Backpack Brawl - What is This Game? And Why Do I Keep Dying?

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Beginners FAQ

Backpack Brawl is an inventory management autobrawler that challenges you to cram whatever you think is the best combination of strategically selected items into your limited bag space.

After each round of shopping to progressively power up your inventory and carefully arranging items in your inventory to maximize synergies, submit your build and watch how the interactive effects of your items play out in a fully automated brawl against the snapshot of another player at the same stage of the gauntlet run.

At these early stages of development this game throws you in at the deep end. So be prepared to face many defeats before you can bask in the glory of victory. But regardless of whether you were bludgeoned, or burned, or frozen, or skewered, mauled by a pack of highly aggressive and well trained pets, or simply poisoned by your enemies, remember that each defeat affords the opportunity to analyze your opponents layout so you may learn their strengths and strategies. It’s also a good time reflect on your own and consider what you may do to better your odds in the next match-up.

There are some elements of hero level progression gained through experience to reward persistence with perks, and a healthy dose of RNG to give variety to outcomes, but the most significant factor in determining your chance of success are the choices you make during gameplay.

Here are a few tips to start you off!

A list of buffs and debuffs with details of how they work is available during a run. Study them well and become familiar with their icons to improve your ability to understand items.
Placement matters. Carefully rotate and rearrange the position of items to get the most from effects that get bonuses for having other items inside of their ⭐ pattern of influence.
Your stamina is a precious resource that rewards careful management. If your stamina is insufficient for weapon requirements you can find yourself wasting cycles of cooldown timers.
There are several damage types: melee, ranged, pet… Read item descriptions carefully as some are effects are only useful with a certain type.
If there is something in the shop that you want but can’t afford yet you can choose to reserve it so that it remains in store until purchased. Otherwise you could consider selling something that is not as important in order to get some extra gold. But beware, these wily merchants don’t always buy items for the same value as they sell them.

How do bag effects work?

Items get bag bonuses for each individual bag they are inside. The effect received is described in the bags tooltip description. Items do not need to be entirely contained within a bag to get its effect, they only need to overlap a minimum of 1 square. Covering 2+ squares inside the same individual bag does not increase the effect. Items overlapping multiple bags means getting an effect from each bag overlapped.

Some Items and buff/debuff clarification

See more details in the Info button in the shop and if you tap buffs/debuffs area in combat.
“Stunned” will pause all the item cooldowns of the player (also pets)
Poison Apple affects only the single pet that attacked.
Bite Trap is triggered by pets, but will stun the player.
Invulnerable means you don’t take damage from any sources (not even fatigue).
Fatigue is a mechanic to end long fights.
- After 18 seconds, Fatigue damage deals increasing damage every second.
  - Between 18-28 seconds it increases 1 damage per second (1, 2, 3)
  - Between 28-38 seconds it increases 2 damage per second (10, 12, 14)
  - Between 38-48-58 it increases damage 3 per second (30,33,36)
  - Between 48-58 it increases 4 per second. (60,64, 68)
- At 58 seconds the pain train arrives and the damage increment increases by 1 every second. (100, 105, 111, 118)
Bag pity: Every 11th item is guaranteed to be a bag in the shop. This ensures that you don’t get inventory space starved too harshly.

How to use synergy mechanics

When you drag an item with Stars you will see them around it. If the Star is placed on the correct type of item it will be Gold, if it is incorrect it will be black.

When placed correctly they will trigger effects. Those can be on the item with the Stars or on the items touched by the Stars.

Effects such as:
On ⭐ Weapon hit:
Inflict 1 Poison

Matchmaking

You play against opponents who have played and submitted their builds. Battles are not real time.

In areas below 11, you are matched against opponents who are in your current area or below. For example: if you are in area 4 (sewers), you can fight against opponents from area 4, 3, 2, or 1. You are matched against players with a similar amount of wins as yourself. Hero level and ranking is also taken into account and the game will match you with similar opponents.

When you are in area 11 or above, you can match with all players with similar ranking, wins, games, and hero level.

Playing asynchronously means there are the following advantages:

No queueing times
Pause and speed up combat

Rankings

Each hero has individual ranks which are gained and lost through Ranked games. As you advance in rankings, it gets harder and harder to gain points and requires more wins for a net positive result.

The 11 ranks are