THUNDERFALL: plan your first flight

Choose a mode and a manageable commitment

The documented campaign has five sectors and at least 120 seconds of active combat per sector. Menus, pauses and upgrade selections do not count toward that time. Allow at least ten active minutes for a complete campaign; a slower boss fight can take longer.

Single-stage rehearsal is available and does not count toward the campaign high score. It is the better place to learn a control scheme. Standard mode has an emergency bomb safeguard under specific low-health conditions; Arcade increases bullet speed and boss durability and requires manual bombs.

Pick a fighter for the decision you want to practise

• Falcon / 鹰隼: the fast, balanced option. Use it to learn movement routes; its speed makes large corrections possible, but small corrections still need care.
• Prism / 棱镜: lighter protection in exchange for higher damage, with a laser from the start. Choose it when you want to practise staying aligned with targets.
• Bastion / 堡垒: more armour, shielding and an extra bomb. Its additional defensive resources give you more opportunities to practise recovery.

Keep the control map within reach

• Move with WASD, arrow keys or a mouse drag. On touchscreens, press and drag in the battlefield; dragging uses relative motion rather than teleporting the fighter to your finger.
• Hold Shift for precision movement, or toggle the on-screen precision control. This is useful for small corrections between closely spaced bullets.
• Space uses a shock bomb; E starts Thunder Burst when charge is full. The interface also provides touch buttons.
• P or Escape pauses. Losing window focus also pauses the game; return and choose Continue when ready.

Read pickups by their letter, not just their colour

• P · blue: spreading pulse shots cover separated enemies.
• L · green: a penetrating laser can reach targets lined up behind each other.
• A · purple: seeking shots turn toward enemies.
• N · gold: an explosive shot produces area damage.

A pickup is an opportunity, not an instruction

According to the author, matching pickups upgrade a weapon up to level five; switching weapons preserves the levels already earned. Pickups drift and last roughly ten seconds of active combat. That gives you a window to judge a route instead of immediately crossing a dangerous pattern.

The small light at the fighter’s centre is the hit core. Practise watching that point while making short movements. A spread weapon favours coverage, while a penetrating weapon rewards alignment. Choose the weapon that fits the situation instead of treating every new colour as an upgrade.

Separate an escape tool from a damage window

A shock bomb clears hostile bullets and lasers, damages enemies and provides brief invulnerability. Thunder Burst lasts eight seconds and clears bullets when it starts, but newly arriving bullets still need to be avoided. Using Burst is therefore not permission to stop moving.

Bosses have arrival protection and phase barriers. A burst during a protected phase can waste its useful damage window. Read the warning and barrier states, then attack when the boss is vulnerable. This is a mechanic-based suggestion, not a verified optimal route.

What the guide does not establish

The creator documents browser and touch controls, procedural graphics, synthesized sound and a CC0 licence for the original work. Those statements describe this project; they do not grant rights to unrelated games or brands.

This guide has not measured phone frame rates or reproduced a full human campaign clear. Use the linked source for the exact implementation and the demo for the current playable build. Report a mismatch when a later update changes a control or rule.