The Unwritten

The Author of Doors never finished you.

He wrote a first line, lost interest, and left you standing in a library that keeps rearranging itself. Every other unfinished thing in here has been waiting a lot longer, and most of them have stopped being patient.

You have a deck, a pen that is running dry, and no ending.

THE RUN

Each tale is a climb through four Acts of a book that is still being edited around you. You pour your ink into the chapters before you sign the page, then pick doors on a map that writes itself as you walk it and seals behind you — there is no going back to a room you have already read. You fight the Author's rejected drafts, spend energy you never have enough of, and take deals from things that want something more specific than gold.

Then you die, or you don't, and the Atlas writes down what you did either way.

NOT JUST ANOTHER DECKBUILDER

Every hero breaks one rule of the game.

Not a starting deck — a law. The Guardian's block is not wiped when his turn begins, and Shield Bash spends the wall it throws. The Alchemist's poison never fades, and is never allowed to land the killing blow. The Wanderer may draft any hero's colour as his own, and no card is ever his twice. Twelve heroes, twelve laws, and every one of them names its price in the same breath as its gain.

A new tale opens with three of them. Five more are written in by what you do — put down an Elite, close the first door, finish three tales. The last four are not on the select screen at all. You find them.

An Act is a shelf, not a chapter.

You draw a book off it and walk that one — and every volume has a bound cover of its own. The Saga of the Half-Sung Jarl is short and loud and it pays. The Salt Chapter is almost empty, and the page drinks your ink as you cross it. The Seventh Draft never lets you rest, and some of it comes back. And the book you draw decides what is on the next shelf — the quiet road and the deep road are different books the whole way down.

The creatures are alive.

Every drawing in Act I breathes, watches and shifts its weight while it waits for your turn — and the bosses that think in pages are worse.

Lower a hook into the ink.

Some pages hide the Ink Well: a flooded room where you cast a line into everything the Author drowned and reel up what bites — gold, pages, drafts that should have stayed under. Sometimes something reels back.

Your choices are remembered — across runs, permanently.

Meaningful decisions leave an Echo. Show mercy, or take the bargain, or set it on fire: the Book keeps a tally, and later runs hand you events that begin "The choice made earlier echoes here." Eight kinds of Echo, and they decide which of your character's two endings you get.

Four Orders read your Echoes and take sides.

The Archivists, the Door Keepers, the Inkbound and the Erased don't ask you to join. They watch what you keep choosing. Lead one and it sends its favour with you — and slips its own relic and its own card into that run's pool, where you still have to find them.

Sew two pages into one.

Cards can be bound together into a single page that keeps both promises — and a few pairs, sewn right, become something that was never in the deck at all.

Every character is a wound, not a class.

Each hero carries a question the Author never answered for them. Play one enough and its story unlocks in fragments — a memory, a voice, and finally the ending it was denied. Ten ranks of Mastery per hero, and the last ones remember a chapter the Author never published.

Seventy-seven mystery events, and no two of them look alike. Some remember what you chose in an earlier run.

IN THIS DEMO

• 12 heroes, each with a law of their own — three to start, five earned, four hidden
• 177 cards · 55 relics + 11 taken from bosses · 28 potions
• 119 enemies — 70 drafts, 20 elites, 10 mini-bosses, 19 bosses
• 4 Acts holding 8 manuscripts between them, each with a painted cover, and the one you draw decides the next
• The Ink Well, a rare flooded room with its own creatures and its own catch
• The Chained Chapter, a door in chains that names its own price, and three more places you buy once with Lost Souls and then bind at the Outline
• 77 mystery events, no two alike, several of which remember you
• A mini-boss in every manuscript, and two different ways for the last act to end
• Card sewing, a once-per-act upgrade room, a shuffled card reward you pick blind, and three keys for a door you may not want to open
• Meta-progression at the Writing Desk: ten verses, forking roads, a compendium, 17 deeds, and ten ranks of Mastery for every hero
• Ascension for anyone who finishes and wants it to hurt properly

Everything is saved between sessions. Close the tab whenever you like.

NEW IN v0.9.4.1

• A twelfth hero, and the fourth one you have to find. A new save now opens with three heroes and writes the other five in as you play; a save with a tale already behind it keeps every hero it had.
• The Chained Chapter. From your second tale, most of the first three volumes hold a door in chains, and its badge shows what waits behind them: a vault, a fire, a back-room shop, an Elite standing on a Rare relic. The lock takes one price (gold, Max HP, or the page you have played most), or you walk away.
• The card reward is shuffled. After a fight the pages are shown, turned face down and shuffled slowly enough to follow. Pick one blind, or pay gold to turn one over first.
• The Ink Well and the Gutter, where two pages you have played are sewn into one card, are new since v0.9.3 as well.
• Buttons make sounds: a page turning to open, a soft click to go back, one sound to choose, and a heavy book set down when you bind a seal.
• Fights and the map run noticeably smoother.

HOW TO PLAY

Mouse, or 1–9 to play a card and E to end the turn. Esc pauses. Hover any keyword for what it actually does — and the menu's How to Play covers the rest.

IT SAYS DEMO FOR A REASON

This is v0.9.4.1 It is complete and it is meant to be finished, but it has not been through a hundred players yet — and that is what this build is for. If something felt unfair, unclear or just strange, I want to hear it. Especially the difficulty: tell me where you died and how it felt.