Field briefingArdent contract

: A factory-survival game about thawing a frozen valley.

You’re the one engineer sent to bring the Hearth back. Build the factory that keeps you warm and fed, give the Hearth what it needs, and watch the snow pull back from everything you’ve made.

Coming soon to Steam

Tapthe snow to thaw it, or a machine to look inside.

See how a valley thaws

How a valley thaws

From one campfire to green ground as far as you can see.

Night onethe camp

1Get through the first night

You start with bare hands, a dead drill and a cold night coming. Gather wood and stone, build four walls and keep a fire going.

A small wooden room at night, a fire burning inside, the snow dark around it.
In the game: four walls and a fire
The worksore to parts

2Automate the cold away

Drills, belts, smelters and power lines. Once the factory keeps you warm and fed, the nights stop being the problem.

An assembler on a paved yard, belts carrying parts east, a row of generators below.
In the game: belts carrying parts east
The Hearthstage 3 of 5

3Bring the Hearth back

Deliver the parts the Hearth asks for. Each stage you finish pushes the thaw further out, and green comes up through the snow.

The Hearth, a great geothermal engine, on green ground with flags and a statue beside it.
In the game: the Hearth, running

I’m making a factory game. My wife doesn’t want to play a factory game.

So I added houses

Homesa second way to play

Beside the machines, the valley has a second way to play:

  • Houses with pitched roofs, chimneys and windows that light up at night
  • Furniture you colour yourself, with wallpaper and floors to match
  • A kitchen whose stove really cooks
  • Fences, garden gates, paths and lamps
  • Farm plots, and a wardrobe of clothes for when the helmet comes off
Two houses at night, one with a red roof and one with a blue roof, their windows lit.
Kettle after dark, a fire in every hearth
A furnished room: a bed, a sofa, bookshelves, a rug and a table.
A room furnished in pine
A kitchen with a stove, counters and a sink, and a table and chairs.
A kitchen that cooks
A front yard with a picket fence, a brick path, a garden lamp and a mailbox.
A fenced front yard
Townsfolk gathered in a ring round a fountain in the square, a market stall behind.
The festival in the square

And once the valley is warm again, Kettle’s people start coming home, a family at a time.

Further out, it gets colder

Beyond the wallscolder every night

Past the valley’s walls the ground is richer and the nights are longer. Old stations wait to be relit, blizzards roll in, and Rimebacks den on the warm seams.

A great frost-maned beast beside an engineer firing at it, near a seam of red crystal.
A Rimeback Matriarch, guarding her seam
An orange tracked vehicle with its headlamps on, crossing snow at night.
The snow crawler, out after dark
Cars on cables running between two towers over a band of rock.
A ropeway over a band of rock
A small herd of shaggy horned beasts standing close together in the snow.
Woolhorns: shoot one and the herd comes for you

Coming soon to Steam

Play it alone, or with up to three friends in co-op. The Steam page is on its way.