How to Play Shapefront

Shapefront is a free strategy game you play in your browser. You command an army of geometric shapes, teach it how to fight with drag-and-drop programming blocks, and conquer a rotating globe one territory at a time. You never steer units in battle. You win by writing a better plan before the fight starts.

This guide covers your first conquest and the systems you'll use as your empire grows. The in-game tour covers the same ground in about two minutes, and you can restart it from Settings at any time.

1. Pick your shape

Every run starts by choosing a faction. Each shape fights differently, and the three counter each other in a soft rock-paper-scissors loop:

There is no wrong pick. Win battles and you will recruit the other shapes too, so your army ends up mixed either way.

2. Read the globe

The map is a slowly rotating dotted planet split into territories. Territories in your color are yours. Glowing territories border your land, and those are the ones you can attack. Tap or click one to open the War Room.

Three rival factions hold the rest of the world:

• The Iron Pact are entrenched squares that reinforce heavily and take back land you took from them.
• Crimson Swarm are reckless triangles that charge your weakest units and attack constantly.
• Ghost Circuit are evasive circles that wear you down from range and slip away before you can swing.

The world keeps moving. Between your battles, enemies reinforce their garrisons, counterattack your borders and even fight each other. The battle report tells you what happened "meanwhile across the globe."

3. Scout in the War Room

Before you commit, the War Room shows who's defending, what shapes they field and a bar estimating your chance to win. Green means good odds. It also warns you when the defender's shape counters yours, and in that case another target is often the smarter move.

4. Program your army in the Strategy Lab

This is the heart of the game. Your units follow strategies, small programs you build by snapping blocks together, with no typing involved:

• Movement: advance, charge, hold the line, fall back.
• Targeting: focus the nearest, weakest, or strongest enemy, or hunt the backline.
• Control: loops and if / else branches.
• Sensing: your health, the enemy's health, distance, how many allies remain.

A classic first edit is to add "if my health is below 40%, fall back" to a charging preset. That keeps wounded triangles alive long enough to matter.

You can equip up to four strategies, and your army blends them together in battle. Each strategy can be upgraded with cards, from level 1 to level 5. Every level past the first adds +5% attack and health to your whole army while that strategy is equipped.

Shapefront ships with presets such as Blitz Rush, Shield Wall, Kite & Harass and Last Stand. Rarer strategies drop when you win battles.

5. Deploy and watch

Select a glowing territory and press Deploy army. The battle plays out on its own: your shapes push up the field, the enemy presses down, and your equipped strategies make every decision. You can watch at 1×, 2× or 4× speed.

Watch closely. How your units behave is the best clue to what you should program next. If your circles keep getting caught, add a retreat rule. If your triangles spread their damage across the whole field, make them focus the weakest target.

Battles are fully deterministic. The same armies and the same programs always produce the same result, so when you lose it's down to the plan and never to luck.

6. Spoils of war

• Win and you capture the territory, earn cards and cores, raise your Power Rating, and may get a new strategy or relic. Part of the defeated army is conscripted into your ranks.
• Lose and your army retreats home at half strength to regroup. Units you left on the bench were never at risk.

7. Grow your empire

• Army screen. Your supply cap grows as you conquer more territory. Pick which units deploy and which wait safely on the bench.
• Cards trickle in every hour from the territories you hold, even while you're away. Spend them on strategy upgrades.
• Cores are rarer. Spend them to recruit fresh units of any shape, including shapes that counter the faction you're about to fight.
• Relics are per-unit abilities, such as poisoned strikes, thorns or an explosion when the unit dies, that change how a single unit plays.

8. Endless worlds and ranks

Taking a whole planet doesn't end the game. Your army warps to a new world that is larger and harder, and clearing it unlocks a new Legendary command for your strategies. Your career Power Rating climbs through a geometric rank ladder: Point → Line → Triangle → Square → Pentagon → Hexagon → Star → Constellation → Singularity.

Every run also banks Doctrine, which you spend from the main menu on permanent unlocks: extra starting units, more supply, a bigger war chest, or an additional strategy slot.

9. Multiplayer

Sign in to play asynchronous PvP. Build a 20-unit loadout and fight other players' armies, which their own strategies control, then climb a separate matchmaking ladder. Battles are resolved on our server with the same engine as the campaign and replayed on your screen. The single-player campaign never needs an account.

Quick tips

1. Check the counter warning in the War Room before every attack.
2. Recruit at least one off-faction shape early to cover your weakness.
3. A retreat rule is the most valuable block in the game.
4. Use the bench to protect your veterans when the odds look bad.
5. Defend the territories that earn you cards. Income is what pays for upgrades.

Start playing →