Play it live: https://hearthfall.vercel.app
A commune-survival roguelike in the browser — Dwarf Fortress bones, State of Decay community pressure, Fallout 4 base building, and a death-feeds-the-next-run legacy loop. No dependencies, no build step: plain ES modules rendered to a canvas character grid.
Direction (2026-07-09): the game is being refined toward a pure colony-survival sandbox — one settlement map, labor as the bottleneck, dusk as the audit of the board you built, Beacon win, hard-wipe collapse. The legacy shop described below is slated for removal. See DESIGN.md (canonical design) and ROADMAP.md (the route).
New players are guided in by the Elder — one voice in the sidebar that speaks the tutorial objectives, fires one-time tips at key moments, and afterwards always names the commune's most pressing problem (their face turns from calm to worried to alarmed as trouble nears). The sidebar forecasts everything that matters: what tonight brings (raid size included), how many days the food lasts, when the next wanderer arrives and what's blocking them, and why morale sits where it does (click the bar). Structures show their scars and workers repair them for a trickle of material — nothing rots invisibly.
Two graphics modes, toggled with v (or from the main menu, persisted):
Tiles — procedurally drawn pixel-art sprites with animated water and
fire, day/night lighting, and campfire glow — and ASCII — the classic
character-grid look. Full controller support via the Gamepad API.
pnpm install
pnpm dev # vite, defaults to http://localhost:8137npm works too (npm install && npm run dev). Node 20+. Other scripts:
pnpm build (production bundle), pnpm lint, pnpm check (typecheck via
JSDoc + tsc). No frameworks, no runtime dependencies — plain ES modules
drawn onto one canvas.
Pick a people, run the commune, survive as long as you can. When it falls — and it will — the run is scored (days survived, raids repelled, sites cleared, kills, peak population, plus named feats: winters endured, hordes broken, warlords slain) and paid out as legacy ◆, spent on permanent perks that make every future run start stronger. Runs autosave at dawn; death deletes the save. That's the deal. Or: reach tier III, raise the Beacon, and hold for 3 days against everything it attracts — the only way a run ends in victory.
Seasons turn every 5 days. In winter crops stop, bushes sleep, and
hunger bites harder — stockpile in autumn, fish the river (g on water),
or buy dear from the trader. Morale rises with victories and hot meals,
falls with deaths, theft and rough sleeping; a breaking commune bleeds
deserters into the night.
Settlers each carry a trait — brave, craven, glutton, keen-eye, night owl and more — that bends how they work and fight. Settlers felled in battle have an even chance to go down wounded instead of dying: helpless where they fall, crawling for shelter, one blow from the end.
Civs: the Tillers (faster crops, extra farmer), the Wardens (harder-hitting guards, extra guard), the Ratcatchers (faster, stronger expeditions — unlocked by clearing sites), the Masons (faster construction, tougher walls — unlocked by repelling raids).
Legacy perks (10, some tiered): starting stockpiles, permanent crop/wall bonuses, trader discounts, extra starting settler, pre-scouted world sites, stouter morale, +25% legacy income.
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
b |
build menu, tabbed (←/→): HOMES tents/cabins/longhouses · FOOD farms, campfire, kitchen · DEFENSE walls, door, traps, watch post · WORKS workshop, the Beacon |
| click a workshop | production orders — queue spears and medkits, cancel for a refund |
| drag on the map | select an area, then pick from the orders menu: chop trees ♠ · mine rocks ▲ · forage bushes " · fish water ≈ · clear marks |
x |
demolish / cancel single plans |
r |
ring the alarm bell — civilians run for the fire, guards stand to their posts (all-clear at dawn) |
w |
world map — send one settler to scout a site, or a party to take it |
e |
trade with the visiting caravan (arrives every few days) |
Esc |
pause menu — resume, save, settings, how-to-play, quit (also closes whatever's open) |
space |
pause · 1/2/3 game speed · ? help |
v |
toggle graphics: pixel tiles / classic ASCII |
Q |
save & quit to the main menu |
| click | a settler's name (sidebar or map) cycles their role |
| arrows | move the map cursor · Enter acts at the cursor (full keyboard play) |
Controller (standard layout): stick/d-pad moves the cursor and navigates every menu · A confirm/act (hold to drag-paint) · B back · X build menu · Y world map · LB/RB cycle tools · LT/RT game speed · L3 alarm bell · Start pause · Back help · R3 graphics toggle.
Roles. Workers build/chop/mine/craft, farmers farm/cook/forage/fish, guards only fight. Settlers handle eating, sleeping and firefighting themselves.
Economy. Crops → raw food → kitchen meals (more filling). The workshop takes production orders — click it to queue spears (wood + scrap) and medkits (herbs). The trader converts surplus into coin and coin into anything else (food runs dear in winter). Fishing spots yield a steady trickle and rest between catches.
Homes. Settlers sleep inside houses: tents ∩ sleep 2, cabins Λ sleep 3 (tier II), longhouses Π sleep 5 (tier III, best rest). No roof means sleeping rough — slow recovery and sinking morale. Houses are wood; torch-bearers love them.
Progression. 6 settlers unlock tier II (watch post, workshop, kitchen, cabins); 9 unlock tier III (stone walls, longhouses, the Beacon). Wanderers only join if there is food on the fire and room in the houses. Guards within reach of a watch post shoot arrows at raiders instead of chasing them.
Raids come at dusk every few days, scaling with survival time — and past day 14 they may hit from two sides at once. Plain raiders ☻ chase your people; brutes Ø smash walls; skirmishers § slip through open gaps to rob your stockpile; torch-bearers ¡ set wooden structures alight (stone doesn't burn — settlers douse fires once the fighting stops). Every 12th day a horde marches behind a named warlord ☠ — kill him and the rest break. Clearing a bandit camp on the world map delays the next raid; a camp left standing grows bolder and feeds bigger raids.
js/main.js— boot, fixed-step loop, debug hooks (window.G,ff(minutes))js/state.js— the global run-state singletonG+ tile helpersjs/game.js— tick orchestration, building/trade/objectives, the Elder's counsel; also re-exports most sim APIsjs/data.js— all content/balance tables (tiles, builds, civs, traits, perks, raiders, seasons, objectives, tips)js/settlers.js— settler AI, roles, housing, combat vs raidersjs/raiders.js— raider archetype brains, raid composition/spawningjs/world.js— overworld generation, scouting, expeditionsjs/map.js— local map generation ·js/path.js— A*-ish pathfinding ·js/rng.js— RNGjs/save.js— versioned save/load + migration ·js/meta.js— legacy points/perks (persistent)js/seasons.js,js/fire.js,js/forecasts.js,js/journal.js,js/onboard.js,js/dawn.js,js/run-end.js,js/structures.js— focused sim helpersjs/ui.js— screen stack, widget hit-testing, DOM input ·js/ui/menu.js— reusable list-menu screenjs/screens.js— every screen and modal (game, world, menus, sidebar)js/gfx.js— character-cell compositor over one canvas ·js/mapdraw.js— ASCII renderer ·js/tiles.js— pixel-sprite renderer + lighting ·js/glyph.js,js/portrait.js— small drawing helpersjs/gamepad.js— Gamepad API → virtual keys ·js/mobile.js— phone landing page
Debug console: G is the game state, ff(minutes) fast-forwards the sim,
GAME/WORLD/META_M expose the modules.
MIT — see LICENSE. Issues and PRs welcome; keep changes small
and playtest with ff() before opening one.