OVERSHOT

Shift gears as the river shifts. OVERSHOT is a free browser incremental made for GitHub Game Off 2026: run a water mill with 5 machines on one shaft through the seasons, and buy the freehold.

More from the same studio: the CSAF Games Library holds every paid game from our games line in one purchase for $14.99, 44 Windows and Game Boy games today, and new paid games join it at no extra cost.

How it plays

One water wheel turns one line shaft. Every machine on it has its own gearbox and a speed band, the green arc on its dial.

• Hold the band. Inside it a machine works. Under it, it drags. Over it, it races, wears and breaks.
• One shaft, shared. Every machine you put in gear slows the whole shaft, so a new machine can pull its neighbours under their bands. The clutch decides who runs.
• The river shifts. Autumn rain, a thin winter, a spring flood that races everything, a dry summer that drags it all. A spate is forecast a day ahead.
• Water through time. A mill pond stores the flood for the drought, and the sluice sets how much reaches the wheel.
• The year's work. Grain after the harvest, logs in winter, loom cloth after the shearing. Millstones, a saw frame, fulling stocks, a trip hammer and a paper beater, each with its own band.

Rent is due every quarter day, and it rises each year. Undershot, breastshot and overshot wheels, iron gearing, crown gears, a granary, a longer shaft and fly-ball governors that shift for you. Miss two quarter days and the steward ends the lease: you go back to Michaelmas of that year with the mill as it stood, the arrears forgiven. It saves itself in your browser.

Paid, from the same studio

Every paid game from our games line in one purchase: the CSAF Games Library, $14.99, with new paid games added at no extra cost.

• MILLWRIGHT, $5.99. Raise three windmills in a farming parish so every farm's cart has the shortest road.
• NIGHT PLOUGH, $5.99. One snowplough, one tank of fuel, every street of a snowbound village cleared before dawn.
• LINGUIST OF THE DEEP, $9.99. Swim an alien reef and learn the language its creatures speak in light.

On a phone

Upright and sideways each have their own layout. From 360x560 upright or 640x320 sideways every word is at least 9.5 CSS pixels and every control at least 24, measured on simulated phones, not on a physical handset.

Controls: tap or click for everything, or keys: 1 to 6 pick a machine, arrows up and down shift, space in or out of gear, [ and ] the sluice, P stop, F speed, M sound, Esc menu.

Game Off 2026

Made for GitHub Game Off 2026, theme SHIFT. The source is public: github.com/onefreeman1337/overshot-gameoff-2026.

More free games

Every free browser game from the studio is in the Free Browser Games collection. Close to this one: ANAGAMA and POLDER.

Made with AI tools: the code, the words and the music were written with AI, and the cover painting was made with an AI image model. The mill's textures come from the studio's own pixel generator. Every sound is synthesised by the game's own code, no AI audio and no samples. Free, saved in your browser only, no account.