Welcome to the Open Beta for Bit Heroes Arena! This guide explains exactly what an Open Beta means and the basics you need to know to triumph in the arena.
What's an Open Beta?
An Open Beta indicates that the game is currently still being tested before its full release. Players who participate in an Open Beta are known as “Beta Testers” (that’s you!)
The Open Beta stage means that the game has gone through a majority of its critical testing and development and is considered to be in a playable state for the general public. This typically means anyone can access and play the game. Open Betas are meant to help the development team assess community feedback and put the final polishing touches on the game. This stage can last for a short period of time or a longer one, depending on when the development team feels that things are complete. At this time the Open Beta will usually come to an end, and the game is considered officially released!
An important thing to remember about Open Betas is that it’s common to encounter bugs (it is an unfinished game, after all) but reporting these to the development team in Discord channels is critical for the final release. If you encounter a bug, let us know in the Game Issues section of our Discord!
The Basics
Bit Heroes Arena is a Battle Royale set in the Bitverse! You’ll compete against other Heroes while defeating monsters and collecting loot in order to be the last one standing. Prepare for a relentless 8-bit fight for survival!
You and up to 40 other players will compete against each other on a shared map. When you encounter another player, you’ll fight until someone’s health bar is depleted with epic weapons and loot found during the match. If your health reaches zero, you’re out of the fight as there is no respawn.
As you play, the size of the map will shrink and you’ll need to move to the safe area or you’ll be automatically eliminated. The smaller the map, the more likely you are to encounter other players until such a small area remains that the only choice is an all-out fight to the death.
The terrain around you will affect you in various ways from the aggressive monsters that spawn to the river that slows you down as you cross, but it’s not all bad news: you’ll also encounter loot, weapons, and other gear that can help you in your battle to be number one.
First things first, you’ll need to get set up before jumping into the Arena. When playing for the first time during Open Beta, you will see a message asking you to enable Hardware Acceleration in your internet browser settings. If you’re using Chrome, click on your “settings”, and then on “System”. From here, make sure the toggle for “Use hardware acceleration when available” is turned ON.
Now, you’ll need to login with your Kongregate.com account! If you don’t have one, now is the time to do it. Most games in the Bitverse will use your Kongregate account to see the available Heroes you have to play with (if you own an NFT Hero this will be available for you to select once you’ve logged in and completed the tutorial).
Once logged in, you’ll see the following message. Click ‘Yes’ to continue:
Everything on the screen will now be grayed out except the “Battle” button. Click on it to start the tutorial!
To move, you’ll use the W, A, S, and D keys on your keyboard.
W: Move up
A: Move left
S: Move down
D: Move right
F: Pick up Item
To use your basic attack, LEFT CLICK. To use your Special Abilities, hit the ‘Q’,’E’ and/or ‘R’ buttons on your keyboard. To emote, RIGHT CLICK and select your emote from the directional wheel. As you progress through the map, you’ll encounter obstacles that can be destroyed with your basic attack. Walk up to the pile of stones in your way and use LEFT CLICK to break them.
You’ll see your current Missions update on the left of the screen to indicate you’ve made progress! You’ll need to complete all of these Missions to complete the tutorial. If you look up just a bit from your tasks, you’ll see your map, how many players are in your match, how many times you’ve died, and a timer that indicates when the map will shrink. Since this is the tutorial, you don't need to worry about these for now. As you near the purple summoning platform, a monster will appear for you to kill with your abilities or basic attacks which will grant you items and XP!
If you get hit by monsters or other players, your health will drop. Monsters can do some serious damage, so be careful in matches! As the picture shows, we were hit a few times and now that our health is in a bad place, we’re at risk of dying (the match ending). Note: if you die in the tutorial, you'll be resurrected at the beginning.
It’s a good thing the defeated enemy dropped a Large Health Potion! Press ‘F’ to pick it up.
Items you pick up are added to your Inventory. You can use an item by pressing the corresponding number on your keyboard that you see it in. For example, to use the Large Health Potion we just acquired, we’d need to press “1” on our keyboard. Doing so will use the item and that space will be freed up for you to pick up something new later on.
Journeying ahead will lead you to a dark and ominous cave. Since we’re Heroes, we wont let it stop us. Just before you head inside you’ll see the following message explaining that the better the weapons you find as you play, the more Skills will be available to you. Your weapon tier is indicated by color (green > blue > red > yellow)
Inside the cave you’ll find a chest; to open these you’ll need to attack them a few times. You’ll see a new weapon drop from the chest. Press F to pick it up and discard your Common weapon:
By hovering your mouse over the item, you can see that the new staff named 'Ash' has a higher Base Damage and is more powerful than your starting item. It’s also a magic staff, which means it's ranged as opposed to melee. Break any chests, boxes, or other items will your weapon to uncover loot as you play!
It’s a good thing you found some new gear since the monster at the end of this dungeon means business. Avoid its attacks and kill it with your abilities!
The last thing you’ll need to do is spend your earned stat point! Click on one of the stats below (they will appear towards the bottom of the screen) to level yourself up:
Attack (ATK): This is how strong you are when you fight and will increase your damage output.
Vitality (VIT): Putting points in this stat will increase your Health.
Agility (AGL): Deciding to invest in your Agility will increase your speed!
After you assign yourself the stat point the tutorial will automatically end. Now, it’s time to make or select your Hero! Note: if you have an NFT Hero you’ll need to connect your wallet to your kongregate.com account to see it here. To get started with a Basic Hero, click the “Create” button and you’ll have the opportunity to select your Battle Tag (name), underwear, skin tone, hair style, and hair color.
Click “Create” and you’ll be asked to confirm if you’re really all set; once you create your Basic Hero you can no longer change its appearance. Congratulations, you’ve got the basics down and are ready to enter the Arena with other players!
Additional Information:
From the Home Screen, you have quite a few options available to you. Let's quickly go through them, shall we?
A) Click this button to change your currently selected Hero.
B) Click the pencil icon to edit your Battle Tag.
C) Click on “Season” to show your current Battle Pass progress (more on that later)
D) Click on “Quests” to see your currently available quests, progress, and rewards for completion
E) The Forge is where you will upgrade your Gear
F) This will allow you to see the in-game Shop where you can purchase Chests for Coins
G) Click the “Battle” button to be automatically queued with other players for a match
H) “Custom Battle” will allow you to make your own custom matches. Click “Create Battle” to start a match, or join a match with a unique invite code. Note: once you click “Create Battle” your game code will be automatically generated which can then be shared with folks who’d like to join your game.
I) Coming soon!
J) Coming soon!
K) Your available Coins
L) Your available Gems
Let's Battle!
Starting a Battle with other Heroes is as easy as clicking the giant green “Battle” button, which will queue you up for a match.
Once you’re in the game, your first decision is to select your starting weapon! You’ll be presented with three available options and you should use the one that you think fits best with your playstyle. In addition to the weapon descriptions, you’ll see an explanation of that weapon's associated Skill and its difficulty rating; the more stars there are, the harder the weapon is to play with. Each weapon has pros and cons…choose wisely!
After picking a weapon you’ll see that your controls and layout are very similar to the tutorial. The only big difference is the Storm Timer and that now, the map will shrink periodically. You need to move into the “Safe Zone” marked on your map to survive as being in the Storm will cause you to take incremental damage until you are eliminated. In this image, you can see what the approaching Storm looks like on your screen and on your mini map.
Your mini map will indicate the location of key things in game including your position, terrain, chests, monster spawn points, and other important information. Keep a close eye on it as you play. If you find buildings on the map or as you play, you may want to take a look inside. Furniture and other items can be broken to reveal potions that can assist you as you play (or other fun items)! After you are eliminated from the match by dying or defeat everyone to secure that #1 spot, you’ll see your placement on the leaderboard.
Quests
In matches you’ll have optional quests which can be redeemed when complete for Coins and Battle Pass XP. To see your Quests, click on the “Quests” Tab from the Home Screen which will show you your objectives, how much progress you’ve made towards completing them, and how much XP and Coins they are worth once done.
Battle Pass
Clicking on the “Season” button will reveal the seasonal Battle Pass which will reward you with items as you play. If you’d like to purchase this season’s Golden Pass, you can earn even MORE loot as you go! The top items are what you’ll earn for FREE by gaining XP from completed quests and matches. The bottom items will only be unlocked once you purchase the Golden Pass for premium currency (USDC etc). You can earn gear, coins, emotes, and more from your Battle Pass so make sure to keep completing your Quests!
Note: when going to buy the Golden Pass, be aware that two of the listed perks only apply if you have VIP status, which will be released at a later date.
The Forge
Accessible from your Home Screen, the Forge is where you’ll go to upgrade your gear! In this menu, you’ll see three tabs “Upgrade”, “Craft” and “Distill”.
Upgrade: From this tab you can use Coins to upgrade your equipped gear. Since you likely have the Nordic Mail from the Battle Pass, let’s go ahead and upgrade it. On the right side of the menu is your gear's current stats and what perks you can unlock by spending gold to upgrade it. In this example, it would cost us 200 gold to unlock “Elvish Metal” which will make our armor glow when an enemy player is nearby. Each time you upgrade a piece of gear, the cost to do so will increase.
Distill: To craft items, you need to first Distill an item successfully to acquire the recipe to create it. On this screen you can select which items you want to Distill for Coins, see the selected item’s stats, the chance that your Distillation succeeds, and what items are required to craft the recipe (click the little 'i' icon to see the details of what the items are and where to find them). You have multiple attempts to get your recipe but If you successfully Distill your item, you’ll see the following screen:
Craft: Distilling an item creates a Crafting recipe! Once you have the required ingredients to craft your recipe, you can create a new version of the gear with powerful modifications for Coins. To change the stats of the item, you’ll need to acquire “Modifier Materials” which will allow you to create powerful new pieces of gear and can be acquired from matches as you play. Why craft an item? You’ll be more powerful in the Arena and more likely to defeat your enemies!
The Shop
You can purchase Chests of different rarities from the Shop for Coins! If you’re out of coins you can purchase these with premium currency. Chests are a great way to get your hands on awesome gear that will make you more powerful in the Arena.
Open Beta Notes (non-exhaustive, may update throughout the course of the Open Beta):
- The “Solo” and “Classic” buttons are not currently working. While you can create a custom match with your friend code, there are no different modes available at the moment.
- Anything with the “Coming Soon” tag/label will be released in the future and more information will be available at that time.
- If you encounter any bugs or have feedback, join us on Discord!