A short 2D role-playing game, built one piece at a time. You arrive in a valley at dusk, where the heart-fire is going out.
The ending — the Ember relit, the night closed. "The Ember is lit" rests over the now-lit vale: the heart-fire has climbed back to a steady gold, the dusk lifting toward dawn, with the run's close in a few lines and the choice to stay in the warm valley or begin again.
Walk into Ember Vale at dusk and explore it. Move the traveler with the arrow keys, WASD, or the on-screen D-pad; a camera follows you and stops at the edges of the valley, so you never see past the world. Water, trees, cliffs, and cottage walls block you; grass, the path, and the bridge let you through. Stand facing a signpost or the dimming Ember and press the action button to read a line about the place, in a text box at the bottom of the screen — your traveler holds still while you read. The valley is drawn entirely from code at dusk, with a vignette and the Ember's fading glow. Nothing is generated or imported; it is one hand-made place.
The people who stayed. Three villagers remain in the vale — the Warden by the heart, Mira at the west cottage, and the child Bram. Face one and press the action button to talk; a chevron appears over anyone you can speak to. Conversations run page by page, and some open a reply you choose — pick with ↑/↓ and action on a keyboard, or just tap the reply on a phone. Your choices and what you've learned are remembered: talk the Warden through and the Ember's story opens — it is dying, and needs three emberseeds gathered before the dark settles — and afterwards Mira and Bram have new things to say.
What you carry. The emberseeds are out in the valley, and so is an iron key — each a glint of light you pick up just by walking onto it. A ✦ counter in the corner keeps the tally of seeds, out of three. Press I, tap the counter, or tap the pouch button to open What you carry: a pouch of what you're holding, each with a line about it. One seed is shut inside a cottage whose door is locked; find the iron key first, face the door, and it turns. Two seeds lie in the open — one by the old bridge, one up in the eastern heights where things are oldest.
The thread of the quest. Press Q or tap Quests to open your quest log — the valley's asks, each with its steps ticking off as you go. The Warden's charge becomes the main quest, Relight the Ember. There's a side errand too, once Mira has warmed to you: fetch an old lantern from a shuttered cottage and bring it to her, and she sets a light in her window again. The log reads straight off what you've actually done — flags, your bag, the seed count — so it is never out of step with the world.
What guards the dark. Gather all three emberseeds and face the Ember to carry the light home, and the dark that gathered where the fire failed rises against you — the Hollow. The fight is turn-based: you and the Hollow fill a speed gauge, and a small queue shows who acts next. Attack with Ember, Thorn, or Tide — the three run on a ring, and striking into the foe's weakness lands for half again while its resisted element lands for half; every blow names the elements and the number in the log. The Hollow is weak to Ember and shrugs off Tide, and it tells you so on screen. After an opening lash it settles into a rhythm: it draws the dark inward — a wind-up that telegraphs a crushing blow on its next turn — then crushes, then winds up again. Guard the moment the crush is telegraphed. Your guard is a charge: it halves the next blow to land and holds until it does, so it covers the crush even when your speed edge grants you a turn in between — you never have to time it to the exact frame. The crush hits hard enough that trading blows and ignoring the telegraph loses the fight, and guarding every turn deals no damage and loses on the clock; guard each crush and strike the weakness between them and you come through with HP to spare. Beat it and the way to the heart stands open; fall and the dark throws you back to try again. On a keyboard: 1/E Ember, 2/T Thorn, 3/D Tide, G Guard — or tap the buttons on a phone.
Relight and remember. Beat the Hollow and the way to the heart stands open. Face the Ember with the three seeds and press action, and you set them into the cold fire. It catches. The heart-fire climbs back to a steady gold, the dusk lifts toward dawn, and the night closes on an ending that reads back what you did. The vale stays lit — stay and wander it, or begin anew. And the whole run saves itself as you play: seeds picked up, doors opened, people spoken to, the Hollow beaten, the Ember lit. Close the tab and the title offers Continue, so the night is yours to finish in your own time. One save, kept in your browser; an old or unreadable save is refused, never half-loaded.
This is the complete game — the overworld (1), the people who stayed (2), what you carry (3), the thread of the quest (4), what guards the dark (5), and now the relight, the ending, and saves (6). The factory's 15-part RPG arc finishes here as one short, resumable game you can play from dusk to dawn. The six increments are tracked in PROJECT.md.
Open index.html in any modern browser. There is no build step and no server.
open index.html
To run the headless checks (needs Playwright resolvable):
node test.mjs
Seeded (#88) — the capstone of the factory's 15-part RPG arc (15 of 15), and its first epic. The arc built a tilemap, dialogue, combat, inventory, quests, and saves as separate demos; ember-vale assembles them into one small game, one increment per day.
Day 079 of an autonomous build factory — the ember-vale epic ran from day 069 to day 079 across six increments; this is the last, and the game is complete. factory-hub