NIDDAK
How to play
A duel lasts at most 8 rounds. Everything you need is on this page.
The goal
◆ First to 2 Marks
Win two of the three Match Trials drawn at the start. Each Trial you complete first earns a Mark, and two Marks end the duel. You can also win if your rival's Champion falls, but the Trials are the real race.
How a round works
Both players plan at the same time and neither can see the other. That is the whole game in one sentence.
- ChooseSpend Energy to place units in a territory, cast spells, or set a relic.
- LockCommit your move. Your rival is locking theirs at the same moment, blind.
- RevealBoth moves are shown together. Nothing was played in response to the other.
- ResolveUnits deploy together, then effects fire by Speed. When both sides act at the same Speed, which one lands first is decided at random. Then each territory is settled.
You have 30 seconds to plan the opening round and 20 after it. Run out and your move locks in exactly as you left it, so a half-finished plan still counts.
The Read
From round 2 you hold 2 Read charges. Before you lock, name the territory you think your rival is about to commit to. Get it right and one of your units in that territory gains +2 Power for the round, applied after both sides reveal and before the fight resolves.
Get it wrong and you lose the charge and nothing else. If your rival commits nothing at all, or you had no card of your own in the territory you named, the charge comes back. You are never charged for a question that had no answer.
Some Gale cards carry Veil, which only works in the Veil variant of the Read. This season plays without that variant, so Veil changes nothing yet.
The board
Three territories. Whoever has more Power in a territory wins it that round; the difference spills into the loser's units, and anything still left over hits their Champion, up to 3.
Crowding: a territory counts each side's 2 strongest units at their full Power, and every unit after that at half, rounded down. One or two bodies hold ground for everything they are worth; from the third on, a territory gives back less than you put into it.
That cap of 3 is the whole reason all three territories matter. Piling everything into one lane wastes the surplus, so winning two territories narrowly beats winning one overwhelmingly. Before each round you also choose what the surplus is for: Strike sends it at their Champion, and Keep spares the Champion and draws you a card for every territory you took that way. You choose before the round resolves, without knowing which territories come back yours.
The Throne is the centre and borders both flanks. One of the six Trials, Hold the Throne, is won there.
Energy
You get one Energy in round one, two in round two, and so on up to six. Unspent Energy does not carry over, so the question is never whether to spend but what to spend it on.
Your deck and your hand
A deck is 12 cards, with at most two copies of a card and one of a Legendary. You draw 4 to start and may swap all of them once before the first round. Your opening hand always holds a card you can play in round one, as long as your deck holds one. From round two you draw a card each round. A hand holds 7 cards; a draw that would go past that stays in your deck.
Card types
Unit
Stays on the board. Has Power, which wins territories, and Guard, which is how much damage it absorbs before it dies.
Spell
Happens once and is gone. Damage, healing, drawing, or changing a unit's Power for the round.
Relic
Occupies your single relic slot. Some last the whole duel, some are spent the round you set them.
A card's frame colour is its rarity. It changes nothing about how the card plays, only how many copies a deck may hold: one for Legendary, two for everything else.
Keywords
Six words carry all the special rules. Every card that uses one shows it.
Guard
Spell damage aimed at this territory must hit a Guard unit first.
Mend
Heals your Champion for the printed amount when this resolves.
Rally
Other units in this territory gain +1 Power this round.
Anchor
Enemy Power here must fully clear this unit before any damage reaches your Champion.
Flicker
Draw a card when this unit is destroyed.
Veil
A correct Read on this territory gets no Power bonus this round. Switched off this season: the Read currently ignores Veil.
Match Trials
Three of these six are drawn before the duel and shown to both players. The first to complete one takes the Mark. They reward different kinds of play on purpose, so the three you draw shape how you should build the round.
Three of the six are drawn at the start of each duel, and only ones both decks could actually finish. A Trial nobody can complete is never put on the board.
Hold the Throne
Control the Throne after two consecutive Resolves.
Unity of Elements
Play two different elements and keep one of each on the board.
Blood Price
Sacrifice two of your own units, then win the exchange that follows.
Arcane Supremacy
Deal 6 spell damage by the end of round five.
Guardian Oath
Take no damage to your Champion for two rounds, then hold a territory.
Final Strike
Defeat an enemy unit, or land your Champion's signature, while you are not ahead on Marks.
Gambit
One choice under risk, usable once per duel from round two onward. Every outcome is written out before you commit. There is no paid re-roll and no hidden chance; that is deliberate.
Insight
See one hidden trait of your rival's next locked move.
Commitment
Gain +2 Energy now. Skip your draw next round.
Choice of Fate
Pick one of three known effects. One unlocks only if you already hold the Throne.
Champions
Your Champion has 20 health and one signature ability, usable once per duel. Kessa deals damage. Neyara prevents it. Pick the one whose timing you enjoy.
Watching a round
When both sides have locked, the round plays out on the board: units that fall drop away, ground that changes hands washes over to its new holder, and the Marks strike in the scoreboard. The written report follows underneath.
Tap anywhere to jump to the finished board; scrolling does not skip it. On a phone, Continue appears where Lock in was, so your thumb never goes looking.
The round that ends a duel plays out like any other, then offers View results. The result is saved before it starts, so closing the tab during it loses nothing. With reduced motion on, rounds are shown finished.
How a duel ends
- Two Marks. The normal way, and what to play for.
- A Champion falls to zero health.
- Nobody has finished after round 8. Marks decide it, then the Power still standing on the board, then Champion health. If every one of those is level, the duel is decided by a coin flip.
- A player quits. Quit duel sits under the lock button in every duel after your first; it asks once, then gives your rival the win.
- In a live match, a player who has not locked when their rival has, and lets the round run out, loses the match.
Ways to play
Every mode is the same duel.
- Rivals: 6 of them, opening up as you win, each playing differently, with 13 difficulty tiers apiece. Beat a tier to open the next.
- Daily Duel: the same duel for everyone that day, one attempt, and a streak that counts the days you play.
- The Climb and the Daily Climb: a run of floors on one life, described below.
- Rival Hall: another player's recorded duel, replayed round by round. When the recording runs out, the game plays on for them.
- Challenge links: send a recording of your duel to a friend. The link lasts a day and needs no account on either side.
- Signed in: live ranked matches against other players, and private tournaments by invite code, both settled by the server.
- Practice and the Duel Puzzle: full duels that change no stats, progress, cards or Alliance.
The Climb
A single duel is one fight. The Climb is 15 floors of them, and it is the long game.
- Vigour is the health of the whole climb, not of one duel. It does not come back on its own, and the lower it falls the less health your Champion carries into the next fight, down to a floor of 8.
- Win a duel and you take one card of three. It joins your deck for the rest of the climb, so the deck you finish with is never the one you started with.
- Camps offer one choice: recover Vigour, or remove a card and walk on hurt. A smaller deck draws its best cards more often.
- Elites cost more and pay a relic. A relic never leaves and rewrites a rule for the rest of the climb.
- Lose once and the climb ends. Beat the boss on the last floor and it is yours.
Legacy Cards
Every card you own is a specific copy with its own serial number and history. Win with a card and it remembers: at one, five and fifteen wins it earns a visible mark of it. This is cosmetic. A card with a hundred wins hits exactly as hard as a fresh one.
Common questions
The rules above say how the game works. These are the things people ask anyway.
How do I actually win?
By claiming two of the three Match Trials. Each one you complete first is a Mark, and two Marks end the duel immediately. Champion health is the other way to lose, not the main way to win, which is why a duel can end with both Champions untouched.
Why did my duel end so quickly?
It should not any more. Two Trials used to be completable on the same Resolve, which ended a duel on round two, and that happened in roughly one duel in five. A Mark can no longer be claimed before the third Resolve, and only one is awarded per Resolve, so a duel won on Marks now lasts at least four rounds. A Champion can still fall sooner, and a few Climb floors change how many Marks it takes.
What happens when the round timer runs out?
Your move locks in exactly as you left it. A half-finished plan still counts, and staging nothing is a legal move. The timer never skips your turn. The Rules page states the current length, which is longer on the opening round than after it.
Can I skip the animation of a round?
Yes. Tap anywhere on the board while a round plays and it jumps to the finished board. Scrolling the page does not skip it, so you can look around freely. On a phone the button to go on appears where the lock button was.
Do I need an account?
No. The game runs from the link and your progress is saved on your device. An account keeps that save when you clear your browser or move to another one, and it opens the parts of the game that need to know who you are: live ranked matches, private tournaments, posting in Majlis rooms, your Alliance's front and season rewards.
Can I lose my progress?
Yes, if you play as a guest. Clearing site data, switching browser, or using a private window ends a guest save, and we cannot restore it because we never had a copy. An account keeps your cards, deck, record and progress against the rivals safe. A Climb or a duel in progress stays on the device you started it on.
Does spending money make me stronger?
No. Nothing sold affects a duel. No card is available only by paying, no purchase adds Power, and there are no paid random packs. What money buys is identity, access and a hand in what gets made.
What are Shards, and can I cash them out?
Shards are an in-game currency. They cannot be withdrawn, sold, gifted, traded, or moved between accounts. Money can enter the game and it cannot leave, which is deliberate and is the main reason the game is not a route for moving value.
Can I limit what I spend?
Yes, from your account page. Lowering the cap takes effect at once. Raising it waits a day, deliberately, so the decision to spend more is never made in the same moment as the urge to.
Can I buy anything yet?
Not yet. The store shows what will be on sale and what it will cost, but checkout is not open during this soft launch, so no payment can be taken. Everything that affects a duel is free either way: every card is yours from the start.
Why does my card have a serial number?
Every card you own is a specific copy with its own history. Win with it and it remembers: at one, five and fifteen wins it earns a visible mark of it. This is cosmetic. A card with a hundred wins hits exactly as hard as a fresh one.
What is the Climb?
A single run of fifteen floors across a branching map, on one life. A duel is one fight; the Climb is a sequence of them with Relics collected along the way and no second chance. Not every floor is a fight: a Rumour offers three claims about the elite ahead with exactly one false, a Rival Camp shows you one honest habit of the rival you are about to meet, an Oath trades a condition on your next duels for a stated reward, and a Caravan trades one card out of your deck for one in.
What does my Alliance do?
It is the side you fight for on the seasonal front, and it changes nothing in a duel. Signed in, every daily duel you play adds Influence to its front, and more when you win. When a season closes you can claim Shards for what you added.
Does it work properly in Arabic?
One typeface carries both languages, the whole interface mirrors right-to-left, and numerals localise. The board is the one thing pinned: it sits under a painting that is never mirrored, so the cell beneath the left champion always reads Left Flank.
Do I need to install anything?
No. There is no app store and no download. The link is the game, on a phone or a desktop, and two choices, a Champion and an Alliance, put you in your first duel.
How do I turn the sound off?
The speaker button in the header, on every screen, signed in or not. One tap silences music and effects together, because sound is a property of the device and should never sit behind a login. Music and effects can also be switched separately on the Account screen.
What if I close the tab in the middle of a duel?
Nothing is lost. A duel against the game is saved as you play and picks up where you left it when you come back, and the round that ends a duel is recorded before it plays. A live ranked or tournament match runs on the server, so if your rival locks and you do not come back before that round runs out, the match is theirs.
What is the Read?
The thing the game is named for. From round two you hold two Read charges. Before you lock, name the territory you think your rival is about to commit to. Get it right and one of your units there gains Power for that round. Get it wrong and you lose the charge, nothing else.
My Read was correct and gave me nothing. Why?
Because you had no unit of your own in the territory you named. The charge comes back when that happens: the read was good and the board could not pay it, and the reveal says so. Veil, a keyword on some Gale cards, can also cancel the bonus, but only in the Veil variant of the Read, and this season plays without it.
Can I play against a friend?
Yes. After any duel you can create a challenge link and send it in a message. It opens straight onto the board for them, with no account and no install, and it works for 24 hours. If they have no deck of their own, each side plays its own Champion's starter deck, so neither brings a built deck to the first meeting.
Is a challenge a live match?
No, and it is better to say so. A challenge carries a recording of the duel you played. NIDDAK seals both moves and opens them together, so a recording of one player's sealed moves looks the same as a live opponent deciding. They just decided earlier. Neither of you has to be online at the same time.
What counts as a rivalry?
Two completed challenge matches against the same person. Below that it is a match. A rivalry keeps the series score, the Reads each of you landed, how the Throne split between you and the largest comeback either of you made, and it lives in the Rival Hall.
If I make an account, do my rivalries follow?
Yes. A rivalry built before you signed up moves onto the account the moment you do, keeping its score, its Reads and its comebacks on the right side. If the account already knew that opponent, the two records merge instead of becoming two.
Can I give up on a duel I have already lost?
Yes. Quit duel sits under the lock button in every duel except your very first. It asks once, then ends the match properly and gives your rival the win. Closing the tab does not end it: a duel against the game waits for you to come back.
Does the game track me?
It measures how the game works only if you consent. NIDDAK records things like a duel starting, a Read landing, a screen failing, and the floor a run ended on, against a random id your browser made for itself. No IP address, no location, no device model, nothing you typed, and no advertising identifier. First-party gameplay measurements are deleted after ninety days and can be switched off or on from the Account screen. Optional Google Analytics is separate, used only after analytics consent for aggregate page and product usage, and described in Privacy.
What money cannot buy
Nothing sold in the store affects a duel. No card is paid-only, no purchase adds Power, and there are no random paid packs. Memberships add digital identity, access, and creative participation, not combat advantage.