Six dungeons, three raids
Every raid is eight chambers behind a six-piece key ring, and its rune puzzles reseed each run, so no wiki can hand you the answer.
Rivaesa
Free at launch In closed beta Plays in your browser Nothing to download
A top-down action RPG you play in a browser tab.
Stranded far from home. You fight your way back through forest, flood and fire.
Three worlds, four classes, six dungeons, three raids and eight trades. It opens the way a web page opens, straight in a browser tab: no installer, nothing running afterwards. It is in closed beta now, and it is free at launch.
Join the waitlist
Rivaesa is in closed beta. I am playing my own game through on camera, start to finale, and fixing what that run turns up before anyone else walks in. Leave an email and you are first through the gates when they open, free.
See it move
Seventy seconds, recorded off the running game by a script that plays it. Every place in it is somewhere you can walk.
Join the waitlist
In closed beta. One email on the waitlist is the whole of the sign-up, and it is free when the gates open.
- One email is the sign-up Join the waitlist and you get one email when the gates open. Then it is four classes, a name, and you are in: no login, no password. Heroes save in this browser, and a copy and paste code carries one anywhere.
- You have to aim Mouse-aimed attacks, enemies that telegraph, a dodge roll with real invulnerability frames, and a punish window for rolling through at the right moment.
- Fifty-nine achievements, and three of them are skill Perfect Catch. Seam Reader. Master Smith. Won at the minigames, not handed over for turning up.
- A story with an ending A 38-quest story over five chapters, five hand-drawn cutscenes, and a finale at the top of a volcano with a name and a crown.
- Eight trades, eight minigames Chopping stops a marker in a gold band. Mining vents gas. Fishing fights the reel. Forging works the bellows. 82 recipes at the other end.
- Curses you choose Before a raid you can stack five invocations against yourself, up to an insanity score of 140. Thickened Hide. The Swarm. Blood Price. Nothing makes you.
Straight off the screen
Six places you will have been inside your first hour. Nothing here is retouched or staged in an editor.
Three worlds, thirty levels
Elderwood is where you start. Past Shadowmarch a ferryman takes you out to the isles, and past the isles is a gate that opens onto a lava sea.
The Elderwood
A fixed-seed forest, the same every time you load it, from the Greenwood Fringe out to Shadowmarch where things stop being fair. Every corner of it is reachable.
Elderwood Village: five shops, five quest givers. The Forest Warren opens at level 6, the Gloomroot Depths raid at 9.
The Drowned Realm
An isle chain you hop across, from the Sunken Shallows to the Deepshelf. Deep water ends a fight. Swimming out is how you get away.
Brinewatch, a stilt town standing on pilings out over the water. Two dungeons and the Drowned Cathedral.
The Emberwilds
Ash and basalt under a sky that never moves, because the Emberwilds keep no clock. The lava is walkable and the monsters know better. Stand in it and the pack paces the shore.
Caravanserai Kilnhearth, built around a great kiln. Three dungeons, the Heart of the Caldera, and a sealed arch at the summit.
Being straight with you: three of a planned seven worlds are built. World four is the Storm-Veiled Range, it is teased at the end of Chapter V, and it has no map yet.
What is actually in there
Everything below ships today. Nothing on this list is coming soon.
A bar you fill yourself
Nine sockets, empty on day one. Warriors spend Vigor and their swings pay it back. Casters get nothing back, so a Mage is a different economy, not a reskin.
Eight slots, all visible
Everything you equip is drawn on you. Reinforce to +12 at the anvil: safe to +3, a gamble after that, and a bad roll takes the piece back down.
Eight, and every one levels
Four out in the world, four at a bench, each with its own minigame and quality tiers. A masterwork potion or ingot comes off the bench twice.
A village that notices
Villagers can be hit, can never be killed, and they remember it, on a timer, with a line about it when you come back. A common monster five levels beneath you will not look up at all, until you hit it.
A plot that grows to seven tiers
The forest gives ground as you level, and it never gives ground to the north, so nothing you have already put down has to move. The hearth is a crafting bench, the crate is a bank, and the bed restores you fully and gives no XP.
Bring a friend
Pick the same channel and you are in the same forest, moving and fighting at the same time.
- Shared monsters and shared kills in whatever area you are both standing in
- Parties of four for dungeon and raid runs, and guilds of twenty with a roster your leader keeps
- A friends list, plus visits to each other's homesteads
- Chat with say, party, guild and whisper channels, and twelve emotes
- Ranked duels in the Proving Grounds on an Elo ladder, six tiers, seasons of 28 days
- No dedicated game server behind any of it. One player's browser hosts the monsters for an area and the rest sync to it through a plain message relay, which is why it costs nothing
Questions
When can I play?
Not today. Rivaesa is in closed beta while I play my own game through on camera, start to finale, and fix everything that run turns up. When it holds together for a whole playthrough, the gates open.
The waitlist gets in first. Joining it is one email, and the game is free when you do get in.
Is it actually free, or free until it gets annoying?
Actually free, in the beta and at launch. Every world, every level, all six dungeons, all three raids, ranked PvP, all eight trades, housing, pets and breeding. No real-money shop, no energy timer, no revive fee, no advertising.
Do I need to make an account?
No. The waitlist takes an email, and that is the whole of it. The game itself has no login and no password: once you are in, you press Play, make a character, and you are playing.
Accounts are coming later, so a hero can follow you between devices instead of living in one browser. Starting without one will still be a button press.
Then where does my progress go?
Once you are playing, into this browser's own storage on this device. That is instant and private, and for now it also means clearing your browsing data deletes your heroes, and a hero made on your laptop is not waiting on your phone.
There is a copy and paste save code for exactly this. If you get attached to a hero, take the code. Accounts will do this job properly later.
Can I play with friends?
Yes, once you are both in, so put a friend on the waitlist with you. After you pick a character you pick a channel, and friends on the same channel play together: you see each other move, fight the same monsters, party up to four, form a guild of twenty, chat and duel.
There is no dedicated game server behind it. One of your browsers hosts the monsters for the area and the others follow it over a plain message relay, which is why playing together costs nothing.
How much game is there?
Levels 1 to 30 across three worlds. Four classes, six dungeons, three eight-chamber raids, a ranked PvP ladder, eight life skills, 82 recipes, 254 items (34 of them furnishings), 36 pets with real breeding, and 57 quests: a 38-quest story across five chapters plus 19 side contracts.
What do I need to run it?
A modern browser. It is built around a keyboard and a mouse: you move with WASD and aim with the cursor. Nothing is installed and nothing runs in the background afterwards.
It does run on a phone, and hands you a thumbstick and on-screen buttons when it sees a touch screen. That is the least-tested way to play and it is not what the fights were tuned against, so if you have a desktop to hand, use that one first.
Nothing is published on Steam, the App Store or Google Play. Desktop and mobile store releases are planned, not available.
Will you ever sell power?
No. The game is free, and the rule is a comment sitting in the source file that decides what could ever be sold: anything you might pay for makes your world prettier, never stronger. If money enters the picture one day it will be cosmetics and supporter purchases. Bag space is bought with in-game gold, pet coats are cosmetic by design, and the raids and the PvP ladder are never gated.
Is it finished?
No. Three worlds of seven are built, and the cap is 30 of a planned 70.
The Elderwood is worth the wait
It is in closed beta while I finish a full recorded playthrough. One email puts you at the front of the line, and it will cost you nothing when the gates open.
Join the waitlist