Getting started in Time Heroes
Time Heroes is a free browser game about mining coins, hatching pets and pooling what you build into a colony. The first hour is a single loop: you mine coins, coins buy eggs, eggs hatch pets, pets raise your damage per second, and a higher damage per second mines coins faster. Every other system in the game hangs off that loop.
You play in a desktop or laptop browser. There is no download, no install and no app store. Mobile play is not open yet, so if you sign up on a phone you will need a computer to actually play.
The first research to buy is the Auto Miner
The Research Lab opens at level 5, and the Auto Miner is the card to take before any other. It costs 0 gems and 10 Forest Essence, which the first world drops on its own. Until you own it your passive mining rate is zero, meaning every coin in your wallet is a coin you tapped for by hand. Nothing else available at that level moves your income by anything close to the same margin.
After the Auto Miner, the two other early automation cards are Auto-Hatch and Auto-Delete. Auto-Delete arrives at level 7 and quietly saves you from a bag full of Common pets you were never going to use.
What unlocks and when
Time Heroes gates features by player level rather than dropping everything on you at once. The early ladder looks like this.
| Level | What opens |
|---|---|
| 3 | Codex, the permanent record of every pet you have seen |
| 4 | Time Rewards, the away-from-keyboard reward track |
| 5 | Research Lab, including the Auto Miner |
| 6 | Golden Machine, your first pet evolution craft |
| 8 | Colony, the shared mothership |
| 9 | Shop and the social hub |
| 10 | Shuttle, and coal starts dropping |
| 11 | Smelter and copper ore |
| 12 | Daily tasks and leaderboards |
| 16 | Fortune Wheel and ship upgrades |
| 20 | Space Map, minigames and the Cosmetic Bazaar |
| 30 | The Nest, the offline hatching machine |
| 34 | The Tower, the combat ladder |
Where early experience actually comes from
Hatching gives experience, but it is not where your levels come from. Tasks are. A single daily task is worth 250 experience, the same as discovering a colony, while an egg is worth 5.
- Daily task: 250 experience
- Weekly task: 1,250 experience
- Monthly task: 6,250 experience
- Colony discovery: 250 experience
- Shuttle upgrade: 250 experience
- Login streak: 25 experience
- Exclusive egg hatch: 25 experience
- Quest completion: 10 experience
- Standard egg hatch: 5 experience
Four habits that pay off later
- Leave the tab open rather than closing it. A closed game pays half coin rate, while an open idle tab pays full.
- Do not panic about selling pets. The Codex records every unique pet you have ever hatched, and selling the pet never erases the entry.
- Bank Forest Essence. The Auto Miner research asks for 10 of it, and essence is what research, crafting and the shuttle keep asking for later.
- Join a colony as soon as level 8 lands. Colony donations are one of the steadiest experience and reward streams in the early game.
How far the ladder goes
The maximum player level is 250 and there are 10 live worlds. Reaching World 2 needs level 20, 100,000 coins and the World 1 boss beaten, so your first real goal is simply level 20 with a squad that can win that fight. Worlds 6 and beyond additionally require Paradox resets, which are deliberate restarts that trade your progress for permanent multipliers.
Do I need to download anything to play Time Heroes?
No. Time Heroes runs entirely in a desktop or laptop browser with JavaScript enabled. There is no client to install and no app store version.
Does Time Heroes cost money?
Time Heroes is free to play and no purchase is required. Paid options exist, but they compress time on things free players already grind rather than opening a separate power track.
What should I spend my first coins on in Time Heroes?
Eggs. A World 1 egg costs 150 coins, and every pet you hatch permanently raises the damage per second that mines your next batch of coins.