The Iron Jest
Robots impersonating medieval knights, in a kingdom that has not noticed.
Body or ability.
One part, two homes.
Every part you find has a shape and a set of stats, and two places it could go.
Fitted to the chassis it changes what the robot is. Power adds a point of health each, agility adds a percent of dodge, and every two points of intellect return another energy per turn.
Fitted to an ability it changes what that ability does. The same three stats raise its damage, sharpen its accuracy and bring down what it costs to fire, while the rarer parts are the ones carrying stun, critical chance and lifesteal.
Both grids want the same piece, and you only have the one. Each ability holds a grid of its own, and only three of them can be equipped at a time.
Every image here is placeholder art, and none of it ships
All the screenshots on this page come from the live build, and all of their art is AI generated placeholder. It exists for one reason: so the systems could be built, played and tested while the studio had no artist on the team.
None of it will be in the released game. Every robot, enemy, environment and interface asset is being redrawn by hand, starting on day one of production. The shipped game will contain no generated art.
What the screenshots do show is real. The grids, the numbers, the turn order and the interface all behave exactly as pictured, because that is the part that was built first.
Descend, survive, return, rebuild
Every door is described, never labelled
Runs branch through fights, traps, events and treasure. The game tells you what a path looks like and what you can hear down it, then leaves the reading to you. No icon shows up to say which one is the fight and which one is the reward.
Reputation decides what the trader will sell you
Between runs you trade, craft, dismantle and repair. Stock is gated: the more you come back alive, the more the trader is willing to part with. Parts you cannot use become the parts you can.
See it running
Gameplay, no commentary
Explainer, narrated by the designer
No protagonist. The party is the hero.
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Sir Bivantou
Construction robot
Playing a knight. The wrench is not part of the costume.
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Lady Enannibet
Childcare robot
Playing a lady. The dress goes on over the metal.
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Herald Zette
Paparazzi robot
Playing a herald. Closer to his old job than he would like to admit.
Three playable now, eight by the end of production.
Herald Zette has been taking photographs all fight
Every hit he lands puts more compromising material into that specific enemy's file. His finisher publishes it. The front page carries the photograph he took, of the enemy he took it of, under a headline about them, and damage scales with how thick the file has got.
Where it is
Combat
Initiative driven by speed. Status effects, resistances up to full immunity, taunts, counters and assists, with damage and hit chance previewed on hover.
Progression
A grid for each chassis and a separate grid for every ability, fed by procedurally generated parts.
Dungeon and economy
Branching paths, traps, events, treasure, camps and bosses. Trading, crafting, dismantling, repair, reputation gates and consumables all working.
Still to build
- Equipment layer
- Balance pass
- Story dungeons
- Reactive dialogue
- Final art and animation, replacing every placeholder
Five people have played the prototype so far, all of them close to the studio. No public test yet.
The systems are built. The rest is production.
If you want to play the slice, we will send you a build. Gameplay video and full documentation come with it.
Request the build