Getting started in LAN: a guide to your first runs

Updated 26 October 2026 · by marcojlv

Your first games of LAN: Letters against Numbers are short: one letter, a handful of numbers, and off to scratch your ticket. That's on purpose. The first runs teach you the loop and, above all, hand you new letters quickly. This guide explains what is happening at each moment and which choices pay off from the very start.

The idea in one sentence

Your letters defend the bottom of a notebook page while the numbers come down for them. The longer they hold, the higher you climb. Height is your score, and every run leaves you syllables that turn your letters into stronger versions for the next one.

Before you start: your squad

You start with a single letter, the A (Assault), a melee fighter. In the Squad tab you place your letters in the formation. With one letter there isn't much to decide, but once you have more slots the order matters: numbers attack the nearest letter, so the front row takes the hits. The squad and formations guide goes into it in depth.

While a run is going you can't start another or change the squad: changes apply to the next one.

During the run

Your letters fight on their own

You don't aim or move anything. Each letter attacks by itself and, among the numbers in its reach, picks the one its damage type hurts most. You have two ways to help:

• Tap numbers. Every tap deals direct damage that ignores the number's defenses. That damage is a share of your strongest letter's attack and grows with the run's height, so tapping still matters high up. The game counts at most ten taps per second of game time: an auto-clicker gives no edge over quick fingers.
• Spend diphthongs. Beaten numbers drop diphthongs, the run's currency. Tap one of your letters and upgrade it in the panel below: attack, speed, health, crit, regeneration, range, numeric defense, literary defense or its skill.

How to spend diphthongs without wasting them

Each upgrade of the same stat, on the same letter, costs more than the last: 3, 5, 6, 9, 12, 17, 23, 32 diphthongs… That is why spreading them out usually beats hammering one stat. A simple rule to start with:

1. Health and attack for the letter in front, the one taking the hits.
2. Attack speed once the first two cost a lot more.
3. Regeneration if your squad wears down slowly rather than all at once.

If you leave diphthongs unspent for a while, the game points an arrow at your most damaged letter and blinks the counter. You don't have to follow it, but it is usually a good idea. Mind this: diphthongs and their upgrades are lost when the run ends. Don't save them for anything.

The first bosses

A boss shows up every 100 meters. The first is the 42, "the Answer", which splits into four 2s at half health. While a boss is alive, regular waves come at half strength, so you can focus on it. Beat it and you get a calm zone: ten seconds with no waves while your letters regenerate three times as fast. It is the best moment to spend diphthongs calmly.

When your squad falls

The run ends when all your letters have fallen. You see a summary (height, record, numbers destroyed) and then the ticket.

The syllable ticket

On the way up you earned syllables: one at 50 meters and one every 100 meters, plus the odd one from beaten numbers. They arrive face down, so you don't know which they are until the end. On the ticket you scratch them with your finger (or press "reveal all").

Each syllable gives one copy of every letter in it: the syllable "BA" gives a copy of B and one of A. Copies level your letters up, and the first levels are cheap on purpose: a consonant reaches level 2 with 2 copies, level 3 with 3, then 5, 7, 9… Vowels cost twice as much because they show up in almost every syllable.

On top of that, the first time ever you pass 10, 20, 30 and 40 meters you get three extra syllables each time. That is why your first runs give so much, short as they are.

New letters

Syllables only use letters you already own, so the ticket never spoils what is coming. New letters arrive another way: each locked letter has a height from which it can show up and a chance per run. When the run ends, if you reached its height, it rolls, and if it succeeds, it appears on the ticket as one more syllable.

• B (Bullet, ranged) can come from the very first meter, with a 75% chance per run.
• C (Cleave, hits several numbers at once), from 30 m, at 60%.
• D (Dome, a tank that shields its teammates), from 180 m, at 15%.
• E (Echo, shots that bounce), from 300 m, at 15%.

At most two new letters arrive in one run, and the second is rare. You will usually own A, B and C after your first games, and all five within a few days. Further up waits the rest of the alphabet, 27 letters in all; we list them, with a spoiler warning, in LAN's letters and their skills.

Your first triptongs

Triptongs are the scarce currency: the one you never lose, which pays for what stays with you. At first they come like this:

• Daily gift: one just for opening the game each day.
• Record: one every time your squad falls after beating your best height.
• Near record: reach at least 70% of your record and you have a chance of winning one.
• Streak: one extra for every seven days in a row with at least one run.

What to spend them on? Almost always, squad slots first. The second slot costs 2 triptongs, the third 4 and the fourth 10: two or three days in, you have a four-letter squad, and one more letter is a lot more damage. Each slot count also comes with a free formation. Everything else (extra formations, speed, shop looks) can wait. The currencies guide has the details.

Things worth knowing early

• You can end a run whenever you like. You keep everything you earned (syllables and record), but a run ended by hand doesn't pay the end-of-run triptong. Handy when you're in a hurry, useless for farming.
• The run goes on when you close the game. When you come back you see a summary of what happened while you were away: meters, numbers destroyed, diphthongs and syllables. The only things that don't happen in your absence are your taps and your upgrades.
• You can play offline. The game keeps the seeds for the next runs and syncs everything once you are back online.
• The bestiary spoils nothing. Every number shows as "?" until you see it in a run.
• Link your Google account in Profile so you never lose your game and can carry it to another device, phone and browser included.

A summary for your first session

1. Start the run and tap numbers while your A holds out.
2. Spread your diphthongs: health and attack first.
3. When you fall, scratch the ticket and level up the A and any new letters.
4. Collect the daily gift and buy the second slot as soon as you have 2 triptongs.
5. Repeat: every run leaves you a little stronger than the last.