Darkenmoor

The bell rings at midnight. The wolves are already at the palisade. You have a blade and a bad feeling.

Coming soon to Steam · Windows and Mac · Co-op for up to eight

The Hollowing

A co-op survival RPG of ash, thorns and old oaths

Something is wrong with the dark. It gets into the wolves first, then the villagers, then you. They call it the Hollowing, and nobody in Thistlebrook will say where it started.

You wake in a village with a broken gate and too few hands to mend it. By day you fell timber, hunt the Greywold, and take what work the elder gives you. By night you hold the wall, and you count who is still standing at dawn.

Beyond the hills the land gets worse. To the north the Ashen Reach still smoulders under a church that burns its heretics. To the west the Thornwood has grown a wall of its own, and something old sings behind it.

The land

Five kilometres of moor, forest and ash, at the distances the old story gave them

Thistlebrook

A palisade, a chapel, and a bell no one wants to hear.

The burned ruins of a village on grey ash under a pale sky

The Ashen Reach

Burnt fields, broken walls, and a cathedral that never cools.

The Thornwood

Old oaks, moss to the knee, and eyes in the green.

What you do

Hold the line together

Up to eight players in one world, hosted by a friend. Anything one of you builds, burns or breaks stays that way for all of you.

Live off the land

Hunt deer and boar, forage berries and windfalls, and cook what you kill. Raw meat rots. A good meal keeps you on your feet.

Build, then build better

Timber and thatch first, then stone and slate, then ironbound doors when the raids get serious.

Smelt and forge

Copper and tin make bronze. Iron and coal make steel. Silver bites the Hollowed.

Twelve classes

Each with three paths: knights, rogues, druids, priests and stranger things. Eight abilities on your bar.

Weather that matters

Rain soaks you, snow chills you, and fog lets the dark in closer. Fires go out in a downpour. Plan for it.

A story with consequences

Choices carried over from a thousand-scene text RPG. The village remembers what you did.

A map you draw by walking

The land inks itself onto parchment as you explore it. Pin what you find for the others.

From the road

Work in progress. Things will look better. Some will look worse first.

Thistlebrook at dusk from the hills, lit windows inside the palisade under an amber haze — Thistlebrook at dusk. Count the lit windows.

Moonlit oaks in the Thornwood with fireflies over the moss — The Thornwood at night. Follow the fireflies, not the singing.

Thistlebrook from above under snow, the palisade ringed by white forest and a dark road — A cold spell. Keep the hearth lit.

Dead trees on grey ash under a haze of falling ash — Ash-fall in the marches. Breathe through cloth.

A parchment map titled Darkenmoor, the Greywold and its marches, with a small inked area explored — The map, as far as anyone has walked.

It started as a book you play

Darkenmoor began as a text RPG: twelve classes, a thousand scenes, and a world told in second person. The 3D game is built on the same rules, the same story and the same maths.

Play the text game in your browser

Writing about Darkenmoor? The press kit has a fact sheet, logo and screenshots.

Second person, present tense, spare and dry. The voice carried over too.