In development

Ashen Hand

A real-time roguelike where your deck is your moveset.

Ashen Hand is a top-down 2D roguelike that mixes deckbuilding with deliberate, punishing combat. Your cards aren't spells you click. They're the swings, parries and rolls you perform under pressure.

Follow the forging

What makes it Ashen Hand

Every card is an action

Draft a hand of strikes, guards and arts, then perform them in real time. The deck you build is how you fight.

Stamina is everything

Swings, rolls and cards all draw from one bar. Get greedy and you'll be caught empty-handed.

Read, then react

Enemies telegraph every attack with a clear intent and a visible wind-up, and only one winds up at a time. When you fall, it's your mistake, not the game's.

Every run builds differently

Draft along your class's three roads, and find relics, including keystones that turn one build into another. Spend Ashes on levels, and the Embers you earn by fighting well at traders. Each choice changes how you fight, not just how hard you hit.

Combat with weight

Read the intent

Yellow sword

You can parry it.

Red diamond

You can't. Roll.

Parry a blow at the last instant, or guard and pay for it in stamina.
Fill an enemy's posture to stagger it, then punish for double damage. Parries, perfect dodges and blocking the last blow of a string all build it, and a break you cause makes your arts free for a moment.
Every weapon swings its own string, and the heavy ones hold a delayed blow to catch an early answer. Learn the rhythm and you know what comes next.
Hits have weight. A heavy enough blow breaks a foe's wind-up, and heavy arts carry you through a quick swing.
Get hit and part of the blow lingers as ashen health. Strike back quickly to win it back.
Eleven weapon classes, from twin daggers and halberds to slings, staves and sickles. Each has its own combo, a backstep attack and a sprint attack, and parries and guards its own way.
Eleven damage types. Set foes burning, chilled or shocked, or make them bleed, rot and wither.

Choose who you burn as

Knight

Strength & guard

A greatsword and an oath. Cheaper blocks and a wider parry.

Duelist

Dexterity & parries

Twin daggers and light feet. Rolls cost less, parries pay more.

Ashcaller

Sorcery & elements

An ash staff and a kindled mind. Frost, storm and stone at range.

Breaker

Blunt force & posture

An iron maul and an unyielding will. Breaks guards and bones alike.

Hexbinder

Occult & afflictions

A reaper's sickle and a bag of hexes. Bleed, venom and void, and stamina back for every curse that takes hold.

Three biomes down

A run is three biomes of three levels, each ending in a boss, then a short last stretch: an arena of waves and the final boss. Every layout comes from the run's seed, so no two runs are the same.

Cinder Wastes
Boss: The Cinder Warden
Warm ash, armored squires, hounds that hunt in pairs and a fiend that crosses the room in one bound. The Warden answers with a fan of fire, and at half health rings you in it.
Hollow Cathedral
Boss: The Hollow Abbot
Pale stone, chanting casters, shades that blows pass through and bones that rise again. The Abbot's bell rings out a ring of bolts, and he has a second phase.
Drowned Vault
Boss: The Vault Sentinel
Black water, long pikes, a gorgon you must look away from and a minotaur that charges into walls. The Sentinel hurls lances of rime, and at half health a whole tide of them with one gap to find.

In the build today

classes: 5
cards, two upgrade paths each: 57
relics, 10 of them keystones: 52
weapons: 39
foe types: 36
Descension levels after your first win: 10

Where it stands

Genre: Action roguelike · deckbuilder
Platform: PC (Windows, Linux), full controller support
Engine: Godot 4.7 · C#
Status: Playable prototype: a full run, start to final boss

The art is a work in progress: every biome has textured floors, and the classes and every family of foe have bodies baked in Blender, but attacks and tells are still drawn in code and there's little animation yet. The sound effects and the gothic score are synthesized by the game itself. The look is still being forged.

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