With it recently being announced that Brotato is set to make a big appearance at the upcoming Triple-i Initiative 2026 next month, it felt like the perfect time to jump back into my favourite spud-powered rogue.
With its auto-fire mechanics and smaller arenas than most Survivors-likes, it can seem deceptively simple at first, but I quickly lost track of how many runs it took me just to reach Wave 20.
If you’re thinking about picking up the game for the first time ahead of what will likely be a fresh wave of new content, here are some of my top tips to help you create smarter builds and survive to those later waves.
Lock items in the shop
This is something that has now become second nature to me, but during my first few runs, I didn’t realise you could lock items in the shop.
You can lock as many items as you like, and they’ll remain in place when you reroll the selection or return after the next wave.
If you’re running low on Materials, locking an item you can’t yet afford is a great way to make sure it’s still there when you have enough to buy it later. Just remember that items only stay locked until the next wave, so you can’t keep them saved indefinitely.
Keep on moving
This might seem pretty obvious to veterans of the genre, but it becomes increasingly important in later waves.
No matter how high your dodge stat is, you’ll quickly get overwhelmed if you stay in one spot. While weaving around incoming projectiles and enemy swarms, be sure to pick up the green Materials on the ground to level up, as well as any health pickups from trees to stay alive.
You should also be wary of those pesky corners, as it can be all too easy to get trapped and then overwhelmed by foes.
Specialise in either melee or ranged weapons
It can be tempting to just purchase the most powerful weapons in the store, but the smarter move is to pick exclusively melee or ranged weapons to build stronger synergies.
By leveling up your character and equipping items, you’ll improve stats like melee damage, ranged damage, and range, so it usually makes more sense to invest in one area rather than spreading yourself too thin.
Check weapon effectiveness
During the break between waves, take a moment to check how effective your current weapons are. You can hover over each weapon to see how much damage it dealt during the last wave.
This is a great way to identify weaker weapons in your build and experiment with replacements to improve your overall setup. Understanding which weapons deal the most damage will help you optimise your build and survive long as you approach Wave 20.
Recycle and combine your weapons
As each wave gets tougher, it’s important to manage your arsenal carefully to make sure you have the right tools for the job.
You can combine two weapons of the same type to create a single, higher-tier weapon. Any old weapons you replace can also be recycled for extra Materials, giving you more resources to invest in upgrades or new gear.
Use manual aim for added precision (if you want to)
Something I didn’t realise at first is that you can enable manual aim in the Options menu under Gameplay.
This is a completely optional tip, and I personally prefer the ease of the auto-aiming, but I can understand that some people prefer the freedom and precision of being able to aim their attacks at approaching enemies.
Experiment with different characters
It can be tempting to stick with the well-rounded character for obvious reasons, but I’d encourage you to experiment with different spuds.
Different characters can make unlocking others easier, or even completely change the way the game plays with exciting new mechanics.
For example, the Sick character loses 1 HP every second, turning each run into a frantic scramble to defeat enemies and drain their lifeforce.
Meanwhile, the Mutant needs 66% less XP to level up, giving you access to more build upgrades, but items in the store cost 50% more, creating an interesting trade-off.
