Early development concept preview

Shackleborne

A medieval survival RTS about keeping your last foothold alive.

Your hero is the Living Anchor that holds the claim. Workers carve secret roads through trees, stone, and ruin while hidden camps keep survivors in the match.

The game is still a long way out. This page is for early concept updates, work-in-progress screenshots, and future test news when the project is ready.

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Hero death ends the claim

Workers carve secret roads

Broken footholds collapse

Exiles face the Bloodclans

The game idea

An RTS where survival pressure is strategy, not flavor.

Living Anchor

Every match begins around a hero. That hero is not a bonus unit: if the Living Anchor falls in the default ruleset, the player is eliminated.

Claim Carving

Workers harvest from forests, rock shelves, ruins, and blockers while opening concealed paths and hidden base pockets.

Claim Collapse

Lose workers, main base, and worker production, and a short collapse timer starts. Hidden recovery is part of survival.

Core loop

Raise a camp, hide your roads, pressure the enemy claim, and survive the world turning hostile.

  1. 1Start with a hero, workers, and a fragile camp on contested ground.
  2. 2Gather resources, build production, and carve terrain into safer routes.
  3. 3Clear camps, contest map space, and level your hero without risking permanent death.
  4. 4Break the enemy hero or their ability to rebuild before the collapse closes in.

Work-in-progress build captures

Current build surfaces, shown as work-in-progress evidence.

Captured from the active prototype. These are not final art, final UI, or a release promise.

Work-in-progress Shackleborne campaign alpha menu with dark fantasy campaign artwork and menu buttons.
Campaign menu, WIP
Work-in-progress campaign act map showing The First Claim route and mission selection.
Campaign route map, WIP
Work-in-progress top-down mission scene with terrain, routes, resources, and early RTS staging.
The Tear Opens scene, WIP

First prototype tension

Exiles holding the first claim against brutal pursuers.

Survivor baseline

Dawnmere Exiles

Human escapees who rely on disciplined workers, fortifications, support, and holding a foothold under pressure.

Invader baseline

Varkh Bloodclans

Brutal pursuers built around direct pressure, wall-breaking, momentum, and forcing mistakes around the Living Anchor.

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Updates will be occasional and practical: concept progress, new screenshots, and future testing news when the project reaches that point.

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