The Guard
A tired old soldier with a buckler strapped to his arm and opinions about regulations. Shield Bash, Shield Wall, Rally. Ultimate: Last Stand.
Left for Mead
Co-op survival horror · 1 to 4 players
The castle tavern has run dry. The only mead left is in the village below, and the village belongs to the Briar Warden now.
Background: AI-generated concept art for Segment 1, not in-game footage.
The Survivors
Four regulars of the castle tavern. Each brings three skills and an ultimate. Each will pick up whatever weapon and armour they can find.
The Hunter
Quiet, watchful and very good at making things stay where she put them. Snare traps, throwing knives, Mark Prey. Ultimate: Volley.
The Brawler
Very large, very Glaswegian, and the reason the tavern needed new doors. Shoulder Charge, Ground Slam, War Cry. Ultimate: Berserker Surge.
The Tavernkeeper
She has run the bar for thirty years and thrown out worse than this. Bottle Toss, Cask Spill, Field Remedy. Ultimate: Round on Me!
The Briar Warden
An ancient druid who has taken the village and everyone in it. His thralls shamble through the fields, his thorns choke the roads, and somewhere among the scarecrows one of them is not a scarecrow.
How it plays
Status as of 14 November 2026. Built means merged and passing its tests, not finished or balanced.
Mead, risk and reward
Drinking mead makes you hit harder. It also makes you louder, and louder draws a crowd.
The Ruckus meter
Every brawl, smashed barrel and drunken shout fills the Ruckus. Let it boil over and the village answers.
Hidden classes
Your weapon picks your class, and your armour decides how well you fit it. A Hunter in plate swinging a sword is allowed. It is just not wise.
Checkpoints
Wipe, and the party restarts at the last checkpoint. Fallen heroes come back on a quarter of their health.
Difficulty by drink order
The harder the setting, the drunker it sounds.
The pressure director
A director watches how the party is doing and decides when the village pushes back. In the spirit of the jam's theme, you'll be able to see its hand.
Bots
Empty seats are filled by bots that stay close, fight and pick you up. They play like teammates, not like machines.
Pings
Point at a weapon, a cask or a threat, and your hero calls it out in their own words.
Online co-op
Solo with bots first. Listen-server co-op for up to four players comes once solo is solid.
Segment 1: The Cursed Village
From the castle tavern, down a winding hill road, past a farm full of scarecrows, through the woods and on to the first safe camp. Three routes, never straight and never flat, the way roads were before anyone planned them.
From the dev blog
Day 3: Overnight Codex, armour sets and animation (in progress)
A running entry for Saturday. Codex finished its queue overnight, two heroes have full animation sets, the pressure director is in review and the Guard's armour sets are ready for Tripo.
Day 2: Lights on, a bigger map and twelve characters
The black screen turned out to be a map with no lights. Segment 1 grew from a 30-second straight line into winding roads, and all twelve characters reached Unreal.
Day 1: Kick-off night
Six threads started at 6:03 PM. By 1 AM we had a compiled C++ framework, a greybox Segment 1, hero kits from Codex, a website scaffold and a headless Codex pipeline.