Emberhold: A MUD-inspired daily RPG for Playdate

Emberhold is a text RPG for Playdate in the style of the old telnet MUD rpgs: a scrolling log, your commands echoed back at you, a small town full of people to discover, and adventures to be found.

Each day you get one day's worth of energy. Spend it in the caves or along the coast, at a crafting bench, at the fishing pond or much more. Then log off and come back tomorrow after a full night's rest at the in. The caves are laid out fresh every morning, the same for everyone and your run will be added to a leaderboard so you can see who got the farthest. Just don't die on pass out on your adventure or your day will be over.

What's in it

• Two places to explore. The Dripping Caves and Gullrock Coast. Every step costs energy. After each guardian, head home with your loot or push on. Die, and you lose something you were carrying. More coming soon!
• Mystery crafting. Five unique stations. Put two or three ingredients on the bench and find out what you made by using it. Some results are nasty. Some results will help you on your journey.
• Four classes, each with four skills that get better as you use them. Train at the Drill Yard to raise your stats.
• A town with people in it. The townsfolk tell you their stories a piece at a time, and some may even send you on quests.
• A world boss every week that everyone fights together, with spoils only that boss carries. If everyone teams up enough, you can get some unique loot.
• An Auction Hall for trading with other players. Don't be sad when you get a good helmet you don't need. Sell it!
• Fishing, mining, a homestead with crops and animals, dice at the Inn and so many other little things to discover!

Online and offline

Emberhold  can play offline but connect over Wi-Fi and you get the rest: world bosses, the Auction Hall, leaderboards and world news, gifts from a mail crow, ghosts of other adventurers at the Inn to look at, and a cloud backup of your character with a recovery code. Every expedition is replayed and checked by the server before it counts, so the depth boards are honest.

The server keeps your character's name, class and records, the expeditions you play, and a backup of your save. It never asks for your email or real name. No sign up is required. The details are in Options, Privacy, in the game.

Installing

1. Download Emberhold.pdx.zip below.
2. Go to play.date/account/sideload, sign in, and upload the zip.
3. On your Playdate, open Settings, then Games, and download Emberhold.

Or unzip it and copy Emberhold.pdx onto your Playdate over USB in Data Disk mode.

Community

Bug reports, ideas and trading talk: the Emberhold Discord.

Credits

Game design: ohnojohndango
Music: Philip Zubarik ("Rising", "Storm", "Challenge Accepted", "Night Thoughts", "Victory")
Fonts: Roobert and Asheville, from the Playdate SDK by Panic
Built with the help of Claude, by Anthropic.
Playdate is a trademark of Panic Inc.