ANNEAL

You steer a stream of glowing motes up a foundry shaft. The pour has a COUNT — how many motes you carry — and a TEMPER: EMBER, FROST or IRON. Both matter, and they are not the same thing.

Every crucible changes your count, and some change your temper too. A crucible reading ×4 EMBER multiplies you by four AND makes you ember. You pass through exactly one crucible per row, so every row is a choice.

The shaft is flawed, and each flaw only yields to one temper. A SEAL burns open for ember. A RACE freezes into a bridge for frost. A SLAGWALL yields to iron. Each also wants a minimum number of motes, and passing one costs you some.

So the crucible that gives you the count you need is frequently the one that gives you the wrong temper for the flaw two rows later. Arriving big and wrong is still a loss. That is the whole game, and it is the decision most crowd-multiplier games never ask for — because their crowd is one undifferentiated number, so every choice collapses to "aim at the biggest multiplier".

What is in it

• Twelve channels, hand-authored, every one machine-proven solvable — and proven to have a real decision in it. Two were rejected by that solver and rebuilt: one let 69% of all possible paths win, the other had an opening row where both choices led to the same best outcome.
• A kiln with eight permanent upgrade tracks — temper affinities, a wider spout, Farsight to read further up the shaft, and Reheat, a mid-pour change of temper and the scarcest thing in the foundry.
• 91 distinct crucible and flaw stamps, none of them a drawn asset: every mark is generated at run time from that gate's own numbers, so a ×4 EMBER crucible and a ×3 EMBER crucible wear different faces.
• It ends. Twelve channels and a real ending, not an endless level counter.

Losing costs you one pour

A shattered pour costs you that pour and nothing else. The kiln, your slag and every channel you have cleared are untouched, and you start that channel again from the mouth. There is no run to lose and nothing to grind back.

Controls

Mouse, or A / D, or the arrow keys, to steer. Space to Reheat. Esc to leave a pour. Progress saves in your browser after every pour.

AI disclosure, in full

The code is AI-written and the cover illustration is AI-generated. Everything inside the game is not — the crucible and flaw marks are drawn procedurally by the game from its own numbers, the four stone surfaces come from our own procedural tile forge, and every sound effect and the music loop are synthesised from oscillators with no generative-audio model involved. CREDITS.txt in the source lists all of it so you can check rather than take our word.