Beginner Guide — Your First Runs

The loop in one paragraph

ASSIMILATE is a tower defense where you ARE the thing growing. Enemies march from the breeding membrane at the top of the arena toward your Hive Core at the bottom. Kills drop Biomass — this run’s fuel — which you spend on towers, upgrades and heroes. Between waves you draft Gene Cards that bend the run’s rules. If the Core’s integrity reaches zero, the run ends; everything you learned, unlocked and mastered persists into the next one.

Your first three towers

Open with a Needle Spitter near the center of the line — long range, cheap, reliable single-target damage. Add a second tower one wave later: splash for swarms or a support organ to feed the line. The most common beginner mistake is saving Biomass "for later" — an unspent bank kills nothing. Spend early, spend central.

Place towers where their range circles overlap the approach lanes, not at the map edge. A tower that fires for eight seconds per wave is worth two that fire for three.

Waves, drafting and your hero

Every few waves the run offers a Gene Card draft: a temporary boost for THIS run whose card also joins your permanent Gene Archive for leveling. Never skip a draft. Your hero fights on their own, but their Active Ability is yours — save it for the moment a wave slips past the towers, not the moment it spawns.

The five run-enders

1. Hoarding Biomass. Towers you didn’t build deal no damage. 2. Ignoring fliers. Check the wave preview; airborne strains ignore ground obstacles. 3. One damage type. Armored waves shrug off chip damage — layer classes. 4. Wasting the hero ability. It is your emergency brake. 5. Quitting after a loss. Every run pays permanent progression — a lost run is still fuel.