Darkwaar28 - Emberline
One carrier. Delayed fire.
hex logistics trajectory turn-based a few minutes
Mathieu Ledru
Darkwaar is an experiment in creating and publishing small playable ideas regularly.
Today's puzzle
Today's Darkwaar is Emberline.
A small hex outpost sits on one side of the board. A warehouse waits on the other. Between them: ash roads you lay, a lantern carrier that walks on its own, and a northern blaze that wants the keep.
How to play
One authored map. Three verbs. Deliver three stock before the outpost burns.
- Tap Road, then a hex beside your road (or the outpost). The warehouse can be claimed as an endpoint
- Tap Ember, then a neighbor of the outpost. The ember crawls one hex each turn and clears blaze it touches
- Tap Wait to let the board resolve without placing anything
- The carrier picks up cargo at the outpost when a road reaches the warehouse, then walks the line and delivers
- Blaze expands every few turns. It burns roads it claims and hurts the outpost if it arrives
- Mistimed embers can drop the carrier's cargo or strike the outpost
- Z or U undoes. R restarts. Keys 1–3 select the tray
Stock is the win meter. Outpost HP is the lose meter.
Play on itch.io
Play Emberline in the browser: https://darkwoodcom.itch.io/darkwaar28
Screenshots
Logistics and fire
Earlier Darkwaar boards have delayed shots, hex waves, and fixed trays. Emberline keeps those habits and borrows one idea from games like Widelands: a single carrier on a road you author, without a full economy.
The road that feeds the warehouse is also a corridor fire can rake. Casting early is a commitment that resolves later. Waiting is sometimes the correct play.
What it is not
It is not a deckbuilder. It is not a full settlement sim. One ware, one carrier, one blaze, three verbs.
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