Embercrown

Embercrown is an idle kingdom-builder about starting over.

You tap for your first coin and buy a farm. The farm earns while you sleep. Sixteen holdings later you are running a Celestial Observatory, the map has run out before your ambition did — and then the Blight comes, as it always does, and takes all of it except what it taught you.

Eighteen ages sit between a single tent and the Embercrown itself. You will see all of them more than once.

>Heads up: this is a very early build (0.0.5). The art, the balance, the systems and the overall shape of the game are all still moving. Please read the "Very early in development" section further down before you start.

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 The loop

- Tap for gold, buy holdings, and let them earn while you are away.

- Lifetime gold carries you through 18 ages, from Camp to the Embercrown — each with its own skyline and its own line in the chronicle.

- 16 holdings unlock as you climb: Farm, Fishing Hut, Woodcutter Camp, Quarry, Mine, Market Stall, Tavern, Forge, Trading Post, Library, Alchemist's Lab, Wizard Tower, Temple, Treasury, Dragon Hoard, Celestial Observatory.

- What the fall is for

Nothing here is meant to be kept. It is meant to be spent.

- Embrace the Blight to let the kingdom fall, and turn everything you built into Chronicle Points.

- Spend those in the Academy, which raises production permanently.

- Survive five Blights and you unlock Rebirth — let the Chronicles themselves fade, and what remains becomes Legends.

- Legends fund three Dynasty paths: Steel (every holding produces more), Magic (the Academy's teachings cut sharper), Cunning (every Blight pays out more). Only the active path applies, so pick one and live with it.

- 10 achievements, each a permanent bump to production.

 Features

- Offline progress while the game is closed, capped at 8 hours — and switchable off if you would rather not have it.

- Export and import your save as plain text, so a run can survive a reinstall.

- English and German.

- No art assets and no audio files. Every sprite is composed and dithered in code, and the music and sound effects are synthesised at runtime.

- Windows, macOS and Linux. The launcher updates itself before it starts the game.

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 Very early in development

Embercrown is a 0.0.x build. I would rather over-warn than surprise you:

- The design is not settled. Layout, art direction, pacing, the prestige math — any of it can change, and some of it will. Things you like now may look different or be gone entirely in a later build.

- Balance is a first draft. Numbers are being tuned as I go.

- Saves can break. A save is one JSON blob, and if a future version changes its shape in a way the game cannot read, it falls back to a fresh start rather than a broken one. Use the export button if a run matters to you.

- Features are still landing. Systems that exist today may be reworked before they are finished.

If that sounds acceptable, I would genuinely like you to play it. Early feedback is worth more to me right now than polish is.

 Feedback

Bugs, balance complaints, and ideas are all welcome in the comments.