CAIRNWAKE

You never choose an action. You choose where your four characters stand, continuously, while the fight is already running. What each of them does is decided by their rank and by who is standing beside them.

How a fight works

Four characters occupy four squares of a three by three grid. Five squares stay empty, and the empty ones are the point.

• Rank picks the verb. The columns are ranks. The same character commits a physical act from the front, a supporting act from the middle, and a ranged or restorative one from the back. One person, three different actions, chosen only by where you put them.
• Adjacency arms the bonds. Every pair who share an edge has one authored effect that fires when either half acts. Four characters hold six live bonds at once, and moving one person re-routes several of them.
• Nobody waits for you. Each character carries a cadence bar that fills on its own clock and acts the moment it is full. You never start an action. You only decide where the actor will be standing when the bar fills.
• The enemies telegraph regions, not targets. A sweep across a rank or a lane lights up before it lands, and the safe square and the good bond are usually not the same square.
• A character who falls is out for the rest of the chapter, and every bond they were half of goes with them. Losing one of four is a step change, not a slow bleed.

Play the first chapter free, in your browser

THE BARROW ROAD is the free demo and it is a complete chapter, not a slice that stops. Four encounters, a boss, the first rank of four characters with their six bonds, and a real ending. It runs in the browser, here on this page.

What the paid download adds

CAIRNWAKE (Windows) is both chapters.

• THE IRON ROAD, a second chapter with four more encounters and a second boss.
• A second roster of four, with their own six bonds, for twelve in total.
• The Iron Wardens, a second bestiary that fights differently from the barrow beasts.
• Three mechanics the first rank does not own: healing, lifesteal and rally.

Before you buy

• The paid build is a Windows executable. There is no macOS or Linux build.
• Desktop or laptop. The browser demo fits a phone screen but the interface type is too small to read there, so it is not recommended on mobile.
• Single player. Mouse or keyboard, both work for everything.
• A run is about fifteen to thirty minutes.

Made by Core Systems Asset Factory.