Tile Painting with a System: Tank Avenger's Recon Screen Step by Step

The Recon screen is the moment Tank Avenger turns mixed reality from your living room into a map. Rush through it and you’ll end up playing on an area that just happened: with tendrils under the door, a narrow strip behind the armchair and a fortress that isn’t where you expect it. Use it with a system and you get an area that fits the room and your own walking routes. Here’s the process as we’d recommend it.

What you see on the Recon screen

After the safety briefing and the room scan, a big title appears — “BATTLEFIELD” — with the subtitle “RECON • THE ROOM IS THE MAP”. Below it hangs a console, at a fixed distance below your current head height. That’s why, according to the studio, it also works on a staircase or on another floor. Beside you, a live hologram of your room rotates on a turntable:

• green tiles: lit, part of the battlefield,
• red tiles: lying under furniture, locked,
• translucent blocks: walls and furniture from the scan,
• a marker: your position.

On the real floor lies the grid of 25 cm tiles. At the start, every tile is lit. So you’re not painting area in — you’re taking away what shouldn’t be part of it.

The two brush rules

The controls are deliberately simple, but you have to understand them once:

1. Switch off: point the controller at the floor and hold the trigger. Every tile the beam sweeps over goes dark.
2. Switch on: a stroke that starts on a dark tile switches tiles on instead of off.

So the starting point decides the direction. If you’ve accidentally switched off too much, deliberately start the next stroke on a dark tile and work back. Red tiles can’t be switched on with either stroke. They stay dark and locked, because according to the scan there’s a piece of furniture standing there.

The island rule

Tank Avenger only accepts one connected area. If a stroke splits the area into two islands, the smaller one automatically goes dark. The game then reports: “Only one connected area: the smaller patch went dark.”

That’s handy when you use it deliberately. An example: behind the sofa there’s a narrow strip of free floor connected to the main area by just one row of tiles. A single stroke across that connection cuts the strip off, and the game clears it away itself. You don’t have to switch off every tile individually.

Reading the status line

On the console is the most important line of the whole screen:

X of Y tiles lit • N m² • clear patch W × H m

• X of Y tiles lit: how many tiles are lit, out of how many possible.
• N m²: the lit area in square metres.
• clear patch W × H m: the largest clear area without gaps.

To CONTINUE you need at least 24 lit tiles (1.5 m²) and a clear area of at least 0.6 × 0.6 m. Until then the button is grey and tells you what’s missing: “light N more” or “need a 0.6 m clear patch”.

Step by step to a clean area

1. Look at the room first, then paint. Turn once on the spot and see where the red tiles are. That shows you where the scan suspects furniture.
2. Switch off the edges along walls. A row of tiles at the wall is usable for the tanks, but barely walkable for you. We usually switch it off.
3. Switch off door thresholds and passageways. Tiles that jut into a hallway or under a door create areas you can’t walk around.
4. Cut off narrow points with a single stroke. The island rule does the rest.
5. Create a clear rectangle. The main fortress lands on the largest clear rectangle and aligns itself to you. If you leave a nice rectangle in the middle of the room, you know in advance where the fighting will happen.
6. Check the status line. Tile count, area, clear patch.
7. CONTINUE. The first time, the intro follows; after that, the Command Deck.

What happens when you save

The selection is saved and offered again on the next start if it’s the same room. There is, however, only one saved play area. If you paint in a different room, the old selection is overwritten. If you want to touch things up later, you can return to the Recon screen at any time via main menu → PLAY AREA.

If the red tiles no longer match because you’ve moved furniture, painting won’t help. That’s when the blue + NEW SCAN button comes in, which opens the headset’s Space Setup and reloads the room model.

Typical mistakes

• Leaving everything lit. It works, but often produces tendrils right up to the wall that you can’t stand on.
• Too close to the minimum size. 24 tiles is enough, but plays tight. More area means more distance in combat, according to the studio.
• Forgetting the route around the area. The tiles are for the tanks. You need space to walk all around.
• Trying to argue the red tiles away. They stay locked. But furniture has no physics in the game. It only blocks where building happens.

A walkthrough by example

Let’s take a typical living room: sofa along the long wall, coffee table in front of it, TV cabinet opposite, door in the corner. After the scan, the sofa, table and cabinet are red. Green are a wide strip between the table and the TV cabinet, a narrow passage behind the table and a sliver up to the door. Here’s how we’d go about it: one stroke over the sliver at the door, one stroke over the passage behind the table. The passage now hangs by just one tile and, with the next stroke across that connection, becomes the island that the game switches off itself. What’s left is the wide strip in front of the TV cabinet, trimmed by a row on the wall side. The status line then shows fewer tiles, but a larger connected clear area. That’s exactly where the fortress will stand shortly, and you’ll have space to walk on three sides.

Comfort tips

• Don’t walk backwards while painting without looking. Passthrough shows you the real room — use it.
• Guide the controller beam calmly. Long, slow strokes are more precise than quick swipes.
• The console hangs below head height. If you’re bent over it for a while, straighten up briefly.

Tank Avenger is available in the Meta Horizon Store.

Scaler’s take: The Recon screen rewards a minute of planning. Switch off edges and passageways, cut off narrow points with a single stroke, leave a clear rectangle for the fortress, read the status line. Then you know where the fighting will happen, and you have space to walk all around. That’s the difference between an area the game accepts and one that plays well.