Bulldozer 
Quicksilt
Two armies mine a volcanic moon that eclipses every hundred seconds. The tidal stress that opens new vents is the same force that pulls the moon into its planet's shadow. So the moment the ground pays best is the moment one side loses the light.
Recorded from the playable build: a Foundry push through one full Light and Shadow cycle.
Every hundred seconds, the light changes hands
Kiln passes through the shadow of the gas giant Orris on a fixed clock: 60 seconds of Light, then 40 of Shadow. The Foundry fight by sight. The Veshra sense ground vibration and own the dark.
| Phase | Foundry | Veshra |
|---|---|---|
| Light · 60 s | +35% sight, +20% accuracy | −20% sense range, −15% speed |
| Shadow · 40 s | −25% sight, −10% rate of fire | +35% sense range, +20% speed |
Shown at 10× speed.
Foundry builds. The Veshra remember.
The Foundry
An extraction combine on a fixed-term charter. Machined, optical, bolted together by contractors, and they need the light. Their guns go off with a dry crack.
- Rigger, Siphon, Caltrop, Skiff, Bollard, Tinker, Drayman, Knell
- Colony: Draw, Muster, Proof, Works, Assay
- Commander ranks: Overseer → Warden → Provost → Director
The Veshra
They grow their bodies from inherited memory-lines and find their way by ground vibration. They've lost the forms they once knew how to make, and they want what's in the ruins. Their weapons land with a wet thump.
- Chorister, Drinker, Gall, Mote, Anchorite, Suture, Harrow, Censer
- Colony: Mouth, Choir, Recall, Greatform, Archive
- Commander ranks: Single → Braided → Manifold → Unbroken
Home runs dry. On schedule.
You start with 1,500 quicksilt and five base vents at 4 per second. Each holds 1,400, so they dry up in cycle 4 by simple arithmetic, not by script. Field nodes pay 25 per second and the deep node at the centre pays 40. A spent node goes dormant for 55 seconds, then erupts again at 60% flow.
Built for a thumb, not a mouse
8 tokens, not 40 units
Units bundle into squads on their own. Tap a token, then tap the map to attack-move. Long-press to move, or drag a token one-handed.
Commander presence
You score for damage dealt near your commander and lose for deaths near them. The bank locks in at every eclipse; if your commander goes down, that cycle's bank is gone.
Real friendly fire
The Knell's 6 m splash shows under your thumb before you commit, and its range doubles when a Skiff spots for it.
A colony that can break
Five sockets in a pentagon, tap to fill. Lose a building and you lose the tech and units it unlocked.
Five artifacts
The Lens darkens the field. The Well opens a vent. The Din hits Veshra twice as hard. The Mill grinds along seams. The Shepherd commands fauna.
A third army
Kiln's own wildlife answers to neither side: Slag-crabs, Flensers, Clinglings, Sump-eels that ambush harvesters, and Duskwings.
From a train ride to a siege
Play the AI on the train, then take it online: ranked 1v1 with seasonal leaderboards, 2v2 sieges with a friend, co-op digs against Kiln itself, and a persistent territory war.
| Mode | Format | Length | Win |
|---|---|---|---|
| Raid | 1v1 vs AI or online · 3 cycles | 5:00 | Destroy the enemy core, or extract 14,500 |
| Ranked Skirmish | 1v1 online · 5 cycles | 8:20 | Destroy the core, or extract 24,500. Results feed the seasonal leaderboard |
| Siege | 2v2 online · 6 cycles | 10:00 | Destroy the core, or extract 32,500. Full tech tree; the artifact is live for 2 cycles |
| The Dig | 2-player co-op · 5 cycles | 8:20 | Two players against Kiln itself: excavate 3 ruin sites while fauna surge every eclipse |
| The Long Shadow | Persistent online map | Async | Claim 19 vent fields. The treasury buys claims only: never stats, never units |
| Campaign | 2 arcs × 15 missions | — | From two cycles with no eclipse to a six-cycle finale |
From the playable build
Every unit and structure is drawn by our own software renderer: 23 unit models and 10 structures. Every sound is synthesized live, and the ambient hum drops from 300 Hz to 130 Hz when the eclipse arrives.
Playable end to end
Economy, combat, colony, commander scoring, five modes and the persistent territory layer all work today against the AI. Next up: final art, online multiplayer and leaderboards, and native iOS and Android builds.
Free to play. Quicksilt will be supported by ads, energy that refills over time, and optional purchases. A pass may sell honours, commander cosmetics and Task Force presets. It will never sell stats or units, and ranked matchmaking never looks at what you've bought.
Command the first test
Join the list for playtest invites and launch day.