THE LONG DEFEAT: A Level 99 Descent RPG, Free Demo
A game from Core Systems Asset Factory. Genre: Role Playing. Paid; free browser demo on the page.
THE LONG DEFEAT: A Level 99 Descent RPG, Free Demo is a game, paid, with a free browser demo on the store page.
You start at level 99 and the game takes it away. You go down the cairn at full strength. Everyone does, because the stair only opens for someone who has something to set down. Every ward you break, the cairn takes a piece of you in payment, and you choose which piece. The rule the whole game is built on What you sacrifice does not disappear. The boss two rungs below inherits it.
Give up your strongest fire attack to something that already wards fire and it costs you nothing. Give it to something that does not, and you have just armed the thing waiting for you. The screen tells you which boss will get it before you choose, so this is a decision and never a surprise. That is the whole design, and it means the run gets harder in a way you can see coming and cannot entirely avoid.
You will finish, if you finish, carrying almost nothing. What is in it 10 rungs down the cairn, across four factions, each with its own wards and its own rhythm. 4 companions holding 14 powers between them. When someone's last power goes, their portrait goes dark and the row is struck through. That is the only place the premise is a picture instead of a number.
AI disclosure, as the store page states it: AI Assisted, Code, Graphics, Text
Paid · free browser demo on the page · Get it on itch.io. Files, screenshots and the full description are on the store page.