Lane Office archive // District 7 // recovered
The Patient Mule on Kettle's flat at dusk, from the title screenARCHIVE ENTRY 001 // VESK
Brasswater, the company town, in the gameARCHIVE ENTRY 002 // BRASSWATER

Brasswater: the Condenser, the company, the queue. Four hundred people, one water tower, and a lot of paperwork about both.

A turn-based isometric RPG

The beacons went out fifty-five years ago. The paperwork didn't.

Your ore hauler came down on Vesk with a cracked coil. Water is money here, the dead stay on the payroll, and everybody is still waiting for instructions from a head office that stopped answering before they were born.

ARCHIVE STATUSPARTIALLY RECOVERED
SETTLEMENTS ON FILE19 OF 26
FACTIONS UNDER OBSERVATION15
PERSONS OF INTEREST132
CASES OPEN63
DOCUMENTED WAYS TO DIE22
WORK ORDERS OUTSTANDING2,311,408
HEAD OFFICENO REPLY
CIVILIZATION STATUSPENDING REVIEW
Overheard on VeskPolished. Polished. Polished. (Keeper)
>

Field footage

Every screenshot is the game as it runs today.

Every sprite is drawn in code from the game's own palettes: nothing photographed, nothing borrowed, nothing generated.

Brasswater, the Long Market. Water by the litre, debt by the year, and a queue that has outlived three governments.EXHIBIT A
EXHIBIT ABrasswater, the Long Market. Water by the litre, debt by the year, and a queue that has outlived three governments.
Saint Ohm's Relay. Hats off, please; it isn't a rule, it just makes the Relay happy.EXHIBIT B
EXHIBIT BSaint Ohm's Relay. Hats off, please; it isn't a rule, it just makes the Relay happy.
Relief Field. The Ninth have waited fifty-five years for relief. The board says NEXT WEEK.EXHIBIT C
EXHIBIT CRelief Field. The Ninth have waited fifty-five years for relief. The board says NEXT WEEK.
Old Junction, the Ring. The last lit beacon in the Tail, and it flickers.EXHIBIT D
EXHIBIT DOld Junction, the Ring. The last lit beacon in the Tail, and it flickers.
Sister Opal Kiln, the Glass Clinic. Twenty years of glaze off two hundred faces.EXHIBIT E
EXHIBIT ESister Opal Kiln, the Glass Clinic. Twenty years of glaze off two hundred faces.
Your papers: nine attributes, sixteen skills, perks with names like Messy Business and Percussive Maintenance.EXHIBIT F
EXHIBIT FYour papers: nine attributes, sixteen skills, perks with names like Messy Business and Percussive Maintenance.

Violence has consequences

22 ways to die, and none of them quick enough.

Turn-based fights with action points, cover and aimed shots at arms, legs and worse. Take the Messy Business perk ("You don't just kill people. You make an impression.") and people stop dying tidily. Some of them take their time about it.

The Bailiff's man's top half keeps going for a while. It doesn't get anywhere it wanted to.
A Bailiff's man in Arrears dies slowly, crawling
A Payroll collector loses a limb, then interest.
Another leaves in two directions at once.
Captain Ormond comes apart. Somebody will be finding bits for a week.
Three of the Payroll's toll collectors die three ways at their checkpoint

Both clips are captured straight from the engine: Arrears, where debts die with the debtor, and the Payroll's toll on the glass road, where the collectors finally stop collecting.

Two pilots of the Patient Mule in Brasswater's market: co-opTWO PILOTS
Brasswater's Long Market, two pilots, one of them in charcoal. Player two's health sits on the HUD beside yours.

Co-op

Bring a second pilot. Split the water.

One hosts, one joins over the network. You share the world, the turn order and the consequences; you keep your own character, your own inventory and your own bad decisions. The second pilot wears the Mule's livery the other way round, so you can tell who started it.

Faction files

15 factions, and every one of them is right about something.

Faction file

Holloway Mining Concern

Holds a 120-year-old mining charter for Vesk, and a head office that still answers, after a fashion, once a year.

Wants now
Hit quota, avoid an inspection from head office.
Faction file

The Dry Hands

Bonded workers who got tired of dying in debt.

Wants now
Water, and the debt books burned.
Faction file

Kettle Station regulars

The only landing flat for 300 km; whoever lands needs things.

Wants now
Business as usual; nobody looking too closely.
Faction file

The Ohmites

People who wandered to the Relay and found the AI kind.

Wants now
To help the AI file the Report.
Faction file

The Ninth (Lane Defence)

Posted to hold Vesk's landing field pending relief. Nobody relieved them.

Wants now
Relief. Failing that, the beacon lit. Failing that, Captain Marlowe would settle for Vesk.
Faction file

The Keepers of the Light

Their grandparents were the Lane Office ground crew who brought the Vesk Light down for overhaul. Nobody told them to stop.

Wants now
The Light lit, and the ships back, as the manual promises.

Open the archives: the rest of the files, the survey map and the dossiers.

Devlog

What changed lately

v0.5.1Oct 2026

Act 5 grows: Wrong Drops (a burned-out hauler forty-one thousand kilometres off the mark, its cook alive on tinned apricots) and Provenance (Spoke Three, a Lane Office district office still serving ticket 0418). The second co-op pilot wears the Mule's livery the other way round.

v0.5.0Oct 2026

Music and ambience: seventeen tracks made in code, a loop and its own small noises for every place. The Circuit and Maintenance become factions; the Keepers, the Ohmites, Arrears and the Exchange get people, troubles and ways through them.

v0.4.0Oct 2026

The Mule lifts off. Act 5 on Old Junction, the last lit beacon in the Tail; short films between scenes; a finale that wants late-game kit.

v0.3Oct 2026

The main story becomes a chain of chapters across Vesk; Court Day brings the Circuit; Pebble, the Dispute's moon; slow deaths.

Not available yet. Dustline is in development. There is no download; there will be, when it's ready.