Star Swarm is a portrait survival shooter about controlling space and deciding when to spend stored power. Normal fire is automatic, so your attention belongs on movement, charge timing, item routes, and the warnings that precede dangerous attacks.
Guide reviewed for the August 2026 web build.
The first minute: move less, observe more
The tutorial now contains twenty lessons across four replayable courses. Basic has four lessons for movement, Boost, charge magnetism, and item effects. Advanced 1 has seven lessons for Orbit Wall, charged-orbit bullet erasure, Support modes, choosing and using a Tactical Module, Burst Laser, and Burst-to-ATK conversion. Advanced 2 has five lessons for Evade, Parry, Just Evade, Just Counter, and the Progression Lab. Advanced 3 has four Anchor lessons: priority-based launch and recall, directional AIM adjustment and meteor lock, a neutral Grapple that grants a one-hit shield, and a lateral orbit swing followed by release.
These are practical exercises rather than a separate simplified ruleset. The Orbit lesson holds distant enemy fire until the wall is deployed. Tactical training first locks either Pulse Bomb or Black Hole in PROG, then supplies the selected module in combat; Black Hole practice shows what the gravity core consumes while warning that moving beams and melee slashes remain dangerous. Parry training first supplies a stationary projectile, then a warned reinforced charger whose momentum must be reversed into Groggy. In the main run, this same charge counter instantly defeats basic enemies, staggers elites, and adds 65/100 boss GROGGY. The Just lessons mark the real inner-orbit contact ring and repeat missed threats; Just Evade enables maximum-stage automatic fire throughout Time Slip and for 0.5 seconds afterward, while Just Counter adds time dilation and a Burst/ATK/Boost pulse. Anchor training uses the real priority targeting, directional adjustment, meteor attachment, traversal, shield, swing, and chain-window systems. During each lesson, directions remain available, unrelated actions are disabled, and the controls needed to progress are highlighted. A training guard prevents any lesson from costing a life, awarding score, or changing a competitive run.
During the first ordinary wave, use the center-lower area as a home position. Small corrections preserve escape routes better than constantly circling the border. Normal shots fire by themselves. Holding Charge pauses that stream, so a long charge is a trade: you gain a piercing, bullet-blocking projectile but temporarily give up continuous damage.
The controls that change a run
- Move: arrow keys or WASD, the touch joystick, or a standard gamepad stick/D-pad.
- Charge: hold C, the mobile C button, or gamepad A/Cross. Release to fire the reached stage.
- Boost: hold Space, mobile B, or gamepad B/Circle. A Boost press with no prior direction keeps the normal rechargeable boost; pressing Boost after a direction is already held attempts Evade instead.
- Evade: press Shift, mobile E, or gamepad RB/R1, or hold a direction before pressing Boost. Boost-first then direction remains ordinary boosted movement.
- Orbit wall: hold Z, mobile O, or gamepad Y/Triangle. Two Orbiters are still required; if you are short, continuing to hold for 2 seconds creates one temporary 6-second Orbiter and launches automatically when the stack reaches two. Temporary durability pauses during wall flight and resumes after return.
- Tactical module: choose and lock Pulse Bomb or Black Hole in PROG, then press X, mobile TAC, or gamepad X/Square to use it. Pulse Bomb clears immediate pressure; Black Hole deploys a gravity core that consumes ordinary bullets and non-boss enemies. Moving beams and melee slashes are not erased.
- Anchor: G, mobile ANC, or gamepad R3 launches toward the current priority target, recalls a flying Anchor, or activates a contextual action. Hold E, mobile AIM, or gamepad LB/L1 together with a direction to adjust the launch direction before activating the Anchor. A fixed meteor Anchor grapples with neutral/inward input, swings with lateral input, and slingshots with outward input.
- Pause and settings: P pauses. The KEY panel remaps keyboard and gamepad actions, while touch settings adjust size, position, hit area, and opacity.
The most useful beginner habit is to separate movement tools from damage tools. Boost is an escape resource; Charge is a timing resource; the locked Tactical Module is a limited emergency answer. Spending all three on the same harmless wave leaves no answer for the next dive.
How an ordinary run develops
Waves scale in groups of three. Defeated enemies can restore some Burst energy, and item pickups alter the current run. Rapid and Spread feed one ATK gauge, while Burst, Rapid, and Spread pickups also trigger short overdrives. After the first boss, a ship that remains at the base ATK tier receives a marked RAPID or SPREAD recovery drop within eight eligible non-summoned kills; this safety valve stops a weak basic-fire state from compounding indefinitely without inflating already-strong builds. Shield, orbit, homing, life, and tactical-charge drops answer different problems: shields forgive one mistake, orbits intercept bullets and control a lane, and homing support keeps damage moving when direct alignment is unsafe.
Elite and boss milestones lead into card choices and also build Gauge Momentum for the rest of that run. An elite clear grants one point and a boss clear grants three. Momentum improves recovery, reduces spending, extends soft gauge storage, raises Boost capacity, and lifts the Burst/ATK floors; the first elite alone guarantees ATK 112 and therefore at least the first spread tier. Read a card as part of a direction, not as an isolated percentage: its bonuses stack with Momentum. A charge-focused route wants stored Burst, stage-three reliability, and safe charging windows. A sustained-fire route values ATK storage, Rapid/Spread pickups, and movement that keeps targets in front. An orbit route becomes useful when you treat the visible connector between orbs as an active damaging wall rather than decorative art.
A reliable route to the first boss
- Keep one escape direction open. Avoid parking in a lower corner before a diving enemy commits.
- Use early charge shots through aligned targets. Their piercing path and bullet-blocking property create a safer lane.
- Preserve at least one emergency answer—boost energy, orbit wall, or a Tactical Module charge—for an elite dive.
- When a meteor appears, decide whether the item reward is worth the attention. Meteors block enemy bullets, but they are also solid threats with their own path.
- At wave ten, watch the boss rather than only the projectile field. The exposed weak point before laser charge is the best burst-damage window.
Boss regular fire has a deliberate rearm floor, and aimed volleys keep spacing between shots. That rhythm gives you time to cross a lane if you move when the warning begins. During the laser sequence, attack pressure changes: use the telegraph to select a safe side, then punish the exposed weak point instead of charging blindly in the center.
Playing on different devices
Keyboard
Keyboard offers the clearest separation between movement and action keys. If C, Space, Z, or X feels crowded, use the KEY panel to create a layout that keeps movement fingers free. Remapping is stored in the browser on that device.
Touch
The portrait interface uses a virtual joystick plus separate action buttons. Phone, tablet, foldable, and touch-PC layouts share the same 9:16 virtual playfield. Increase the hit area before increasing visual size if missed taps are the problem; opacity can be lowered without shrinking the active touch target.
Gamepad
Standard-mapped Xbox, DualSense, Switch Pro, and similar controllers use the left stick or D-pad for movement. The in-game binding panel shows the active mapping. Browser and operating-system controller support can vary, so connect the controller before loading the page if it is not detected mid-session.
Common questions
Do I need an account?
No. Guest play, local settings, and local scores work without login. An account is optional and is used for server-synced achievements, Career Points, permanent Career upgrades, and account-linked leaderboard records.
Why did normal fire stop?
Normal fire pauses while Charge is held. Release Charge or check whether a remapped charge input is stuck. Opening the KEY panel shows the active assignment.
Does watching an ad make the game pay-to-win?
Web advertising is currently disabled until network and consent review is complete. A native build can offer limited optional rewarded actions, but a reward is only granted after the native provider reports completion. Direct purchases are not enabled.
Can I repeat the tutorial?
Yes. The title Tutorial menu launches any of the four courses immediately. Settings → Controls → Tutorial can replay or queue Basic and Advanced 1·2·3 at a safe run boundary. At each course ending, the tutorial asks whether to continue directly into the next course. Completing the final course or leaving training performs a clean Main Run reset, so supplied tutorial resources do not carry into a score run.
Ready for the systems behind these decisions? Continue with the Combat and Build Manual, or learn how account progression works in the Progression and Rankings Guide.
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