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
- Undo and Restart are on-screen; tap a tray action to select it
Stock is the win meter. Outpost HP is the lose meter.
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.