Chapter 1: The One Minute Mage

Mages use Mana to cast spells, with spells you can capture Spirits and summon Dominators, Wards, Beacons, and Catchers.

Your Mana is displayed in the blue bar in the lower-left corner of your screen, right next to the red Health Bar.

Your Mana levels can be maintained by drinking a Mana Potion or waiting for it to regenerate.

Mana Potions

Mana Potions are the currency in Shadow Cities, they can be used to replenish your Mana Pool for casting spells, fight enemies, and purchase customized avatars and faction sigils. You are also able to purchase Realms and become Shadow Lord of your neighborhood.

You can earn Mana Potions, for example, by achieving new levels, capturing Spirits, and completing Missions.

You can also buy Mana Potions from the in-app Store. Just go to the Character View by tapping the yellow button in the top-left corner and click “Buy Mana”.

You can see your Health, the red bar in the lower-left corner of the Main View next to the blue Mana bar.

When a Spirit or enemy player casts an Attack Spell on you, you lose Health. You can heal yourself with the Heal Spell to gain back your Health.

You can also cast the Heal Spell on a friendly Mage to help them gain their Health back.

If you lose all of your Health, you will be banished.

Banish

When losing all your Health, you will be returned to your physical location, and banished. During banishment you can wait for your Health and Mana to regenerate and heal yourself.

After you have regained some of your Health, you can return back to the game by tapping an icon in the middle of the screen. While banished, you are safe from your enemies.

Every neighborhood Energy Gateway represents a Realm that you can buy for yourself with Mana Potions. Once you have bought the ownership of the Gateway, you become the Shadow Lord of the Realm. Every Mage roaming in your domain will know the Shadow Lord, since the Gateways transmit the information to everyone.

To become a Shadow Lord of a Realm, tap the Mana Potion icon on the Energy Gateway and use your Mana Potions to purchase the Realm. If someone else has already purchased it, you need to outbid him/her. This is accomplished by dedicating more Mana Potions to the Realm than the current owner.

The amount Mana Potions bid for a Gateway increases the amount of Energy you gain from the dominators attached to that specific Gateway and also has a positive effect on the area control bonus.

There are three Realm levels: Bronze, Silver, and Gold; Gold being the highest level. The level of your Realm is determined by the amount of Mana Potions that have been paid to purchase the Realm.

Not all Mages are equal in Shadow Cities, and there are many ways to gain the upper hand over other Mages. The more you play and capture Spirits, the more Experience you gain, resulting in leveling up.

In higher levels, you gain Attribute Points that allow you to customize your character with four Attributes: Endurance, Intelligence, Vitality, and Willpower. The higher your Attributes are, the more Attribute Points you have to pay for each increase, the maximum number of points is 90. You will also keep earning Attribute Points even after reaching level 15, the maximum level. The maximum amount of Attribute Points you can gain is 1000.

• Endurance allows you to withstand more damage by increasing your Health Pool. Additionally, it increases the Health of your Dominators, Beacons, Wards, and Catchers.
• Intelligence increases your Mana Pool, allowing you to cast more spells.
• Vitality allows you to regenerate your Health and Mana, your Health regenerates at a much faster rate than your Mana. Additionally, your Wards and Catchers recover Mana faster, and all Heal Spells are more powerful.
• Willpower increases the damaging and healing power of your spells, also improving the effectiveness of your Catchers and Wards.

You unlock different spells by gaining Experience and leveling up. For example, you can buy the Ward Rune for one Spell Specialization Point. There are 15 levels; you automatically gain one point each time you level up from level 4 (the first time you will gain a Spell Specialization Point is when you go from level 4 to 5). You level up by gaining Experience, casting spells helps you gain Experience.

Basic Spells

Attack Rune

With the Attack Rune, you attack a Spirit to capture it or to destroy enemy elements. 1. Select a Spirit or another element by tapping it on the screen 2. Pull down the arrow on the top of your screen to pull down the Rune Layer. 3. Draw a Z-mark on the Rune Layer with your finger.

Dominator Rune

To summon a Dominator: 1. Target an Energy Gateway. 2. Pull down the Rune Layer. 3. Draw an inverted L with your finger.

Harvest Rune

You can harvest your Dominators at any point, a full Dominator is indicated by a red circle around the base, your own Dominators are also indicated by four arrows revolving around them. To harvest a Dominator: 1. Select a Dominator ready to be harvested. 2. Pull down the Rune Layer. 3. Draw a horizontal line on the Rune Layer with your finger.

Advanced Spells

Ward Rune

To defend your neighborhoods, leave Wards in locations to automate an attack on an opposing team’s Mage. 1. Tap on the map to deselect all the other items. 2. Pull down the Rune Layer. 3. Draw the Rune.

Beacon Rune

Summon a Beacon to allow your friends to jump to a location with your Beacon using the Cloudview: 1. Tap on the map to deselect all the other items. 2. Pull down the Rune Layer. 3. Draw the Beacon Rune.

Warp Rune

Warp allows you to jump between targets that your team owns (Dominators, Catchers, Wards, Gateways, Beacons, and friendly players). 1. Tap on the target you want to jump to. 2. Pull down the Rune Layer. 3. Draw the Warp Rune.

Catcher Rune

Catchers capture Spirits that attack nearby enemies. Catcher that has caught Spirit can also be collected for Spirit hunting Missions. 1. Tap on the map to deselect all the other items. 2. Pull down the Rune Layer. 3. Draw the Catcher Rune.

Heal Rune

Heal allows you to heal yourself, other players and your teams Catchers, Wards and other structures. By healing you can also increase the maximum health of Dominators. 1. Tap on the target you want to heal. 2. Pull down the Rune Layer. 3. Draw the Rune.

If you haven’t chosen a target when drawing the Heal Rune, you will heal yourself.

Battle for control over Energy Gateways in weekly Campaigns. In Shadow Cities, Campaigns determine who is the winning team: Animators or Architects. Every week there is a new Campaign where you can earn a Medal. Each weekly Campaign consists of three Battle Rounds, each Round runs for two days.

You win Rounds by helping the team you are assigned to, therefore earning you Medals. If by the end of the week your team wins one Round, you earn a Bronze Medal; for two Rounds you earn a Silver Medal; and if you win all three Rounds, you earn a Gold Medal. The Medal is always unique to that Campaign.

Battlegroups

Each time that you login the first time to a new Campaign Round, you will be assigned to a local Battlegroup where you will fight along with your team members to win the weekly Campaigns by conquering Gateways, capturing Spirits, and battling for the control of your neighborhood against the opposing Battlegroup.

Adding friends makes it easier to strategize and plan attacks to take over neighborhoods. You have separate chat channels to talk with all your friends or only the friends on your own side. That way, the enemy cannot see what you are planning.

By having friends in the game in different locations, you then have the advantage to jump to different cities through Beacons (for more, see the Navigate section). You can also see where your friends are by using Cloudview, giving you a bird’s eye view of any city. The maximum amount of Mages you can have on your Friend List is 1200.

By logging into Facebook Connect, you can instantly see which of your friends are playing Shadow Cities, and which team they belong to. You can then add them to your friends in Shadow Cities. Only you can see your friends’ real identities through Facebook Connect, and you will not be exposing your friends’ real identities to other players.

To chat with other players in the game, slide open the Comms View from the Main View while holding down your finger on the white arrow button on the right side of the screen.

Mana Potions are the primary currency in Shadow Cities. You can gain them over time by completing Missions, or you can purchase Mana Potions in the store. You use Mana Potions to replenish your Mana for casting spells; you can also purchase new avatars, faction sigils, and Realms. Mana Potions help you fight and defend your neighborhood by using them on Catchers, Beacons, Dominators, and Wards to improve their effectiveness and resilience.

You can access the Store from the Character View.