Brushsworn

Long ago, everything in the world was written in brush and ink — the mountains, the rivers, and people's names, crafts and songs. Then the Ink Tide rose. The words came apart into ink, the ink opened its eyes, and people forgot who they were.

The last calligraphers swore on the brush to write the lost words back. You are one of them, the Brushsworn, called back with nothing but a broken brush. Every Blot you cut writes one word back — and with every word, someone remembers.

Every skill is a character

Your slash starts as 一 (one), sharpens into 刀 (blade), and finally becomes 山 (peaks). Level it up and watch the character — and its power — evolve.

Characters combine

Pick up radicals — 木 wood, 火 fire, 水 water, 日 sun, 月 moon, 人 person, 口 mouth — and level them up. They merge into new characters with new forms: two trees make 林 Grove, a ring of trees around you; sun and moon make 明 Bright, a beam across the screen; two people make 从 Follow, ink doubles fighting at your side. Fifteen characters to find — seven of them with hidden recipes.

Keep what you write

Every character you write is carved on the Stele Wall — grey when seen, ink when used, vermilion when mastered — and full slabs give permanent bonuses. And at the end of each run you can save your run as calligraphy: the characters special to that run, brushed large on old paper, ready to share.

Every skill is an instrument

Each technique adds a voice to a live Chinese folk ensemble — drums, zither, flute and bell. The better your build, the richer the music. Unleash an idiom ultimate like Cut in Two and the whole band comes in.

Idle-friendly

After your first couple of expeditions you unlock Auto: the Wanderer fights, dodges and picks upgrades by itself, and keeps exploring while you're away. Come back, spend your memories, and dive deeper into the Tide.

• Two regions with their own music, enemies and bosses: the dusky river of Duskwater and the snowbound Snowlisten
• Calligraphy-inspired progression: copybooks, realms of mastery, idioms you assemble mid-run
• The Four Treasures of the Study as gear: brushes, ink, paper and inkstones
• English (more languages later)

Controls

WASD / arrow keys, or hold the mouse to walk toward it (touch: on-screen stick) · Space toggles Auto · R casts the idiom ultimate · 1 / 2 / 3 pick upgrades · F twice to flee

Early test build — feedback is very welcome!

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Privacy: the game sends a few anonymous events (game opened, first runs started / finished, Auto unlocked) to GoatCounter so we can see where players drop off. No cookies, no personal data — you can switch it off in Settings · Save.

Credits

Instrument samples: Fluid (R3) General MIDI SoundFont by Frank Wen (CC BY 3.0); Versilian Community Sample Library (VCSL, CC0).
Fonts: Ma Shan Zheng, Noto Serif, Noto Serif SC, IM Fell English, Cormorant Garamond (SIL Open Font License), via Google Fonts.

About AI use

This game was built by a solo developer working with an AI coding assistant. All art is drawn procedurally in code (brush strokes, ink washes, characters) — no image-generation models were used. The music is composed and synthesized in code using human-recorded instrument samples (FluidR3, VCSL). Text was written with AI assistance and edited by hand.