The Manor

In a world where Magic has been banished by an institution of scholars, the Fourth Order, you are one of their Novices. Formerly a circle of erudites and one of the main forces behind the wellbeing of the Far Realms, the Order is but a shadow of that glory, now reduced to the role of watch dog of Magic via questionable methods: using the Oculi, artifacts allowing to excercise mind control over other humans, you send mercenaries to death in the neverending quest to contain the leftovers of the BlightScourge. Your latest mission requires you to investigate an ancient Manor: what seems a routine task, soon unveils as something much darker than you could possibly fathom...

The Manor is a solo roguelike gamebook. Unlike traditional gamebooks that require you to read them end to end fully to explore all their branches, the Manor is built for short playthroughs that allow you to discover, run after run, the full history of the Manor and the world of the Far Realms.

Exploration, resource management, combat.

Every expedition is a set of semi-random events; traps, discoveries, hazards, combats, till you reach the boss biome, opening up new areas in the Manor. Page after page, run after run, you will discover more of what is happening in the Manor, and this knowledge will allow you to encounter new choices and secrets in paths you have already covered.

Tactical dice combat

Combat is short, tactical and dice-driven, but you have plenty of options to reduce RNG: Every enemy shows its next blow before you act, giving you information to choose what to do in two different phases: tactical and core actions.

• Tactical actions either give you an edge via consumables or by changing your dice pool via stance swithing.
• Core actions define the dice you will throw: deal damage, focus on defense to brace against a big hit, or use the special attacks of your weapons. Learn your enemies patterns by seeing how they react to your actions, and bring them right where you want them.

Between expeditions

The Town gives you time to prepare for future runs in the Manor.

• The Inn: hire new Vessels, each with their own boons and banes.
• Knowledge: lore and memories pieced together across runs.
• Fathomings: redeem resources from the Order, preparing you better for future expeditions.
• The Oculus: gain mastery and obtain lasting powerups.

Play

Runs in your browser, on desktop and phone. No download, no account. Your progress is saved in this browser. Clearing site data erases it, and future releases will likely invalidate current saves. A short tutorial teaches the basics. Expeditions take around 10 minutes.

Status

Demo: the aim is to gather feedback and validate the gameplay loop. Is this fun? Does it have potential under certain evolutions? Should go in the trash? Given the status, we have used AI for all the art work - if we can get some positive feedback, we will consider how to balance art content (currently we have 150+ images).

Feedback The Manor is in active development and every report helps. Ping us over in Discord or leave a comment below.