Arcade Mode

A player attempting Arcade with three Catalysts, and three Curses enabled

Arcade Mode is the roguelike counterpart to Secrets of Grindea's core gameplay. Each run in Arcade Mode starts off with a fresh character devoid of any skills, items and cards collected in previous attempts. Compared to Story Mode, healing is scarce, and there are few oportunities to grind for better levels and gear, meaning players will have to rely on skill to succeed.

Arcade Mode consists of 13 floors (two of which are only accessible under certain circumstances), each with a set amount of generated rooms and a different layout each run. In each Battle Room, the player has to defeat all enemies to advance to next rooms, and each floor has a Boss Room that needs to be defeated to progress towards the next floor.

Score System

Local highscores on the board in Arcadia, in previous versions

Arcade Mode features a score system that awards players based on enemies defeated, their room clear times, and ability to avoid damage. Generally speaking, the faster players clear rooms and the less damage they take during a certain floor, the better their score will be.

Upon defeating a Battle or Boss Room, players will receive a rank based on their clear times for that room. The ranks range from S rank (highest) to D rank (lowest), and the clear times depend on the enemies encountered in the room (i.e. difficult enemies will allow you to spend more time before your rank is impacted).

Upon proceeding towards the next floor, players will receive two ranks based on their room clear times, and on the amount of damage taken during that floor. These two ranks are then combined into a final floor rank that can potentially award a lot of points on high ranks. To get the best rank possible (S rank), players have to both be fast on all rooms, and take no damage during the whole floor.

Permanent Unlocks

Arcade Mode features a progression system through Arcadia, where you develop the town from scratch, gathering Gold, Essence and comleting various quests. Some of these improvements include the Perk system, Curses and Treats, unlocking Potions for future runs, and many more.

A player's score will contribute to unlocks that can bring a new NPC to town or unlock a new cosmetic item. In addition, achievements unique to Arcade Mode can be unlocked to gain Essence and other cosmetic items.

Cosmetic item unlocks from Arcade can be used in all future runs, and will also be transferred to current and future Story Mode saves.

Catalysts

As the player completes Arcade Runs, they will unlock new difficulty levels called Catalysts. There are three catalysts in total: the first one makes the game harder, the second one weakens the healing received in runs, and the third one brings the difficulty level to the maximum.

Unlocking catalysts is done by beating Arcade Mode using the previous catalyst count (i.e. you unlock Catalyst of Mortality by beating Arcade Mode with Catalyst of Power).

List of Catalysts
Icon	Name	Score	Effect
	No Catalysts	0% (unchanged)	Normal Difficulty. Healing is Strong. Difficulty level is equivalent to Story Mode's Normal (Difficulty 0), and healing is doubled.
	Catalyst of Power	+10%	Higher Difficulty. Healing is Strong. Slightly harder (Difficulty 1) than Story Mode's Normal, retains the doubled healing.
	Catalyst of Mortality	+20%	Higher Difficulty. Healing is Weak. Same as Catalyst of Power (Difficulty 1), except healing is now the same as in Story Mode.
	Catalyst of Awakening	+40%	Hard Difficulty. Healing is Weak. Difficulty level is equivalent to Story Mode's Hard (Difficulty 3), and healing is the same.

Difficulty Modifiers

As the player progresses, they will unlock certain NPCs that will grant the ability to use Treats (modifiers that make the game easier, but substract from your score) and Curses (those that make the game harder and grant you extra score).

Treats and Cursed can be mixed together, but some combinations that are unintuitive (such as More Elites and No Elites) will force the player to unequip the conflicting Treat or Curse.

A combination of up to 3 Treats and Curses can be used at any time.

List of Treats
Icon	Name	Score	Effect
	Better Healing	-20%	Health Orbs heal for twice as much.
	Time Crystal	-15%	Start with a Time Crystal, which lets you retry a floor once
	More Treasures	-15%	Adds an extra treasure chest to Treasure Rooms
	Shop Discount	-10%	Items in regular shops cost 30% less
	No Elites	-20%	Prevents elites from being randomly spawned in regular rooms.
	More Loods!	-10%	Increases the spawn chance of Loods by 30%

List of Curses
Icon	Name	Score	Effect
	No Health Orbs	+20%	Removes Health Orbs and Health Potions from starting rooms.
	More Elites	+25%	Every room will have a guaranteed elite enemy.
	Booby Trap	+20%	Defeating an enemy in a regular room will leave behind various hazards. Possible hazards: slime patch, mushroom patch, and bombs.
	Big Brothers	+20%	In most regular rooms there will be an enemy from a higher floor. Some enemies may be banned from appearing in such a way, such as Beehives, Boars, Halloweeds, Peckos, Yetis, and Solems.
	Flaming Edge	+20%	After a few seconds, the edges of most regular rooms will catch on fire. Exception: Flying Fortress rooms with holes in the middle.
	Icy Floors	+20%	Most regular rooms will have a large area of ice in the middle. Exception: Flying Fortress rooms with holes in the middle.
	Mush-rooms	+20%	A few patches of mushrooms will appear in most regular rooms.
	Blindness	+20%	You'll be blind for the first few seconds of every regular room.
	Double Damage	+20%	You take twice as much damage from enemy attacks! Doesn't affect damage taken by shields.