Text-based, running on the engine used in fishing game, Courier, eldritch library, etc.
A GTT maze / survival game hybrid.
The overall maze structure is a branching key-puzzler like GTT mazes. Structures are built recursively like in daggerfall, and higher-level areas have exits to other areas, making the overall maze infinite, though I guess *technically* bounded by whatever number range is used for seeding.
Has a zero-backtracking house structure, hence the name. This is becoming a theme in my games. Basically your house is accessible from anywhere, or from specific spots probably. This prevents backtracking and encourages nomadism, which is kinda important in large procedural spaces.
It has some pretty intense survival mechanics -- hunger, thirst, sleepiness, cold/hot (which becomes more important with area themes) to up immersion.
Ingredients used in the crafting systems can be retrieved from combat, fishing, or fractal fixtures found in Rooms. These presumably have to be transformed in various ways, however all items and recipes are handcrafted in sensible ways.
The time system is real-time and happens while not playing, which encourages game sessions and overall gtx0 infrastructure. Before logging out you can go into your house and put your character in a state of Hibernation -- they'll consume food and drink you have stockpiled but at a slower rate. The first area is a little kinder, as you can set up camp next to water/food sources, the latter will definitely be depleted at some point but it takes a while, allowing you to have a life outside the game.
with the exception of fire areas you should be able to set up camp next to infinite freshwater sources.
All items and enemies, etc are handcrafted, however their location definitely isn't and there may be procgen variations.
Combat is GTT-like -- you can roll, dodge, etc depending on the enemy and your Boots, and attack with various weapons.
If you run out of health, you lose a Heart -- you start with 3 of these and can get new ones at the end of an area, via a crafting system where the ingredients are in limited supply, by Trading, etc. If you run out of Hearts, the consequences are pretty bad but not full death -- more like carried item loss and the save file transferring over to a different seed (but fixed from the origin).
The story has no endpoint, by design. There is however a decent amount of Lore and some basic story:
The universe here is entirely composed of rock/water, with magma pockets that provide heat evenly.
There was an old human civilization that came down here and made caverns, but they've since then fallen technologically *heavily* to the point where the little pockets of people are all that remain (and Wanderers like you). The animals and plants they brought in have rewilded. Basically similar to a lot of my games.
The one piece of technology they managed to save were Hearts -- basically a form of proven quantum immortality that when shattered will make you jump timelines. If the last one shatters, you make a bigger jump to a timeline where you're starting out with 3 hearts again. Anything in your home is safe since it's *technically* in a different universe.
The keys/doors thing is happening because of robots that have been trying to seize control of the caverns for their own end. I think maybe this is the key story point -- you have to figure out why and stop them before they keep all the human pockets completely isolated. Doing this requires going deeeeeeeep into the maze to one of the robot outposts, which are these absurdly large and inhospitable labyrinths full of old technology. If you're successful in beating the boss here, then all human pockets are fully connected again (which is reflected in-game) -- but you could still keep playing if you wanted to. Or "retire" with your overall progress tallied into some kind of high score and the game ended.
Artifacts are old pieces of technology that still work.
So like story-wise, you start in one of the pockets with an entrance into the wider maze nearby, get handed 3 hearts and your home and some basic instructions. If all 3 hearts are depleted you get a similar cutscene except a bit different since you already have a Home -- you get referred to as a Traveler rather than a Wanderer.
Rooms are lit by Xanthite, a material that turns ambient heat into light. You can totally collect this anywhere that isn't a human town since they stockpile it and are reliant on it for crop growing.
People can reproduce here but population size is very definitely limited, so the solution is extreme birth control and concentrating sacrificed people into Hearts -- the way this works is that everyone who turns into one gets transported to a timeline where they weren't turned into one but their other siblings were. So like your Hearts are *literally* your siblings and in another timeline they're alive and you're a heart. You can kinda communicate with them through the Hearts but will never see them again.
The elders tell you you're lucky to be a Wanderer and not just dead completely, like your life and the life of your siblings has an actual purpose instead of just being a random violation of birth control laws. The Purpose here is finding other communities and connecting them for better Trade.
Your parents are a bit sad but ultimately okay with this arrangement as they're allowed to reproduce beyond it to replace the dying population. And like while this whole lore point is dystopian as fuck, everyone understands its necessity.
Your home village is therefore completely handcrafted, while other villages aren't. You also get to pick *which* sibling you start out as -- they are 2 girls and 2 boys with different proficiencies and so starting weapons and stats.
Hearts exist elsewhere in the maze because of people who Heartized themselves in order to continue their work forever in some timeline. You don't have access to this timeline but can communicate with them through the Heart, which is how additional Story and Lore gets unlocked in this game.
These Hearts are however guarded by horrible monsters because their very presence in a timeline creates quantum uncertainty that leads to genetic mutations -- this is kinda a theme in my games, like the Eldrits in Minds or the animals in Shatterloop.
The very act of turning into a Heart is what grants you quantum immortality, however the origin point is wherever this transformation occurred -- having more Hearts on your person prevents this as they're instead erased and your timeline jumps to one identical to the first one but with a Heart missing.
