Pixel Muster Guide: Gold, Stars, Alliances and Wild Rounds

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Buy three copies to merge a figure into 2 and 3 stars, switch on alliances, and see a merged page win. With narration and on-screen captions. 1:58.

Plays offline after you watch it once (3.9 MB).

Pixel Muster is our newest free game: a storybook auto battler in your browser. It is late at night in an old bookshop, and eight storytellers (you and seven rivals) open pop-up books on the tables. Figures from the fairy tales step off the pages and fight. You choose which figures to buy, which to keep and where they stand; the fights play themselves. Like everything on NoInternet Arcade, it keeps working offline after your first visit, and a game in progress is saved at every step.

This guide walks through the game screen by screen. Every picture is a real screenshot of the game. Prefer to watch? The two-minute video at the top shows how three copies merge into a stronger figure and how alliances switch on.

The screen at a glance

The Pixel Muster screen during the prep, with labels: the top bar with round, HP, gold, level and XP, units on the page and the shop odds; the rivals and their HP on the left; your alliances under them; the open book in the middle with the rival's page at the back and your page in front; the bench of eight slots under the book; the shop with five cards on the right; and the Roll, XP, Lock, Items and FIGHT! buttons under the shop.
The prep: everything you need is on one screen.

A round in short

Every round has two parts:

Lose a fight and you lose HP: one for every enemy figure still standing, plus 2 to 5 more from round 11 on. Everyone starts with 100 HP. The last storyteller with HP left wins.

Buying and the 2-star merge

A card costs its tier in gold (1 to 5). Click or tap it and the figure lands on your bench; drag it onto your page to field it. When you already own two copies, the card shows two gold stars: buying it merges the three copies at once into a 2-star edition with double HP and attack damage and a stronger ability.

Before and after a 2-star merge. Before: two Puss in Boots on the bench and a third Puss in Boots card in the shop, marked with two gold stars. After: one click later the shop slot is empty and a single 2-star Puss in Boots stands on the bench with a gold burst.
Two copies on the bench plus the third from the shop make one 2-star unit.

If your bench is full you can still buy the third copy: it merges straight away. Selling a figure gives its price back (a little less for 2-stars and 3-stars above tier 1).

From 2 stars to 3 stars

Three 2-star copies make a 3-star: a gilded miniature with four times the HP and damage. The merge chains: with two 2-stars and two loose copies, buying one more copy builds the third 2-star and then the 3-star in one go. The new edition stays where a copy already stood on your page.

Before and after a 3-star merge. Before: a 2-star Puss in Boots on the page, a 2-star and two 1-star copies on the bench, and the last copy in the shop marked with three stars. After: one gilded 3-star Puss in Boots with three stars over its head stands on the page and the bench is clear.
The shop card shows the stars a purchase would end at: one, two or three.

Alliances

Every figure has three tags. Enough different figures with the same tag on your page switch on its alliance (two copies of one figure count once, a figure with a double tag counts twice). Hover an alliance (or hold a finger on it) to read every level of it.

The Beast alliance card over the board: Core alliance, you have 5, level 1 active, next at 6. Its three levels are listed with the armor the Beasts gain at 3 (lit, active), 6 and 9, where all other allies gain armor too.
The alliance card: how many you have, the level in force (lit) and what the next one needs.

The nine tier 5 figures are Aces: each one is the Ace of a tag and adds an extra power while that alliance is on. The Snow Queen, for example, freezes any foe chilled three times by your Frost figures.

Finding an alliance’s units

Hover an alliance in the list (on a phone: tap it) and the game lights up every unit of that alliance: the shop cards glow in the alliance’s color with its badge, and your units on the page and the bench get a ring. Everything else dims, so you see at once which cards to buy.

The Beast alliance hovered in the list. In the shop the Flying Monkeys and Swan Prince cards glow orange with a Beast badge while the other cards are dimmed. On the page the Three Little Pigs, the Cowardly Lion, Sirko and the Golden Goose stand on orange rings, and Puss in Boots on the bench has one too; the other units are faded.
Hovering Beast: two Beast cards in the shop, four Beasts on the page and one on the bench.

It works the other way round too. Hover a shop card and the alliances list shows what buying it would do once it stands on your page: here the Swan Prince takes Beast from 5 to 6 (the next level) and starts two new alliances.

The Swan Prince card hovered in the shop. The alliances list lights up Beast with 5 arrow 6, and two new rows at the bottom read Shifter 0 arrow 1 and Cursed 0 arrow 1; the other alliances are dimmed.
A card preview: "Beast 5 → 6" means one more Beast reaches the next level.

Levels, XP and the shop odds

Your level is how many figures may stand on your page. You get 1 XP a round, and every click of the XP button buys 4 XP for 5 gold. Leveling is not always 5 gold, though: each level needs more XP than the last (1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 56, 88 and 128 XP in all for levels 2 to 10), so the first levels take one click and the late ones many. The button tells you what the next level costs from where you are (“Lv7: 10 gold”), and the top bar shows your XP toward it.

The top bar, labeled: Lv 6 with an XP bar at 10 of 16 XP, 6 of 6 units on the page, and the shop odds at this level for tiers 1 to 5 (2% for tier 5). The XP button under the shop reads plus 4 XP for 5 gold, with the line Lv7: 10 gold under it.
Level 6: 10 of 16 XP, so two clicks (10 gold) reach level 7. The odds line shows what the shop deals at this level.

Higher levels also change the shop. The odds line in the top bar (over the book on a phone held upright) shows the chance of each tier for every card at your level: at level 1 every card is tier 1, and the rarer tiers appear as you level up, tier 5 only near the top.

All eight players buy from one shared pool: 45 copies of each tier 1 figure, 30 of tier 2, 25 of tier 3, 22 of tier 4 and 14 of tier 5. If your rivals collect the same figures, you will see them less. Hold a finger on a card (or hover it) to see how many copies are left.

Too many units on the page

You may move more units onto your page than your level allows, for example to try a layout. The game warns you at once: the unit counter turns red, a banner over the book says how many will go back, and the units that will leave (the last ones you placed) glow red with a ”!” badge. When the fight starts they return to the bench.

Seven units on a level 5 page. The counter in the top bar reads 7 of 5 in red, a red banner over the book reads Too many units 7/5: 2 will go back to the bench, and two units on the page stand on red rings with exclamation marks.
Level 5 with 7 units: the two marked units will go back to the bench.

Gold

Gold is the heart of the game:

The banner at the start of every prep shows where your gold came from. A reroll costs 2 gold, 4 XP cost 5 gold. After a lost fight against a rival your next reroll is free (not on Hardcore).

The fight

Press FIGHT! and watch. Every unit picks its own target. Each attack (and each hit taken) fills its mana, the blue bar under the green HP bar; when it is full the unit casts its ability: a beam, a heal, a stun, a summon. The damage meter on the right shows who did the most.

Three moments of one fight on the book. First, a yellow beam ability crosses the board from a caster. Second, damage numbers pop over the units, each with a green HP bar and a blue mana bar. Third, a glow marks another ability while the units keep fighting.
Three moments of one fight: an ability fires, damage numbers pop, the units fight on.

Fights run at x1, x2 or x4, or can be skipped. Tanks belong in front; archers and casters behind them.

Items

The wild rounds (1, 2, 3, 10, 15, 20 and every fifth round after) are fights against creatures of the forest. Win one and you pick one item from three; lose and you still get one at random. Every option shows its full effect, so tap (or click) one to read it, then press Pick. A long press opens the item’s card.

The loot pick after a wild round: Thimble of Tears (plus 50% mana from damage taken), Cornucopia (loot rounds offer 4 items instead of 3) and Seven-League Boots (plus 100% move speed). The Cornucopia row is selected with a gold outline and a star, and the green button under the list reads Pick Cornucopia.
Loot: read every option, select one, then press Pick.

Items come in four kinds:

Open ITEMS (or press Q) to manage them all in one place: the bag, and every item in use with the portrait and stars of the figure holding it. Tap or click an item, then a figure on your page or bench (the ones that can take it light up), or drag it there. A figure that already holds an item swaps it (a gold ring shows which). Tap the bag to take an item off, or drag it back into the panel. Contraptions go on a free cell of your page and can be moved or picked up the same way. Hold a finger on an item (or hover it) to read what it does. With a keyboard or gamepad, pick an item, then move the cursor to a figure or the bag and pick again. Items change during the prep only, not while the figures fight.

The items view in place of the shop. Left: Fairy Dust is picked up among an axe, magic beans and a hay bale, an arrow shows dragging it onto a unit on the page, and the kept items Cornucopia and Guardian Egg are marked at the bottom. Right: the Fairy Dust card reads Tier 3, for a unit plus an alliance: also counts as a fairy, plus 250 HP. Drag it onto a unit to give it this.
The items view: drag an item onto a unit, or tap it and then the unit.

The wild rounds

Hedgehogs and wolf cubs come first, then bridge trolls with thick armor in round 10 (bring magic damage or Cursed), grey wolves that leap at your back row in 15, nightmare bears with crushing blows in 20, night ravens that shoot from far away in 25, stone giants in 30, the Great Dragon in 35, a mirror copy of your own page in 40, the Leshy in 45 and the Ink Blot from round 50 on.

On a phone

Hold the phone upright and the game switches to its own layout: the rivals across the top, the book in the middle, your alliances, the shop and big buttons at the bottom. Turn it sideways for the wide layout, which stretches to fill the whole screen of any phone.

Pixel Muster on a phone held upright, labeled: the rivals and their HP in a strip at the top, your page in the middle of the book, the bench under it, a row of alliance chips, five tall shop cards and five big buttons at the bottom.
The upright phone layout.

Tap a card to buy. Drag a figure to move it, tap it for its card, and hold a finger on anything to read it. Tap an alliance and its units light up, just like hovering on a computer.

Two phone screens. Left: the Beast alliance tapped: its card shows the levels, the Beast shop cards glow with a badge and the Beast units on the page and bench stand on rings. Right: the loot pick on a phone with Seven-League Boots selected and a green button reading Pick Seven-League Boots.
On a phone: tap an alliance to light its units; in the loot pick, tap to read and then Pick.

Controls

Tips

  1. Save early. Keep 10, 20, 30 gold for interest; a bank of 50 gold pays 5 extra a round.
  2. Fill your page. An empty slot is lost strength, especially in the first rounds.
  3. Front and back. Tanks in front, archers and casters at the back. Tricksters leap at your back row, so keep a guard near it.
  4. Pick a plan, then adapt. Two or three alliances are plenty. Hover an alliance to spot its cards in the shop; if the pool runs dry, switch.
  5. Lock a good shop. If you see a card you need but cannot pay for, lock the shop for next round.
  6. Level when it matters. Rushing levels brings rarer figures but costs interest. Most games want level 5 around round 5, 6 around round 9, then 7 and 8.

Scoring and difficulty

A game scores 1,000 points for first place, 700 for second, then 500, 350, 250, 150, 80 and 30, plus 10 for every round you played and 5 for every HP the winner has left.

The result screen: You finished number 2, rounds played 29, score 990, best unit Three Little Pigs, top alliances Beast 5, Wild 4 and Child 3, and the final standings of all eight storytellers with You in second place, over the New Game and Menu buttons.
Second place after 29 rounds: 700 + 29 × 10 = 990 points.

OPTIONS > DIFFICULTY: HARDCORE puts you against seven hard rivals with a 30 second prep timer, no free reroll, 25% more damage from lost fights (in Knockout: 5 hearts instead of 6) and tougher wild rounds, on a leaderboard of its own.

Modes

Open MODES in the title menu. Each mode shows its rules and the leaderboard it ranks on before you press START, and a saved game keeps its mode when you CONTINUE.

Every mode has its own leaderboard, and on Hardcore, Standard, Compact and Knockout rank on Hardcore boards of their own.

Curious who these figures are? The Fairy Tales Behind Pixel Muster tells the real story of all 66.

Ready? Play Pixel Muster, or try another free game such as Pixel Vigil or Pixel Gulp.

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