Monster Smash: Sword Rampage

Hui Liu

Contains ads

About this game

One swing. The whole front row goes airborne.

Ember Cleaver is a physics-driven sword horde game set in a molten wasteland. You don't chip away at the horde one monster at a time - you bowl them over. Every enemy you launch is a real rigid body with mass and spin, so one heavy swing turns the front rank into flying wreckage that smashes the rank behind it, sets off oil barrels and skewers the rest on a spike wall.

CHAIN KILLS ARE THE WHOLE GAME
Every death from a single knockback shares one chain counter - crushed, exploded, impaled or burned, it all counts. That chain is your score multiplier, from x1 up to x10. Swinging at whatever is closest works. Herding the horde into a cluster of barrels and hammering them through it is how you climb the leaderboard. This is a sword game about positioning, not about mashing.

THE THREE-HIT FINISHER
Swings have a real 120ms wind-up and a recovery you are locked into, sweeping a 90-degree arc. Tap three times inside 800ms and the third becomes a 150-degree finisher slam with triple knockback. Committing to that heavy hit while a rusher is already in your face is the tension this arcade action game runs on.

THREE COOLDOWNS, THREE ANSWERS
- Dash Slash (4s) - lunge through the horde, cutting a hole as you go
- Whirlwind (9s) - 360-degree sweep that launches everything around you
- Quake Hammer (14s) - ground slam with a knockback and stun shockwave

RAGE CARDS: A NEW BUILD EVERY RUN
Land hits to fill the rage meter. When it caps, time pauses and you pick one of three upgrade cards - bigger blade arc, longer knockback, shorter cooldowns, flaming swings, exploding corpses and more, 12 in all, and they stack. Six to ten picks per run means your sword never plays the same way twice in this roguelite-style horde survival loop.

THE HORDE ESCALATES ON A CLOCK
Density and speed step up every 30 seconds, and new monsters arrive on a schedule: walkers and rushers, then boomers and spitters, brutes and splitters, shieldbearers and shriekers, and finally shades. Every 90 seconds a surge peaks with a warlord elite. Endless mode - survive longer, kill more, chain higher; your score goes to the leaderboard.

A BATTLEFIELD BUILT TO KILL WITH
The arena runs about four screens by four, seeded fresh every run with chests, altars and elite camps. Oil barrels chain-detonate, spike walls impale, lava cracks burn - all of it feeds the chain counter.

FOUR WEAPONS, PERMANENT PROGRESS
Start with the greatsword, then hit chain and survival milestones to unlock the greathammer (short arc, brutal force), the twin blades (wide and fast, built on stacking the multiplier) and the chain scythe (slower, but it drags monsters into a pile). Bone shards you earn just by playing buy every weapon and upgrade in the shop.

BUILT FOR A PHONE
Left half of the screen is a virtual stick; bottom right, a big swing button with three skill buttons. Swings auto-aim at the densest cluster, or hold and drag to aim by hand. Hit-stop, screen shake and a full-screen orange flare on every chain.

FREE TO PLAY
Paid items only speed you up - no permanent invincibility, no pay-only weapons. Free players unlock every weapon and upgrade with bone shards, and the leaderboard scores everyone with the same formula.

Grab the greatsword. Make the horde fly.