The game
What is Serpent of Hours?
A turn-based tactics roguelike set in a dungeon. You pick a route through floors of fights, events and treasure, and after every clear you make the same decision: bank what you are carrying and go home, or descend for one more chest.
What does it cost?
The game is free to play. There is nothing to buy in the game today. When that changes, this page changes with it — before it changes in the game. The whole deal, including the parts you are allowed to be suspicious about, is under “Money, honestly” below.
Do I need an internet connection?
No. The game plays fully offline.
Do I need an account?
No. You can install and play without signing in to anything.
Where is my progress kept?
On your device. There is no account and no cloud save of ours. Android’s own backup feature may include the game’s data in the backup your phone makes to your Google account, so if you set up a new phone from that backup your progress can come back with it — that switch is in your Android settings, not in the game. A run that is still in progress is deliberately left out of that backup. If we ever add a cloud save of our own, it will be optional, and announced here first.
Which devices?
Android first. An iOS version is planned; we are not announcing a date for it.
How do the fights work?
Every unit on the board — yours and the dungeon’s — has a clock that you can see, and it ticks down towards the thing that unit is about to do. Enemies tell you what is coming before it lands. Turn order runs side by side, so you always know who acts next.
How long does a run take?
A run is built to be finished in one sitting. Runs end when you bank, or when you misread a clock.
Do I lose everything when I die?
You lose what you were carrying, not what you banked. That is the tension the whole game is built on.
Are there ads?
There is no advertising in the game today. If we add any, it will be the kind you choose to watch for a reward — never something that interrupts a run — and this page will say so before it ships.
What age rating is it?
The store rating is set by the ratings boards from a questionnaire we fill in, and it is shown on the store page. If the game changes in a way that changes the answer, we re-file it.
What language is the game in?
English. Turkish is planned.
I found a bug. I have an idea. I want to yell about a boss.
[email protected] — it reaches one person, and that person reads it.
Money, honestly
Nothing in Serpent of Hours is for sale today. This section is the deal we are building, published before we build it, so that you can hold us to it. On the day the first chest goes on sale, the rates go live inside the game, this notice comes down, and everything below stops talking about the future.
Why say this before you have built it?
Because it is easy to promise fairness while there is nothing to sell, and hard to retro-fit it afterwards. If we ship something that contradicts this page, the page is the thing you should quote back at us.
What will there be to buy?
Chests, and a season pass. Chests hold companions — the characters who fight beside your hero — and the shards that rank them up. The pass will run a free track alongside the paid one, and the paid track will hand out more of the same things, not different things.
Is it pay-to-win?
Partly, and we would rather say so plainly than dodge it.
Rarer companions are stronger, and duplicates rank them up — so someone who buys chests will build a strong roster sooner. What paying does not buy: a better drop rate, a companion or a star level that is closed to free players, or anything we can take back later. The rates and the guaranteed-drop counter are published inside the game, and everything in a chest is reachable by playing, shards included. If the balance ever reads unfair, we buff the free paths — we do not nerf what you already own.
Are rarer companions really stronger?
Yes. Rarity is power in this game, and we would rather write that here than let you discover it at the worst moment. Rarer companions arrive with stronger kits, and every companion gets stronger as you rank it up with shards. All of them are earnable.
What is a chest?
Two different things share the word, so: chests you find inside a run hold gold, gear and runes for that run. The chests on this page are the other kind — the ones that hold companions and shards for your collection. Nothing you find in a run is for sale.
What happens when I already own the companion a chest gives me?
It becomes shards for that companion, and shards are what rank it up. Duplicates are never dead weight.
Does paying give better odds?
No. Paying gets you more chests, never better ones — the drop rates are the same for everyone, and there is no separate table for people who spend.
Where do I see the odds?
On the Rates page in the game — one tap from any purchase screen, before you spend anything. It lists the chance of each rarity, the guaranteed-drop counter and where it currently stands, and what duplicates convert into. That page goes live on the same day the first chest does; it will not arrive a patch later. We keep the numbers there rather than on this page for one reason: the page in the game reads them from the game, so it cannot quietly go stale.
How does the guaranteed-drop counter work?
Every chest you open moves the same counter, wherever the chest came from — bought, earned, free track or paid track. When it reaches the top, the drop is guaranteed. There is no faster counter for people who pay.
Can a player who never pays get everything?
Yes — every companion and every shard that ranks one up can be earned by playing. It takes longer. That is the whole of the difference, and it is the difference we are willing to defend.
Will you ever take away power I earned?
No. If something turns out to be too strong or too weak, we change what comes next; we do not reach into a collection you already built. Power you have earned is never taken away.
Are there energy timers?
No energy timers. No countdowns. Play as long as you like.
Fair for free, faster if you pay. That is the whole deal, in one line.
If you ever pay for something and it goes wrong.
Refunds go through the store you bought it in — that is the only place that can issue them. If something is broken on our side, write to [email protected] and we will fix it and tell you what happened.