Soul Keeper

Overview

Soul Keeper is a five-boss rush built on one shared resource: stamina. Every sword swing costs 25, every roll costs 30, and the bar only refills after a short delay, so greed is punished harder than anywhere else. Each boss — Ashen Squire, Twin Fangs, Bell Warden, Mirror Duelist and The Hollow King — telegraphs its attacks in red: a cone for the arc swing, a lane for the dash, a circle for the expanding shockwave ring. Rolling grants invincibility frames, so the correct answer to every telegraph is a roll through or away, followed by one or two punished swings while the boss recovers. At half health each boss enters phase two: faster movement, shorter telegraphs and an expanded moveset. Death costs one of three embers and spills all your souls as a stain where you fell; beat the same boss again and walk over the stain to reclaim them. Felling a boss pays souls, restores 30 HP and refills your three flasks. Clear all five to open the vault; burn all three embers and the run is over.

How to Play

Press Enter the Arena. Move with the arrow keys or WASD — or hold and drag on the arena on touch screens. Space swings your sword toward your facing direction, X or Shift rolls with invincibility, and H drinks a flask; on mobile use the ATTACK, ROLL and FLASK buttons. Watch the boss bar up top and the red telegraphs on the floor. When you fall, press Space or Rise Again to spend an ember and retry the same boss at full health — the boss resets to full too. P pauses and R restarts the entire run.

Tips & Strategy

Fight at the edge of the boss's arc range: close enough that one step in lands a swing, far enough that the telegraph cone never touches you. Never empty the stamina bar — always keep 30 in reserve so a surprise telegraph cannot catch you unable to roll. Two swings per opening is the safe rule; three is greed, and the third swing is what kills most runs. Against Bell Warden's ring, roll through the band as it reaches you rather than outrunning it — the ring outpaces walking speed near its full radius. Twin Fangs and the Mirror Duelist dash in straight lanes, so sidestep perpendicular, not backward. Save flasks for phase two: the first half of every fight is predictable enough to fight clean. When you die carrying souls, play the rematch defensively until the stain is reclaimed — dying twice costs everything.

What Makes It Distinct

The soul-stain loop turns death into a decision instead of a reset: the rematch is the same boss, but now the arena has a prize sitting exactly where you made your last mistake. Combined with a strict five-fight gauntlet and per-fight flask refills, it compresses the souls formula into a ten-minute session.