20 Minutes Till Dawn is a unique roguelike in which the goal is to survive the night while fighting Cthulhu-looking monsters and their bosses. Its main feature is the special characteristics of each character and weapon, which allow you to explore different combos in the night fight. When compared to other similar roguelites, like those in our list of 5 Roguelike Games Like Brotato, it’s pretty difficult as it has some mechanisms that add to the challenge, such as reloading weapons, being slowed down while you shoot, and scarce healing.
You’ll encounter 11 weapons and 13 characters, most of which will need to be unlocked gradually as you go and complete different maps and acquire points. The game has a natural flow to it, so you won’t feel bored as you advance and try new survival combos that might help you survive the 20 minutes and reach the dawn. Keep reading and dive into the most important details a beginner in 20 Minutes Till Dawn should know.
Unlockables
At the start of this 20 Minutes Till Dawn beginner’s guide, it’s important to emphasize that you don’t need to rush to unlock every character and weapon right away. What is more important for a good run is that you understand how different in-game mechanics work and create great combos (which we cover below).
Characters
When it comes to characters, you will see a description for each one before you unlock them, so you’re not walking into uncharted territory. However, the mere description of their abilities doesn’t give you a feeling of how each one works right away. For example, Dasher, Hina, and Lilith are great ones to start unlocking as they are simple to play and understand and can get your points farming going.
Dasher turns into an invincible deer every 10 seconds, which lets you run through the crowd of enemies, damage them, and pick up the XP on the ground you couldn’t earlier. This is important because often you’ll find yourself in a situation where you can pick off plenty of enemies from a distance but can’t really go in and pick up the XP because plenty of them are still alive, hovering over it. Deerform removes this issue entirely.
Hina has a powerful dash ability that leaves her clone behind to fight. Clone aside, the dash is one of the most OP abilities in the game, as you can use it every 1-2 seconds, which lets you save yourself from many clutch situations where otherwise you would be hit. On top of that, Dash can also go through different barriers that bosses create, so it makes fighting them a lot easier.
Lastly, Lilith has a unique ability to create a spirit that chases down enemies after each kill. Since you’re fighting a horde, this means there will be plenty of spirits roaming around, making your run much easier. This isn’t autowin, however, as you’ll still have to work on creating a winning build, but her ability is strong enough to help a beginner out immensely.
Note: One extra safe character for beginners is Diamond. Although she doesn’t have any kind of special ability, she starts the game with 7 HP which is a lot compared to other ones, and in this game of scarce healing she can be a great pick while you’re still learning the ropes.
Weapons
Similarly, as with characters, you can do wonders with just a few weapons unlocked, so you shouldn’t rush to get them all. Dual SMGs and the Shotgun can be great first unlocks, as they are pretty standard weapons from which you know what to expect. That’s a solid first choice, as you don’t need your weapon confusing you as well when first exploring this roguelite. Later on, when you get a grip on the basics, it’s much easier to experiment with the game’s distinctive weapons.
Cyclone Sword and Grenade Launcher are pretty fun weapons to play with but do be careful, as the latter can damage your character when shot too close.
Runes
Runes are your permanent power-ups that can be bought with the same points you get after a run and that you use to unlock characters and weapons. Still, there are a few things you should know before you jump in and start buying these buffs.
Smaller buffs are cheap, and the stronger they are, the more points you’ll have to spend (naturally). However, to be able to pick up buffs from each new row, you need to have previously purchased a certain number of previous upgrades. For example, if you want to pick up a buff from a row that’s called “Rank 10+,” you need to buy at least 10 buffs in the first two rows to unlock it. Further, you can purchase multiple buffs from the same row, but you can only have 1 buff per row active. Look at the image above for clarification.
Good-to-Know Tips and Tricks
Healing
One of the essential things any beginner in 20 Minutes Till Dawn needs to know is that healing is hard to come by, so you need to be extra careful and strategic around your HP. At first, when you don’t have any Runes unlocked that can help you, it’s best to rely on Soul Hearts- like HP heart but black and is absorbed first when you get hit.
As you level up, you’ll be able to pick up an upgrade that allows you to get 1 Soul Heart every 90 seconds, which is the best “heal” you can get that early. You can follow up that skill tree and get more of these later. They regenerate on a timer, so you’ll have some sort of healing going on.
Furthermore, the game does offer you a Vitality upgrade that, in its last skill tree upgrade, gets you 1 HP every 90 seconds, but it will be a while until you get that last upgrade, so we don’t suggest you chase it early in your run. Soothing Warmth is a skill that gives you a 0.05% chance (yes, you’ve read that right) to heal 1 HP when you apply the Burn effect to enemies. As you can assume, it’s not very effective.
Survivability
Survivability is one of the key things you need to understand in 20 Minutes Till Dawn if you don’t want to keep falling on your face (like we did). A great tactic is to always have Dodge, Movement Speed, and Holy Shield in your mind.
Movement Speed simply allows you to run faster around the map and manually avoid enemies. We would say that this is a key stat that is a must-have in any run. On top of that, whenever you see the Run and Gun upgrade on your level-up screen, make sure you pick it up, as it removes the slow-down effect that you have by default when shooting at enemies. This makes it much easier to fight the enemies, especially bosses.
Dodge is another strong element to pay attention to in this game because it severely punishes you for getting hit (all characters have low HP). Having a mechanic that straight-up removes one hit from time to time is OP and shouldn’t be underestimated.
Lastly, there is Holy Shield, which is a block mechanic for one hit every few minutes, after which it goes on cooldown before it can protect you again. If you decide to focus on it, make sure you pick up any follow-up level-up upgrades and Runes that reduce the cooldown and let you have the Hold Shield as often as possible.
Synergies
Pay attention to Synergies of your in-game skills. When you press Esc during the game and visit Synergies in the pause menu, you’ll see which abilities can produce a synergy- a powerful combo ability. The Synergies mechanism isn’t that difficult to understand, of course, but they are easily overlooked (we only noticed them after playing 10+ runs) and forgotten. The easiest character to give you a quick synergy or more of them is Shana, as she has a free reroll for level-up upgrades.
Maps
You’ll see that there are three playable maps: Forest, Temple, and Pumpkin Patch. We advise that you focus on playing mainly the Forest after you complete the Pumpkin Patch and the Temple at least once to unlock the corresponding characters/weapons. The reason behind this is that the Forest is the only infinite map that allows easy movement.
20 Minutes Till Dawn is difficult already, and playing Temple and Pumpkin Patch will just make it harder. The first is a closed box map, while the second one is horizontally infinite but with borders on the top and bottom of your screen. Once you’ve mastered the basics and you’re confident that you can take on a bigger challenge, try the other 2 maps. Until then, we advise you rack up the difficulty but keep playing in the Forest.
Creating a Killer Character
Naturally, there will be many ways in which you can create an OP character that has tremendous DPS. But for beginners, we think it’s easiest to go for the Summons build. Pick up as many Summon skills as you can, boost their damage and attack speed (Fire Rate), and let them do the job.
It might sound silly, but in the starting phases of playing 20 Minutes Till Dawn, we were struggling with builds that revolved around straight Bullet Damage build and couldn’t complete a run. Summons helped out, especially while using the Dasher character (her Deer form scales with summon damage) and/or the Batgun that shoots bats, which count as both Bullets and Summons.
If you get tired of Summons and want to try out Bullet builds early, we suggest you focus on a combination of big Fire Rate and different weapon effects. Weapon Effects can be Burn, Freeze, Lightning, Curse, etc. basically anything that can add secondary damage to the one coming out of your gun. Diversifying like this will help you clear out the hordes of enemies in the same way multiple Summons do in the first build we suggested.
Of course, don’t limit yourself with anything. The game offers many possibilities, and our 20 Minutes Till Dawn beginner’s guide puts before you just some insights that can help you out when first interacting with the game. The more content you unlock, the more unique opportunities you’ll have and the more devastating builds you’ll see.
Conclusion
Playing 20 Minutes Till Dawn is definitely for the patient roguelite fans who enjoy a challenge. We’re not saying it’s soulslike difficult, but it’s not exactly Brotato, either. You’ll need to fail a few times before you get the ball rolling, and the game has plenty of levels ahead to keep testing you.
The exploring of new mechanics and combos is really fascinating and rewarding, and when you hit that great combo that lets you to delete everyone on your screen, you get a feeling of accomplishment that piques your curiosity even more and leaves you to wonder- what other combos are there?
If you found this article helpful, check out our 5 Best Rougelike Games for Mobile, where we featured 20 Minutes Till Dawn.
Photo credits: Erabit.
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