How a run plays out
The core of the game is the rosary: 13 beads you collect one by one. You earn them by using (right-click) cutscene blocks scattered through Naraka — breaking one does nothing. The first use of a given block picks an unseen scene from a small pool. Regular scenes play a short video or text sequence and hand you the bead; challenge scenes teleport you into the Challenge dimension instead and only award their bead if you get back out alive.
Once all 13 beads are in, the next cutscene block you use serves the ending route into the YHVH dimension for the final boss. Winning unlocks the End Game achievement and permanently retires the route for that qualia. The cutscenes themselves are a bonus: lore, voice lines, short videos. Only the beads count toward the ending.
Beads are no longer the only road out of Naraka. 5.0.5 added a second one that runs alongside them and spends no bead at all: lay three different boss trophies around a covenant ark and it opens the Torus dimension and the Huitzilopochtli fight. It stops short of an ending, though — the shipped build has no way to finish it, so the rosary is still the only thing that rolls the credits. See The covenant ark & Torus.
The 13 beads
You need 13 rosary beads to reach the ending. Every time you interact (right-click) with a Cutscene Block and watch a new scene, you get one bead. Already-watched scenes give nothing, so the pool shrinks as you progress.
| Event | Bead | Tiamana | Other |
|---|---|---|---|
| Watch a new regular cutscene | Yes | +4.5 | Scene marked watched |
| Beat a challenge and return alive | Yes | +4.5 | Unlocks Challenge |
| Fail a challenge (3rd death) | No | — | Sent back to Naraka empty-handed |
| Replay a watched scene | No | — | Filtered out of the pool |
| Nothing left to serve | No | — | Void plays as fallback |
Bead order is randomized: the game picks an unfilled bead slot each time instead of giving them in sequence. Once all 13 beads are in, the next cutscene block you use serves the ending scene and drops you into the YHVH dimension for the final boss.
Lose the YHVH fight and you respawn in Naraka with all 13 beads still intact — you can try again as many times as you want. Win once and the ending route shuts off for that qualia; cutscene blocks start serving Void forever.
Where the beads come from
The rotating main pool, the special scenes around the YHVH ending and the Torus route, and the menu cutscenes for bead pickup, death, and challenge runs — plus a few that never play in normal gameplay.
The 6 challenge routes that ride alongside the main cutscenes, and the Challenge achievement for clearing one.
The covenant ark & Torus
Naraka also holds the covenant ark: a living block that watches the four blocks stacked against its sides and opens a second boss route once three of them are boss trophies. Nothing about it touches the rosary — you can walk this route with zero beads.
Each of the four bosses drops its trophy at 100%, alongside whatever else it rolls.
| Trophy | Dropped by |
|---|---|
| red covenant | Leviathan |
| blue covenant | Moccos |
| white covenant | Baal |
| gold covenant | Demiurge |
The ark re-checks its four horizontal neighbours every time a block is broken or placed within about three blocks of it. It needs three different trophies out of the four: a trophy already counted on one side is ignored when it shows up again on another, so four sides of red covenant open nothing. Each matching side lights its cone in that covenant's colour, and with three in place the bird on top starts glowing, morphs, and its animation speeds up — that is the only signal that the ark is armed.
Interacting with an armed ark serves the Torus hand-off scene, plays the Pre-Torus video, and teleports you into the Torus dimension. Torus resets on every visit like the YHVH arena, and portal blocks refuse to fire inside it, so the boss is the only thing in there.
The ark disables itself — bird hidden, lock indicator on — outside Naraka and in any qualia with progression_disabled set, which is what the Divine flag does permanently.
Die in Torus and the run ends the way a lost YHVH fight does: back to Naraka, with the ark and its trophies still standing, free to try again.
World flags
Qualia creation exposes 3 optional flags through the Experience tab. All default off. Only Divine is permanent: it silently turns off all progression for that qualia, blocking achievements, discovery, and cutscene interaction forever.
Divine
Creative / sandbox mode. Gives you infinite items, invincibility, and full inventory, but permanently disables all progression.
Creative-only: divine drill, svargaqualia block
Effects
- You become invincible and can break any block, including unbreakable ones.
- Inventory capacity is set to maximum (50 slots).
- The Fusion screen is replaced by a Creative item browser with every item at infinite stacks.
- The Rosary screen is replaced by a manual Music Player for all tracks.
- The world generates on a flat creative plane instead of the normal Naraka terrain.
- Tiamana, leveling, and perk selection are disabled.
- Steam achievements and statistics stop recording.
- Item discovery notifications stop appearing.
- Cutscene blocks become non-interactable and their visual effects are hidden.
- The biome music system is disabled; you control music manually.
- The compass item stops working.
- Internal debug-only items still stay hidden unless the separate debug build flag is also on.
Turvy
Inverts gravity for your character. You walk on ceilings and fall upward. Other creatures are not affected.
Effects
- Your gravity is fully inverted: you fall up, jump down, and walk on the underside of surfaces.
- Swimming up and down directions are swapped while in water.
- When entering a new turvy world, a safety block is placed above you to stand on.
- Flying controls (jump/crouch) are inverted as well.
- Sun-melt and rain-melt checks are adjusted for upside-down orientation.
- Can be toggled on and off in the world settings without permanent consequences.
Wrathful
The sun becomes a deadly hazard. During daytime, standing in direct sunlight slowly damages you. Night and shelter provide safety.
Effects
- The sun and sky visuals change with a harsh red-tinted coloration.
- You take 1 damage every 3.5 seconds while exposed to direct sunlight during the day.
- Standing under a block, being indoors, or going underwater blocks the sun damage.
- Nighttime is completely safe from wrathful damage.
- Only the player is affected; other creatures ignore wrathful sun.
- Can be toggled on and off in the world settings without permanent consequences.
Starting discovery
Discoveries are saved globally for your whole game, not per world: unlock an item once and it stays unlocked in every qualia you play afterwards. You start out with 29 items already discovered (the game's default starting set). Everything else stays hidden in the Divine item browser until you've held or fused it at least once.
Items are only discovered during normal play — Divine worlds run with progression disabled, so grabbing things there unlocks nothing. Play a regular qualia to grow what your Divine browser can spawn; those unlocks then apply in every world.
dirt block grass block stone block sand block log block cut wood block white lamp glass block concrete block yellow plastic block white plastic block red plastic block green plastic block blue plastic block black plastic block brown plastic block pink plastic block fish capsule sheep capsule pebble block divine drill janqualia block svargaqualia block lavender block essence block water fire orange plastic block purple plastic block
Unused starter kit Debug-gated, never granted in release
The player has a starter-kit inventory path, but it only runs when debug mode is on, Divine is off, and the hidden starter-kit flag is set. Release ships with debug off, so none of these items reach the player.
Main scene kit (6 items), retooled in 5.0.5 around the Torus route; 5.1.0 swapped its last two slots for the revelation block and the debug gun myriad arrows:
covenant ark white covenant red covenant blue covenant revelation block myriad arrows
Base player kit (overridden by the main scene):
Debug mode
Debug mode is a separate build-level flag, not a world option. The code defaults it to on, but the shipped game overrides it to off. When debug is on, the game writes to a separate debug save folder, the Creative browser stops hiding internal items, and the discovery gate is bypassed. It is the only path that exposes the debug-only catalog below to players.
Behavior details
- Debug is not a world option. It is a build-level flag, and the shipped game overrides the code default from on to off.
- When debug is on, the game switches away from your normal save and uses a dedicated debug save folder instead.
- The Creative browser stops hiding internal items, which exposes the full internal / placeholder item catalog in the sandbox inventory tabs.
- In the Creative browser, debug bypasses the normal discovery-based visibility limit, so items appear whether or not you have discovered them.
- The game also treats every item as already discovered when its all-discovered override is on, and the shipped build sets that override on.
- The starter-kit inventory path only runs when debug is on, Divine is off, and the hidden starter-kit flag is set.
- Debug-only overrides can force the default cutscene or pretend all beads are collected, for testing the ending.
- The debug-toggle key only shows the on-screen debug overlay. It does not turn on debug mode or unlock hidden debug behavior in a release save.
- World-only helpers like screenshot capture, rasterize, and free-fly checks are also gated behind debug mode.
Debug-only items
Internal blocks, placeholders, test objects and the three boss capsules that the Creative browser hides unless debug mode is on.
blasphemy block crucible block debug block debug debug block replace_1 debug block replace_10 debug block replace_2 debug block replace_3 debug block replace_4 debug block replace_5 debug block replace_6 debug block replace_7 debug block replace_8 debug block replace_9 debug block void block debug block w direction block gel block kodama block manikin block metal gel block metal golem block mini gel block revelation block myriad arrows yhvh capsule kali capsule huitzilopochtli capsule
Achievements
Steam achievements awarded through the Steam API. Divine (creative) mode blocks all of them for the active qualia, since it disables progression. The official names group into 5 thematic series — Apotheosis, Virtue, Archangel, Dominion, Angel — plus the standalone Bubblebear Massacre, 22 in total.
main.gd names one more id, KILL_TORUS, in the branch that would run on a Torus clear — but nothing calls that branch (see The covenant ark & Torus), and the id is missing from the dictionary the game registers anyway, so set_achievement() would drop it before Steam is ever contacted. The table below is the whole list.
| Achievement | Trigger | Related |
|---|---|---|
 Apotheosis α | Fuse an item. | — |
 Apotheosis β | Fuse a vermin. | — |
 Apotheosis γ | Fuse a divine artifact. | — |
 Virtue α | Fly with the glider glove. | glider glove |
 Virtue β | Command a hookshot. | metal hook |
 Archangel α | Brandish a projectile wand. | ball wand |
 Archangel β | Summon your faith. | faith wand |
 Archangel γ | Brandish an explosive. | bomb |
 Archangel δ | Eliminate a blasphemous creature. | Blasphemy |
 Archangel ε | Brandish a gun-type weapon. | — |
 Archangel ζ | Brandish a star wand. | — |
 Archangel η | Command the hand wand. | hand wand |
 Dominion α | Fertilize a seed. | — |
 Dominion β | Harvest a fully-grown nut. | — |
 Dominion γ | Rename a cute vermin. | rename pencil |
 Dominion δ | Defeat a Power. (hidden on Steam) | Power |
 Angel α | Enter a qualia. | — |
 Angel β | Die. | — |
 Angel γ | Discover a tiamana leyline. | dormant pendant |
 Angel δ | Overcome a tiamana challenge. | — |
 Angel ε | Finish the ending route. | — |
 Bubblebear Massacre | Trigger the Bubblebear massacre. | Bubblebear |
Statistics
4 runtime counters reported to Steam. Like the rest of progression, they stop recording in Divine (creative) worlds.
| Counter | Trigger |
|---|---|
blocks_broken — Blocks Broken | Increments when the player breaks blocks through the normal block-breaking flow. |
blocks_placed — Blocks Placed | Increments when the player places held blocks into the world. |
death_count — Death Count | Increments when the player dies. |
fusion_count — Fusion Count | Increments on every completed APOTHEOSIS fusion. |