How to play
BackYour cockle
Sign in, name your cockle and pick a shell. You start at Level 1 with a small purse and basic gear. Your first weapon and armour are earned in the pit. Four stats drive everything, and your gear adds an element on top:
| Stat | Effect |
|---|---|
| Attack | How hard your weapon hits. |
| Defence | How much damage your armour soaks up. |
| Speed | How often your cockle strikes in a fight. |
| Health | Your maximum HP. |
| Elemental | Bonus damage your weapon channels: brine, frost or storm. Armour wards one element and soaks it. A ward fully cancels a matching bite. |
Fighting
Pick an opponent from the Fight list and attack. Win to earn experience and plunder a slice (about 11%) of the gold they are carrying. Every attack costs one turn, win or lose, and turns recover over time (one every few minutes), so you cannot fight forever. A per-opponent reward cooldown (about three days) stops you farming the same cockle over and over. Your Fight list stays put between battles; tap New list to pull a fresh set of rivals (that has a short cooldown too).
Levelling up
Enough experience levels you up and grants 5 skill points to spend on the Cockle tab. Higher levels need far more experience, so there is always another rung to climb.
Gold, gear & raids
Spend plundered gold in the Shop on better weapons and armour. Every weapon channels one element and every piece of armour wards one, so match your ward to the bite you expect to face. Beware: while you are away, other players can raid the gold you are carrying, so spend it on gear before you log off.
Magic items
Magic items are the rarest prizes in the sea, and you cannot buy them. There are two ways to land one: wrench it off a beaten rival who was carrying it into the fight, or, far more rarely, dig a fresh one out of the pit floor mid-battle (an extremely low chance on a win, and never one the loser was holding). Most cockles go a good while between finds, so treasure the ones you land. Each magic item grants a hefty bonus that keeps scaling as you grow.
The Grotto
The Grotto is your own vault of magic items, open from the very start. Its wall has a niche for every magic item in the game, so you can see how many exist and how many you still have to hunt down. Slot a magic item you own, feed it gold, and its bonuses grow stronger for keeps. Upgrades stay with you, not the item. A stolen item arrives un-upgraded, and every level you add makes it harder to steal, so a maxed item is very rarely lost. The price climbs fast with each level, so a fully-grown magic item is a proper late-game goal.
The rest
Climb the Top 100 Cockles ladder, send private messages from your Messagebox, and hold forth on the Forum. Now go and get shucking!