Early in the game, Marika should read every book she can find. Eventually, the EXP costs may prohibit her from doing that.
There is no grinding for experience points in Idosra. It is possible to read every book in the game, but probably not without clearing every area with a respectable Rogue Rating rank.
Wisdom and intelligence are two other common requirements to learn from a book.
The Wisdom (WIS) stat is levelled up via milestones. As Marika learns more about the world, she will gain wisdom.
You can see what objectives Marika currently has by looking in the Status page of the inventory screen. Marika will learn more about the world when she completes objectives. Talking to NPCs is the best way to gain new objectives. If Marika currently has no objectives, then she should find NPCs to converse with!
The Intelligence (INT) stat is increased by spending EXP. She will gain her first additional point in intelligence when she spends 1,000 EXP. Subsequent points in intelligence are gained each time the amount of EXP she has spent doubles.
Tip! Early in the game, Marika will gain intelligence points with every book she reads. This also forces a particular order the first few books must be read in. After the first few areas, she (and you, too!) will have more choices on what order to learn new skills in.
The game is automatically saved any time an area begins, or when Marika enters the Vallas Map. The game is also saved automatically when she purchases items from a shop, new areas are unlocked, or when key events occur.
The game is not saved when quit is selected from the options menu!
There are two ways you can save the game mid-area. The most common is to find a Save Ankh statue. Almost every area contains at least one of these statues. These statues act as checkpoints. If Marika dies, she can “rebirth”" to start at the last ankh she used.
Ankh statues can be used multiple times. There is no penalty for saving, but her Rogue Rating rank will be penalized if she rebirths.
If Marika touches an ankh statue that she has not saved at, she will save automatically. If you want to update the save state at the same ankh, you can activate it again with the [use] button.
In cases where it is too dangerous to return to the nearest Save Ankh statue, Marika can read a special Saving Book. These books act like a “portable Save Ankh statue”.
Saving books can only be read once. These books are rare, so use them with great care!
If Marika dies and you accept the fate instead of rebirthing, the game is restored as if the area was never attempted. This means any permanent items that were used, such as elixirs, are also restored. Any other actions that took place during the failed attempt, such as reading a book, are also undone.
Accepting the fate behaves as if you saved the game before entering the area, then restored that save.
Failed attempts at an area are considered non-canon. It wouldn’t make sense to the story if Marika actually died and came back to life. She isn’t a zombie!
Marika’s key statistics are (STR)ength, (INT)elligence, (WIS)dom, (DEX)terity, and (CON)stitution.
Strength primarily affects how hard Marika can hit, and thus her effectiveness in combat. It is raised by reading books that teach her how to strengthen herself.
Intelligence is the primary requirement to learn new skills. It is raised by spending EXP. She gains one point in intelligence when she spends 1,000 EXP, and another point each time that amount doubles.
Wisdom is a common requirement to learn the most powerful skills. It is raised by learning more about the world. Completing a set of levels is the best way to raise Marika’s wisdom statistic. The first chapter has three level sets: Lyrika, Empire Outposts, and Intriguing Activities.
Dexterity determines how much endurance Marika has, as well as how much armor she can wear before becoming encumbered. It is raised by learning certain skills.
Constitution determines how many hitpoints Marika has. It is also raised by learning certain skills.
As you might expect, Marika starts out weak, with each stat at 3 points. Each stat can be levelled up to around 23 points, give-or-take.
Tip! Intelligence is probably the most important statistic, because the others (wisdom aside) are levelled up by reading, which requires intelligence. While Idosra doesn’t feature a “character level” as in most roleplaying games, Marika’s intelligence stat can be viewed as such.
Therefore, intelligence can be seen as a way to gauge Marika’s overall strength.