Ember Vigil
Ember Vigil
Keep a little flame alive against a horde of shadows
© 2026 Rankeno. All rights reserved.
Leaderboard
How to play
A horde survival game where your light is your life: a little flame burns back a forest full of shadow creatures with weapons that fire on their own. Pick an upgrade each time you grow, chain evolutions, and survive 100 levels in ten night-time chapters with a boss at every tenth.
- Move with a drag anywhere on the screen, by holding the mouse button, or with WASD / the arrow keys. Your weapons aim and fire by themselves at anything inside your light.
- Your pool of light is your health and your reach. A bump from a shadow dims it; the embers that shadows leave behind fly to you and brighten it again.
- Collect embers to grow. Each time the bar at the bottom fills, the night pauses and you pick one of three cards: a new weapon, a stronger one, or a passive like a wider glow.
- Moving leaves a trail of burning embers behind you, so leading a crowd in a loop burns it down. Glowing elites drop Sun Seeds with power-ups such as Flare, Glass Globe and Golden Flame.
- If your light runs out, a spare ember rekindles you. With no spare left the night wins and the run ends.
Controls
- WASD / arrows move
- 1, 2, 3 (or arrows + Enter) pick an upgrade card
- Mouse: hold the button to move toward the pointer, click a card to pick it
- P or Esc to pause
On a touchscreen: Drag anywhere to move (a joystick appears under your thumb); tap a card to pick an upgrade.
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About Ember Vigil
Ember Vigil is a horde survival game with automatic attacks, set on a storybook forest floor at night. You are a small living flame, and the pool of light around you is everything: it is your health, it is how far your weapons reach, and outside it you only see the glowing eyes of what is coming. Shadow creatures shuffle in from the dark, puff into smoke when your fire reaches them and leave embers that drift back to you. Grow by collecting them, pick a card each time you level up, and build a kit from eight weapons (up to six at a time) and five passives, which can evolve into stronger forms. The run climbs through 100 levels in ten chapters, from Mossy Hollow and Whispering Pines to the Frost Fen, Howling Ridge and the red-black Eclipse Grove, with a new kind of shadow in each one and a boss on every tenth level.
Ember Vigil is an original game made for Rankeno Play and released in 2026. It runs for free in any modern browser on phones, tablets and computers, with nothing to install, and every finished run can be posted to the ranked Rankeno Play leaderboards.
Game facts
- Category
- Arcade
- Scores
- Points, highest wins
- Works on
- Desktop and phone browsers
- Made by
- Rankeno
Ember Vigil tips and strategy
- Keep moving. Every 22 units you travel drops a burning ember patch, so circling a crowd makes it walk through your own trail; standing still leaves you with only your bolts.
- Your reach shrinks with your light: at full light the pool reaches 150 units from you, and near empty it keeps only 60% of that. Collect embers before diving into a fresh crowd, because each one also gives back a little light.
- Heat is your score multiplier. Shadows burned within 1.5 seconds of each other chain together, every 12 in a row adds one step up to ×8, and a single bump costs a step, so a clean streak is worth far more than a messy one.
- Once per level, a bump that would drop you under 12% light sets off a Flare-Up instead: a ring of fire knocks everything back and you keep a sliver of light. Use that moment to break away, not to stand your ground.
- An evolution card appears when a weapon and its partner passive both reach rank 5, for example Ember Bolts with Fury or Orbit Sparks with Wide Glow. Plan two lines together instead of spreading every pick thin.
- The night always nibbles at your light, and from level 25 on it eats faster with every level, so you have to keep burning shadows and collecting embers to stay lit. Hearth regrows a little light every second, a Bonfire heals you while you stand in it, and a Sun Drop refills you completely.
Ember Vigil FAQ
What happens when Ember Vigil’s light runs out?
When do the power-ups and bosses show up?
Is Ember Vigil free to play?
Can I play Ember Vigil on my phone or tablet?
How do the Ember Vigil leaderboards work?
Ember Vigil is an original Rankeno game. © 2026 Rankeno. All rights reserved. The game, its code, artwork, sounds and name are protected by copyright; copying, re-hosting, embedding or redistributing them is not allowed. See our Terms.