COCKLEFIGHTINGThe short version#
Name a cockle. Fight rivals for XP and gold. Spend the gold on gear, forging and charms, and climb the leaderboard.
Getting in#
- Sign in with a passkey or with Google. That makes your account.
- Choose your world on the Seasons page: the Main Shore, which never resets, or the season running now, where everybody starts from nothing.
- Choose a cockle you keep there, or raise a new one. The Main Shore starts you with one slot and opens another when any of your cockles reaches level 25, 50, 100, 200, up to 5. A season takes 1 cockle, ever.
- Name it and pick its shell, and you are playing.
Your account is what signs in. A cockle is one character in one world. The Seasons page puts your cockle down and takes you back to your roster, asking first.
Seasons#
A season (a Great Tide) runs for 3 months with its own leaderboard, its own trait and its own items. When it ends, every cockle in it moves to the Main Shore with everything it earned. Nothing is ever reset. Full rules: Seasons.
Each season is dealt a rarity, common to legendary, which pays a league boon to everyone in it: more gold, XP, turns and quest pay. A boon never touches combat, so a richer season pays better and never wins a fight. 5 years of seasons hold exactly 1 legendary.
Your five stats#
Every level grants 5 skill points, spent on any of the five stats at My Cockle.
| Stat | Effect |
|---|---|
| Health | Your maximum HP. |
| Attack | How hard your blows land. |
| Defence | How much of a blow you soak. |
| Speed | How often you strike. The faster cockle strikes first. |
| Elemental | Feeds your weapon’s elemental damage and your armour’s resistance. Elemental damage ignores Defence; only a matching resistance stops it. A heavy hit can apply an effect: Brine corrodes, Frost chills, Storm shocks. |
| Knacks | Not a stat you spend on. Knacks are the bonus stats your gear adds up to (crit, lifesteal and the rest), shown beneath the five on every sheet, fight row and report. Beside a rival, +N green is your edge and -N red is theirs. |
Fighting#
Pick a rival from the fight board, sorted Easy to Deadly, and press Fight. Every fight costs a turn, and turns refill over time. The same rival only pays out once every few days.
A win takes a slice of the loser’s carried gold, and from a real player a slice of the XP they have into their current level. Time away banks a rested bonus, the hatched stretch of your XP bar, that pays extra XP when you come back. It also leaves the gold you carry open to other cockles, so spend it before you go.
Gear#
Buy gear at the Shop: weapons, armour, fins and pearls. Every slot has two figures, such as a weapon’s Attack and elemental damage or an armour’s Defence and resistance. The 16 keystones at the top of the specialist families also cost a Pearlfire.
Every piece rolls its figures when you buy it, and every charm when you reveal it. Rare and better pieces roll extra bonus stats of their own. The full rules are on Lustre.
A dud isn’t forever: sell it back, salvage it, or from level 20 reroll it at the Forge (see Salvage and Rerolling).
Forging and repair#
Forge and repair at the Forge, paid in tempers beside the gold. Fighting wears whatever you have equipped, and higher rarity resists it longer. Once a day the Quenching Tide repairs every piece you own for free, and Mother Murk’s rake does the same for every charm.
Charms#
Charms are never sold. Win them, reveal and waken them at Charms, and guard them: a stolen charm is gone for good. Only socketed charms can be stolen, and rarer or wakened ones hold on harder.
A whorl is a special rule a charm draws beyond its stats, one at most and likelier the rarer the charm. Every whorl and the odds are on Whorls.
Chum is the wound knack: a share of a hit keeps bleeding for the rival’s next 2 strikes. The Salt knack and the Red Water weapons feed on it. The full knack list is on Gear.
Quests#
Trumpet keeps 3 quests at the Tidemark, drawn for you alone. Take one on before it counts, and carry 1 at a time until the Commission Board is built in Town. A common pays gold, an uncommon hands turns back, a mythic a skill point, and a legendary a boon that lifts a stat for your next 25 attacks.
The board is kept, not wiped at midnight, so a good draw can wait. Your first quest, Your first tide, walks you through the loop in 5 steps.
What opens when#
A new cockle starts with My Cockle, Battle, Messages and the battle log. The rest of the Shore opens as you level up, and Trumpet, the shore crier, introduces each place the first time you walk in. You can turn his guide off, or start it again, in Settings.
- Level 2: Quests, The Tidemark
- Level 3: Forge, Anvilback's Forge
- Level 4: Shop, Shuckster's Stall
- Level 5: Charms, The Hollow Grotto
- Level 6: Town, Shallowmere
- Level 8: Leaderboard, The Tide Pools
- Level 10: Forum, Jabber Rock
- Level 20: Expedition, The Deep
Daily events#
At UTC midnight the Shop deals you a discount in every slot, up to 75% off; open it at the counter or the shells stay shut. The Pit marks a few cockle kinds with a bounty. Mother Murk gives one free dredge at Charms.
Town#
Shallowmere is the one place you build. Buildings need a plan, gold and materials, and each one pays a boon you feel everywhere: more XP, more gold, better finds, cheaper forging. There is never quite enough ground for all of them.
Resting in town is the only cover on the Shore: nobody can attack you, your rested bonus fills 3 times as fast, and the town pays you by the hour. Nowhere else is open until you leave, and the causeway shuts for 30 minutes when you do.
Messages and the Forum#
Messages are private; the Forum is public. Both cost supplies that drop from won fights: a bottle, paper and ink for a message, paper and ink for a post. You also need an Urchin Quill, which holds 50 writings (the starter one holds 10).
Siren Wax pins a thread to the top of its part of the Forum for 1 day, and a Deepwater Horn pins it to the front. Spell names right: a bottle sent to nobody is gone with everything it cost.
Trophies and the leaderboard#
Trophies are earned at Quests and pay gold, skill points and permanent turns when you claim them. The leaderboard ranks the top 100 real players.
Want every number?#
The Shore Wiki has all of it: every combat formula, every item and price, forge costs, drop odds and the full trophy list.
