Before dark
Find the cabin
You start at a camp in the middle of the forest. A clock tells you how long until night. Use it to explore and pick up what you can.
Three nights to get out
You and up to three friends wake up at a camp in the middle of the forest. There’s a cabin out there, a generator that keeps blowing its fuses, and a way out nobody will hand you. Stay in the dark too long and it takes you.
- 4
- players at most
- 3
- nights, then the red day
- 0
- weapons
- 2
- people making it
One night, start to finish
Nobody gets a role. Everything you need is spread across the cabin and the forest, and the only way to put it together is to talk.
When it gets dark
Get inside
At night you need the cabin. Stay outside too long, or in any dark place, and roots creep across your vision. Then it takes you.
In the basement
Keep the lights on
The generator needs fuel, too many lights blow the fuses and bulbs burst. You can end up in the dark with it still running.
All night
The cabin fights back
Shadows, black ooze, sudden cold. Each one eats the sanity of whoever is in the room, and the cabin itself if nobody stops it.
The way out
Solve the ritual
Everything you’ve found points to a ritual. Work out where it happens and what it asks of you, then do it together, because nobody can do it alone. Get it wrong and the forest hits back. Get it right and you might see the morning.
The cabin fights back
Every event has a countermeasure. You learn them from notes around the map, and each one ends up in the diary you all share.
Shadows
The room fills with twisted, shadowy figures.
Countermeasure: a crucifix
Black ooze
It spreads across everything in the room.
Countermeasure: candles
Sudden cold
The temperature drops and doesn’t come back.
Countermeasure: sage
Wishlist it on Steam
It’s the single best way to help two people make this game. Steam will also tell you the day it’s out.
Read everything
The cabin and the forest are full of things trying to tell you something. None of them tells you everything.
Keep the lights on
Tap a room to switch its light on and watch the panel from the basement. The generator can only take so much.
ГЕН-77 / CONTROL
EST
ТОПЛИВО / FUEL0%
EMPTYRESERVECRITICALOPTIMAL
NORMAL LEVEL
НАПРЯЖЕНИЕ / TENSION0%
NORMALHIGHOVERLOAD
NORMAL LOAD
!! OVERLOAD — POWER OFF !!
Load 0 of 4
From the forest
The ruins
The porch at dusk- A shrine
The old church
The stone circle
Lanterns in the ruins
The camp
The living room
Devlog
What we change, what broke and why. Written by the two of us as we go. All posts →
Design ·
Light should be something you have to keep
Fuel, fuses and bulbs that burst. Why a working generator still doesn’t mean you’re safe.
Design ·
People kept getting lost, so we gave them a flare gun
It isn’t a weapon. It’s how a lost friend finds the way back to the cabin before the dark takes them.
Playtest ·
Players didn’t understand the game, so we built them a camp
The lobby is now a camp with four tents and small playable tutorials, so nobody walks into the forest blind.
Get the devlog by email
One short email when there’s something real to show: new devlogs, playtest dates and the release day. No spam.
Get out together
Add Tainted Ground to your Steam wishlist and Steam will tell you the day it’s out.
Wishlist on Steam