Shopska Salad

Your grandmother left you a farmhouse in the Bulgarian countryside and a ritual to finish. The Shopska salad on the kitchen table must stay fresh for seven nights. The monsters know where to find it.

Make your traps work together

A spring plank can throw a monster into the next trap, where a wolf pit holds it. Pitch slows a whole wave before it catches fire. The monsters' routes are marked by day, so you can line traps up along each path and let one set up the next.

Get the house ready before nightfall

Daylight is short. Buy traps at Kukeri's stall and place them along the forest paths and ravines, then mend the fences, doors and windows with a hammer and planks. Ring the bell when you're ready.

Stop anything that gets through

Your traps hit the monsters on the paths while you cover the gaps. Bunny-hop across the yard with your shotgun and get back to the kitchen when something reaches the table. A monster keeps eating until you stop it, and if the salad is gone, the ritual fails.

Get stronger after each night

Every night you survive pays out in leva. Each level you gain sets three ingredients by the salad, and the one you add brings its perk. New traps reach Kukeri's stall as the nights go on, and new monsters make you rethink the plan.

Each new winter changes the plan

From the second run on, each winter is dealt from its seed: the land, which monsters come on which night, and the traps in Kukeri's sack. Before the first bell, take an heirloom down from grandmother's shelf. You earn each one with a feat in an earlier run, such as felling the Lamya, and each gift has a cost. The pruning knife gives you a wine press to stand in any path but makes traps dearer. Grandmother's sieve brings a free flour sack every dawn, but Kukeri stops selling harrows.

Some winters start under snow

Some winters are white before you place a single trap. Snow covers the yard and the land past the fence, and the streams freeze over. A blizzard is also more likely.

Hold the house through a blizzard

In later winters, Kukeri may warn you at dawn that a blizzard is coming. At the bell, fog closes over the far paths and heavy snow falls. Monsters come out of the white close to the house, so build near the yard; Kukeri sells some close-range traps cheaper that day.

Defend this week's village

Every week, everyone gets the same named village to defend. You score by the nights you keep and how fresh the salad stays; each retry costs some freshness, and only your best attempt counts. Check the notice board by the yard gate to see how your friends did. Heirlooms, jars and masks stay at home, so everyone starts even

Defend the salad with friends

Play solo or with up to three friends online. Experience is shared, but each player picks their own ingredients, so you can split the work between the traps and the shotgun.