Real-time strategy · four ages · permanent roads
Conquest
The legends are true. The ruins are real. The roads are permanent.
Games thatreward thecurious
The independent studio building Conquest, Skybound Sanctuary, Project Alchemy & Phase Loop.
Arcs
Arc 01Arc birthday
Prototype · v0.7.1
Arc 02Arc birthday
In Design · v0.2.2
Side-scroller · aerial exploration · high altitude
Skybound Sanctuary
Build your suit. Master the skies. Save the Sanctuary.
Arc 03Arc birthday
Vertical Slice · v0.9.6
Tower defence · merge and fuse · transmutation
Project Alchemy
Take what the lab gives you, fuse it together, and find out what the mixture does. Oh, and don't get overrun!
Arc 04Arc birthday
In Design · v0.1.1
Endless tower defence · states of matter · sumi-e
Phase Loop
It’s just a phase. Then another. Then another. An ink-washed tower defence where the matter you break keeps the loop alive.
What every Violet Arc game does.
Decisions that compound
Early choices don’t expire. What you decide in the first hour is still helping or hurting you in the last.
Systems you can see
If a route fails, the game shows you which part of the system failed and why.
Room to experiment
Approachable in the first half hour, still generous a hundred hours later. Curiosity is the intended strategy.
Committing Blind
You choose where a tower goes before you know what it is.
Six steps, and none of them skipped.
Every Violet Arc game goes through the same six steps, in the same order. Each world page shows which one it’s on.
Step 01
Paper
In Design
Every game starts as a design document. If the rules don’t hold up on paper, we stop there.
Step 02
Systems
Prototype
The maths and logic are locked before the art, so the game plays the same on a desktop and on a phone.
Step 03
Vertical slice
Vertical Slice
One stretch of the game, built to the standard of the finished thing.
Step 04
Full game
In Production
Everything else, built to the standard the slice set: the rest of the maps, systems and content.
Step 05
Open playtest
Open Playtest
Anyone can play it. Anything that doesn’t survive testing gets cut, even the parts we love.
Step 06
Release
Live
Nothing is announced before it runs. By the time it ships, every step will have been in the Log.
Private playtests can run at any step, by invitation.