WARPAINT is a territory war on a real-world map. Leave your land, draw a loop, close it back on your own ground and everything inside the loop becomes yours — rival land included.
How to play WARPAINT
A round lasts six minutes, then the horn. Your score is the largest share of the map you held during the round.
While you are outside your land you leave a trail. Anyone who drives across your trail cuts you, and crossing your own trail ends your run — so every trip out is a risk until the loop is closed.
Rooms seat 15 to 21 warlords depending on the map. Empty seats are filled by bots, marked "·bot" so you always know who is a person.
A new real-world map comes up every Monday: Europe, Africa, East Asia, North and South America.
Controls
Keyboard and mouse
- Your warlord follows the mouse cursor; the arrow keys also steer.
- Space, F or a mouse click fires WARPATH once its meter is full.
- C switches the mouse style between POINT and RING.
- Esc, P or Tab opens the menu, H shows the rules, M mutes.
Phone and tablet
- Drag anywhere to steer, or switch on the fixed PHONE STEERING pad in the menu.
- Tap the meter to fire WARPATH.
Tips
- Keep loops short and curve back home early. The last few cells of your own trail cannot cut you, which is why tight loops are the safe ones.
- Five cuts fill WARPATH: for six seconds you paint everything you touch and move 35% faster. Reach LEGEND (eight cuts in a row) and it lasts twice as long.
- Streak ranks are BLOODED, HUNTER, WARLORD and LEGEND at 2, 3, 5 and 8 cuts. Cutting someone on a streak of three or more takes a quarter of their land; cutting the crowned leader takes a third.
- Watch the clock. At two minutes left GOLD RUSH doubles the relics on the map; at one minute LAST STAND makes every cut take a quarter of the victim's land.
- Relics change the rules for a moment: the Horse is speed, the Torch claims the ground around it, the Longship is fast and uncuttable at sea, the Wraith lets you cross your own trail, the Ward makes your trail uncuttable, the Shade hides you and doubles cut charge, and the Quake turns rival land you touch neutral.
What you earn
- Your empire climbs eight ages as it grows, from Tribe to Ascendant, and later ages paint with a wider brush.
- Every round earns XP; what it unlocks is cosmetic and never changes the fight.
- Marks picked up in play are carved into totems at THE CARVER.