Things we wish we knew before starting Realm Of Ink

Realm of Ink's Roguelike gameplay can quickly become hectic once you leave the tutorial. The game relies on you recognizing certain mechanics from playing similar games, and some people will struggle to understand things as a result. Fortunately, once you get over the initial learning curve, the game becomes much more intuitive.

To delve into Red's kill-your-own-storyteller adventure, you'll want to intertwine the various aspects of melee and magical combat along with navigating the game's upgrade systems, pet evolution, and economy. There's a lot to keep track of, and this guide aims to simplify the basics.

Realm of Ink is currently in early access, so some content is subject to change. We will update this guide as needed in the future.

Your elemental pets can become a powerhouse

Your pet can grow up shockingly if fed the right inks. If you unlock his special ability with a pair of epic gems, it will often be strong enough to encounter standard rooms on its own.

Your pet's special skill requires both gems to be of average epic rarity. If you prioritize upgrading one of your gemsyou can more easily replace the other as needed. Upgrading both equally will often mean the need to weaken your pet if you make any changes to your build.

The game's type chart follows the five elements (Wuxing) of Chinese philosophy, rather than the four Greek elements that appear more often in games.

This means that you will not find any air element because the Wuxing element chart includes: water, wood, fire, earth and metal.

Each pair of elements gives your pet a different appearance, including two of the same element. How different animal forms work in combat can be hard to tell by looking at them, but you can check the pause menu to see what form your pet is in currently and what passive or active abilities it can release.

You can safely ignore some visual indicators

Visually, there can be a lot going on at one time, and not all of it is dangerous to you. To train ignore the visual effects associated with your own attacks makes it easier to avoid enemies.

A useful option if you're struggling with this is in the video settings that will allow you to
increase the transparency of your own abilities,
so there is less visual clutter when dodging.

Some builds rely on you seeing your own effects, such as magic circles. While perks can usually be left at maximum transparency, don't be afraid to change the visibility of your ink gems when you equip new ones.

Depending on the inks you have, your familiar may have a form that feels dangerous: This is especially true for the projectile and area attacks he uses, such as fire and ash forms.

Choose gems to complement your perks and potions

The game's tutorial puts much more emphasis on the two ink gems you can wear than the other upgrades available. Ink Gems are a more flexible upgrade that you can replace them as soon as a better one appears.

The benefits are permanent and cannot be changed in the same way and there is no limit to the number you can carry. If you have a choice of rooms to progress through, rooms with benefits are often a good choice.

It's better to choose ink gems that favor your currently available perks rather than the other way around.
You'll find plenty of opportunities to find different gems in the loop, but you'll want to commit to a specific group of perks before you reach the first boss fight.

Not all attacks should be used on cooldown

Some gems are
worth holding for their passive or house abilities
rather than their active abilities.
Read the abilities carefully
know if the passive or active part of the gem is more important.

Burning ink is great for any build that focuses on damage over time. His passive allows you to stack burning effects, but his active skill removes all stacks of the effect.

• IN short fights you want to use the active skill oftenturns your slower burn damage into quick bursts of lethality.
• In the majority longer fights that you want to avoid with an active skill and allow the passive to deal damage through an increasing number of burns.

The same goes for the basic abilities of some unlockable skins. Red is able to use the same combo again by holding down the attack button A'kuan benefit from combining their abilities with feints for extra power and General Gor must pick up their blade after each throw.

Keep ranged attackers in sight

Ranged attacks are only dodge when you see them coming. Enemies with a ranged attack greater than your line of sight can easily hit you off screen if you don't keep the fight close to them.

Keeping the fight close to ranged enemies also makes them easier to deal with, as you naturally shrink them down with area effects and spells designed for other enemies.

This is harder to achieve with some boss fights, such as the Puppet Emperor and the Peony Demon. Here you will want find out if there are blind spots in the arena where you can fight summoned minions and not worry about gigantic death lasers.

Dash While Holding a Charged Lunge Attack

Heavy attacks do a lot of damage, but can be hard to land directly on most characters. Dashing does not cancel your charged attack, but instead delays it to the end of your movementallowing you to dive into a group of enemies instead of waiting for them to step forward. This is it an important part of Red's toolkit in the early stages of the game.

This also allows you to use charged strikes against enemies with longer range attacks or at
avoid an attack animation that ends up hitting you.

This can lead to interesting results with some skins. A'kuan doesn't need the extra range on his heavy attack, but by repositioning during his channel, he can adjust the direction he hits it.

Use your money wisely

It's easy to continue to make assumptions about in-game economies and get caught off guard by the price of a healing potion or the exorbitant cost of upgrades you might find in common loot.

Learning what different types of items are worth will help extend your runs and teach you value of benefits and upgrades that provide stackable discounts. Expenses 200 silver for a potion is often not worth it unless you have synergies that grow from the money you spend or the food you eat.

This also applies to event NPCs that appear during runs.
Selling your lives for items usually pays off
how you can always heal before boss fights.

Selling max HP is harder to justify, but
can pay off with the right construction
.

Always take room for challenges

Some roguelikes teach you to carefully weigh the benefits of taking a more challenging route. In a game like Slay The Spire or Hades, going up against a stronger fighter means potentially being low on life while fighting an area boss, or getting destroyed by a miniboss you're not ready for.

The Realm of Ink challenge rooms have stronger enemies than usual, but rewards are double to triple that of a regular encounter. Special challenges like defending NPCs will still be there give you partial rewards if you fail them, on the same level as regular meetings. That means it exists rarely a reason to avoid challenges unless they pose a serious risk of killing you.

Find the game that suits you

Like many games that feature both spellcasting and melee combat, the two offer different levels of challenge depending on how you apply the two disciplines. Most encounters can be beaten without being hit if you stay at maximum rangeuse the Ink Gem from a distance and have Momo pick off all melee attackers.

While some will enjoy playing purely melee as more of a challenge, even if it doesn't offer extra rewards. This applies to a clothing system that changes your attack style: