Spellbound & Shelved Upgrade Planner

Open the Spellbound & Shelved upgrade overlay and it is easy to drown. Hundreds of gold nodes, pan/zoom/hover, a Close (U) button, a diamond counter that can look infinite in sandbox screenshots. This planner is a shopping script you run beside the game. Rankings that explain why are on the upgrade tier list.

How to run a buy

1. CLOSED until you see floorboards.
2. Write one job from the phase table below.
3. OPEN until that job is affordable (door policy: door-sign planner).
4. Press into the web, hover until a node matches the job, buy the cheapest match, U to close.
5. CLOSED. Do not “just one more leaf.”

If you cannot explain the node in one sentence, it is not this burst’s job.

Phase table

Phase 1 — blizzard (tiny gold, chained wall visible)
Job order: gnome speed → carry/stack stability → first needed wing → stop.
Forbidden: outer petals, tip magnets, achievement bait, three wings at once.

Phase 2 — shop is open (five-figure diamonds, Appears toasts)
Job order: more speed → pathing/filing accuracy → survivable reader throughput → next overflow wing → Fizzwick/Bramble mastery support if it is a real hover node.
Forbidden: filling a whole spoke because it looks symmetric.

Phase 3 — last thousand
Job order: whatever still blocks CLOSED tidy (usually pathing to the last mosaic) → leftover wings if hats queue → optional leaves.
Forbidden: reopening the door to fund cosmetics while 800 books remain. Cosmetics wait for the finale.

Post-finale
Do whatever. Complete the mandala. Farm Hundred Happy Readers. Photograph the title-screen library.

Decision shortcuts

• Hats idle in a queue → space (wing) or pathing, not income.
• Hats move but floor never thins → speed/carry, then CLOSED longer, not more OPEN.
• Gold starved → income nodes only after speed exists; otherwise you buy a bigger mess.
• Log is all Cat fanfare → you are not in a shopping problem, you are in a plaque problem.

Optional click budget

Pep-talk after each buy while CLOSED so the new node is felt. Snatch tips only if they sit on the path to the next hover. Do not camera-chase coins across a new wing you cannot staff. Tips.

Why there is no spreadsheet of costs

Node prices are in the hover card. Publishing a fake table would rot on the first patch. Jobs survive patches. If needmoar.games retunes, keep the phase table and hover again. Check Updates.

Print this page mentally: one job, one burst, one node. The constellation will still be there after the last book leaves. The mosaic will not.

Worked example (Phase 1)

Gold shows 20. Chained wall visible. Log names Fizzwick and Nutmeg. You want to hire or buy speed — you cannot afford both. Job: gnome speed. OPEN until the cheapest speed hover is affordable. Buy it. U. CLOSED. Pep-talk once. Do not unchain. Do not hover the outer mandala “just to look.” If a tip coin fades, that is It Rolled Under a Shelf territory, not a failed shop.

Worked example (Phase 2)

Diamonds are five figures. A Cat Appears. You want a wing because hats queue. Job: overflow space. CLOSE first if the mosaic is already opaque — you cannot evaluate overflow on a buried floor. Then OPEN for the chain cost only. Unchain. Stay CLOSED until the new crystal case has books that stay. Then, and only then, a second burst for pathing. Two jobs, two bursts, never one greedy OPEN.

If those examples feel slow, you are playing the idle correctly. Speedrunning the web is how 6,655 becomes a lifestyle.