Ten floors of shifting ground, built fresh from a seed, climbing from the Dimming to the socket. Bram and three random companions, talents already learned. One life: anyone who falls is gone unless rekindled, and if Bram falls the expedition ends. Boons between floors; bosses on floors 5 and 10.
Everyone gets the same floors today.
A new seed every time.
Small puzzles with a fixed squad and one turn to solve them. Every one has an answer.
Fallen heroes recover after each battle. Lost battles can be retried.
One life. Heroes who fall are gone for good, and if Bram falls the journey ends. Saves every turn; no retries.
Each turn, every hero may move once and then act once. Tap a hero, tap a blue tile, then choose an action. Red-tinted tiles show what you could strike from there. When all heroes have acted, the dark moves.
Foes standing in light are Exposed and take ×1.5 damage. Foes in darkness can only be seen and struck when a hero is within 2 tiles; beyond that, only their eyes show. Bram's lantern and lit braziers cast light.
Step beside an unlit brazier and choose Kindle to light it for good. Snuffwisps will try to put them out.
You may move a hero, then tap another to move them too before anyone acts; come back to the first to act from where they stand. Get everyone into place, then strike.
Surround: each other hero adjacent to your target adds +1 damage. Shove foes into walls or each other for crash damage, or into pits and water to end them outright.
Damage is never random. What the preview shows is what happens.
Carts, pews, graves and fences are low cover. A unit beside one, standing in darkness, takes 2 less from ranged attacks that come from that side; a small shield marks those tiles when you move. Light strips cover away, so light the foe first. Foes use cover too.
Brambles cost 2 movement to enter, and any flame burns a whole thicket away in one round. Lamp posts can be kindled for a small light; shove a foe into a lit one and it falls on them in flames.
Fog hides anything inside it from anyone more than a tile away, your heroes included, so it shelters you from archers too. Flame light burns it away when the round ends. Deep snow costs 2 movement and melts in flame light. Thin ice cracks under the first to cross it; cracked ice cannot be walked on, and a foe shoved onto it breaks through. Husk Brutes are too heavy for thin ice at all.
In the city, rubble costs 2 movement and gives cover like a cart. A cracked floor falls into a pit three rounds after anything stands on it, or at once under a mirror beam. Foes on it fall; a hero leaps to safety and takes 3. Gloam pools swallow light and heal the foes in them, until a crystal's glow or a beam dries them out.
Wind blows across some maps. Each turn it marks one lit brazier, the one nearest its upwind edge, and snuffs it as the dark moves, unless someone stands on the tile just upwind of it. A wall, another object or the map's edge on that side shelters a brazier for good. Ember vents count down and erupt as the dark moves: 3 to whoever stands on them, and light all around until your next turn ends. High ground costs 2 to climb; ranged attacks from it reach 1 farther and deal 1 more, and a hero on it spots foes 3 tiles away in the dark. A hero starting a turn on a lit warmstone heals 3.
Each act's side road ends in an optional battle against a great foe, marked ✶ on the road. Each guards a relic found nowhere else, and each can only be beaten by turning the act's own ground against it. Tap one to learn its nature.
Some foes carry a mark. A Gloomed foe carries darkness: light cannot reach it or the tiles beside it, except a beam or a crystal's glow. A Sworn foe guards the foes beside it, which take 2 less, unless the Sworn one stands in light. Tap a foe to read its mark.
Two heroes who end a turn side by side, both in light, grow closer: three diamonds between them fill as turns end together. Fill all three in one battle and the pair earns a mark; three marks bond them for the journey. Each hero holds one bond.
Bonded heroes standing in a straight line, with up to three tiles between them, cast a beam of light across those tiles, exposing any foe caught in it. Once each battle a bonded hero can strike in Tandem: they hit, then their partner hits the same foe from where they stand.
Spilled lamp oil lies on some roads. Any flame touching it sets the whole slick ablaze for 3 rounds. Fire deals 3 to whoever stands in it when the dark moves, and it gives light, so burning ground exposes foes. Foes avoid fire. You can walk into it, but it will hurt.
A mirror touched by light throws a beam the way it faces; stand beside one and Turn it to aim. A lit crystal glows and lights the crystals near it in turn; stand beside one to Shatter it. Foes shoved onto ice slide until they hit something, or the sea.
Moss, Sapper splashes oil and blasts foes apart. Tamsin, Bellringer rings foes back and rallies allies with a peal. Fallen lanterns you leave behind are remembered.
At level 8 each hero can promote at camp into one of two paths, such as Bram's Beacon (a wider lantern) or Bulwark (a better guard). The choice is permanent.
They mend every hurt foe near them each turn and snuff any light they stand beside. They are frail; reach them first.
Their carapace turns blows to 1 damage while they stand in darkness. Light them, or strike while another hero stands beside them.
At camp each hero can learn a second ability: Bram's Taunt, Ilse's Fire Arrow, Cass's Cinderstep and Oda's Rally, which lets a spent ally act again.
Each battle offers two optional oaths, shown beneath the field. Each one kept is worth 2 extra embers.
Distant foes start dormant. They wake when you come near or strike one of their kin, and spend that turn rousing. Tap any foe to see how far it can reach; the ◉ button shows the reach of every foe you can see.
Bram, Warden carries the lantern. If he falls, the battle is lost. Ilse, Thornbow strikes from range and pins foes in place. Cass, Emberwitch bursts flame that lights braziers and exposes foes. Others may join on the road.
Heroes grow with experience. At camp, spend embers (gathered from fallen lanterns and victories) to strengthen them.
Between battles you make camp on the road map. Tap a lit marker to choose where to march, tap a hero's banner to rest or field them, and spend embers on upgrades. The road branches: some paths free a new hero, others hold elite fights that pay out relics. Shrines and pedlars wait between battles. Heroes resting at camp still learn from each victory, and freed heroes join close to the company's strength. Each hero carries up to two relics, set at camp. Ironman journeys allow no retries and keep no one who falls.
A separate mode from the title screen: ten generated floors with a random squad and one life. Each floor takes its ground from one region of the road: floors 1–3 the Dimming, 4–6 the frozen sea or the Lantern City, 7–10 the climb to the socket, where the wind may blow. From floor 4, some foes carry elite marks. The daily expedition uses the same seed for everyone that day. Your best floor is recorded.
Trials are one-turn puzzles with a fixed squad, grouped into sets; each names the lesson it teaches, and the Master Trials join several. After you finish the campaign, New Journey+ lets you start again with your whole company on mirrored roads against a stronger dark.
Tap or click to play. Keyboard: Tab next hero, 1–9 action buttons, Enter confirm, Esc pause, E end turn, D toggle enemy reach. Your journey saves at camp and at the start of every turn.