How to play Night Parade

Walk through twenty hand-made places as a small animal keeper. Choose a home, a class and a shrine or temple, light lanterns, collect curious gifts, and meet the parade alone or with friends until dawn. It is for one to four players and is free in your browser: no download, no account.

How it plays

Move with WASD or arrows, or drag anywhere on the road.
Your weapons fire on their own. Collect the little lights to grow.
Space, Enter, or the bell button prays. Temples chant on their own.
Esc or P opens your build. Walking alone pauses and saves your night on this device. A company night keeps going.
Fight beside a stone lantern to light it. Its light slows the parade.
Great structures have powers for whoever stands by them. This place lists its own.
Walls and deep water stop feet. Walls also stop the parade's shots.
Stand by the temple bell to ring it and bring back fallen friends. Shrines wake at the times in the programme.

What you will carry

Weapon Fires on its own at whatever is near. You carry up to four, and each grows to level 6.

Gear Worn, and always at work. One piece each for head, body, hands and feet, and up to four charms. It comes from chests and from the peddler.

Trait A knack your keeper learns, up to rank 3. Your home, your class and your patron each teach their own, and a wayside shrine teaches its patron's.

Calling What your keeper becomes. One is offered at level 20 and at level 35, if your themes reach what it asks.

Words of the road

What a keeper carries

Everything you are offered is a weapon, a piece of gear, a trait or a calling.

Weapon: Fires on its own at whatever is near. You carry up to four, and each grows to level 6.
Gear: Worn, and always at work. One piece each for head, body, hands and feet, and up to four charms. It comes from chests and from the peddler.
Trait: A knack your keeper learns, up to rank 3. Your home, your class and your patron each teach their own, and a wayside shrine teaches its patron's.
Calling: What your keeper becomes. One is offered at level 20 and at level 35, if your themes reach what it asks.
Vow: A calling for a keeper who carries one weapon and no more.
Bond: A trait that only works beside another keeper. Offered when you walk in company.
Theme: A small tag on a card that says what the thing counts toward. Devotions and callings look at how many of each theme you carry.
Devotion: Go deep into one theme and its devotion wakes by itself: a step at 8, 13 and 18 of that theme.
Resonance: Two themes at 5 each wake a small rule of their own, by itself. At 10 each it grows.
Elements at 4 or more: Some callings ask how many elements you have gone into. An element counts once its theme stands at 4 or more: Blade, Impact, Fire, Frost, Lightning, Venom, Spirit and Shadow.
Relic: The rarest gear. It counts double toward its themes.

In a fight

Telling blow: A hit that lands harder than usual. To start with, one hit in twenty, for 1.75 times the damage.
Stacks: Marks and blessings pile up. Each stack adds its effect again.
Status: A mark your hits leave on a yokai: Burn, Poison, Bleed, Chill, Shock, Soak, Curse, Brand, Charm and Sleep.
Prayer: Your patron's gift. A shrine's prayer is yours to call each time its ring fills: Space, Enter or the bell button. A temple's mantra chants itself.
Mantra: A temple patron's prayer. It chants itself whenever it is ready, and every rule that waits for a prayer hears it.
Helper: A friend who fights beside you for a few seconds and then fades. Paper servants brand, messenger foxes burn, crows make things bleed, hungry ghosts curse, and a shadow double simply hits hard.Shikigami: A paper servant. Brands what it strikes.Messenger fox: A spirit fox. Sets things alight.Crow: Fast, and pecks until it bleeds.Hungry ghost: Slow, and curses what it touches.Shadow double: A copy of you that hits hard and does not last.
Fox flame: A small flame that hunts the nearest yokai by itself and leaves Burn. It is a shot, not a helper.
Armor: Each point takes 1 off every blow you take. A blow always does at least 1.
Dodge: A blow that misses you altogether. At best, three blows in five.
Frozen: Ten stacks of Chill freeze a yokai solid for two and a half seconds; a lord shakes it off in under one. Impact hits the frozen half again as hard.
Awakened: A weapon at level 6: far more damage, and twice the status.
Rice ball: Yokai drop one now and then, and a lord always does. Eating it mends 12 health and 15% of your whole.
Champion: A bigger yokai with eight times the health, and it hits harder. Some come with the parade; some take up a post and wait there with a guard. Each leaves a chest of gear.
Lord: Three lords rise each night, at 5:00, 10:00 and 13:00, each on its own ground with 20 seconds of warning. A lord leaves a lacquered chest with a relic in it.

Marks on yokai

Statuses: what your hits leave behind. They stack.

Burn: 3 fire damage a second per stack. Goes out all at once. Lasts 4 seconds unless renewed.
Poison: 2 venom damage a second per stack, for a long time. Lasts 8 seconds unless renewed.
Bleed: 4 blade damage a second per stack, briefly. Lasts 3 seconds unless renewed.
Chill: 6% slower per stack. Ten stacks freeze solid. Lasts 5 seconds unless renewed.
Shock: Twice a second, zaps a neighbour for 4 per stack and hands half the stacks on. Lasts 6 seconds unless renewed.
Soak: Wet. Lightning hurts half again as much; fire a third less. Lasts 6 seconds unless renewed.
Curse: Takes 4% more damage per stack. When it dies the curse jumps to a neighbour. Lasts 8 seconds unless renewed.
Brand: Every hit on it adds 2 spirit damage per stack. Lasts 6 seconds unless renewed.
Charm: Fights for you for a few seconds. Lords shrug it off. Lasts 3 seconds unless renewed.
Sleep: Stands still. The hit that wakes it lands two and a half times as hard. Lasts 4 seconds unless renewed.

Blessings on you

They stack, and fade one at a time.

Fervor: Weapons attack 4% faster per stack. Up to 25 stacks; one fades every second.
Might: 5% more damage per stack. Up to 20 stacks; one fades every 1.5 seconds.
Haste: 3% faster on your feet per stack. Up to 15 stacks; one fades every second.
Ward: Soaks up damage before your health does. Does not fade.
Charge: At twenty stacks it lets go as five thunderbolts. Up to 20 stacks; one fades every 4 seconds.
Grace: 4% chance per stack to step out of a blow. Up to 10 stacks; one fades every 2 seconds.
Luck: 2% more chance of a telling blow per stack. Up to 20 stacks; one fades every 2 seconds.
Feast: Mends half a health a second per stack. Up to 10 stacks; one fades every 3 seconds.

Elements

Every weapon has one.

Blade: Cuts. Blade hits often leave Bleed.
Impact: Thumps. Half again as hard against the frozen.
Fire: Burns. Weaker against the soaked.
Frost: Chills, and at ten stacks freezes.
Lightning: Jumps. Half again as hard against the soaked.
Venom: Poisons. Slow, and it lasts.
Spirit: Purifies. Branded enemies take more from every hit.
Shadow: Curses. A curse outlives its host.

On the road

What stands in a place.

Stone lantern: Fight beside one to light it: every yokai you send home within its reach fills it a little, and each lantern asks more than the last. In its light yokai are 15% slower and take 15% more, and every lit lantern adds 3% to what you learn. Light them all for a relic.
Landmark: A great structure with a power of its own for any keeper standing within its reach: a water wheel soaks, a pagoda hastens prayer, a festival stage stirs Fervor. Each suits some builds and does nothing for others. This place lists its own.
Wayside shrine: A shrine or temple wakes at the times in the programme. Walk in while it is awake, and every keeper still standing is offered one of that patron's traits.
The peddler: Sets up his stall at the times in the programme and sells gear for coins.
Temple bell: Stand beside it for 2 seconds to ring it. Yokai all around are thrown back and dazed, and fallen keepers stand up again. Then it rests for 150 seconds.
Spring: Step in to mend a third of your health. Then it rests for 2 minutes.
Procession: A line of yokai walking its own way through the place. It leaves you alone unless you come close or hit it. There is a champion in the middle.
Gate: A way that is shut at first. The programme says what opens it: an hour, a fallen lord, or enough lit lanterns. A tide gate opens and shuts again.
Weather: The programme warns of it. Ground it marks will hurt once the warning ends, so step off.

On the screen

Dawn: A night is 15 minutes long. The sign counts down to dawn; still standing then, you have kept the road.
Level: Yokai leave little lights behind. Gather enough and you grow a level and are offered a gift: a weapon or a trait.
Health: At nothing you fall. Alone, that ends the night unless you carry a spare life; in company a friend can stand by you to raise you, or ring the bell. The pale part of the bar is Ward.
Sent home: How many yokai you have sent home tonight.
Coins: Yokai drop them. They buy gear from the peddler and pay for a second look at a gift (a reroll).
Reroll: Pay coins to be shown other gifts. It costs a little more each time.
Skip: Take none of the gifts. You get a little health back instead, and at a new level a few coins.

Themes

Themes are the small tags on a card. Every thing you carry counts toward its themes: 8, 13, 18 of one theme deepen its devotion, and callings ask for themes.

Fire: Fire damage and Burn.
Frost: Frost damage, Chill and Soak.
Lightning: Lightning damage, Shock and Charge.
Venom: Venom damage and Poison.
Spirit: Spirit damage and Brand.
Shadow: Shadow damage and Curse.
Blade: Blade damage and Bleed.
Impact: Impact damage, and knocking yokai back.
Helpers: Calling up helpers and making them stronger.
Prayer: What happens when you pray, and praying sooner.
Stillness: What works while you stand still.
Stride: What works as you walk: speed, Haste, Grace and dodging.
Guard: Health, armor, Ward, and what happens when you are hurt.
Fortune: Telling blows, Luck, coins and pickups.
Feast: Mending, and the Feast blessing.
Fury: Might, Fervor and faster weapons.
Dream: Charm and Sleep.

Fifteen minutes to dawn, or to nightfall. Mind the peddler. He has pockets.