The world is forgetting itself. You can still see what it forgot.
Play Hushfall — free, in your browser
Hushfall is a free story-driven JRPG that runs in your browser: a complete turn-based fantasy RPG with a beginning, a middle and two endings, about three hours long. In the kingdom of Aubrenne every village keeps a Tally, the book of every name born there, and every parish rings a Naming Bell at dusk. Then the Hollowing begins. Every night something leaves history — a verse of a song, a mill, a family name, and then people. Not killed: unremembered, as if they had never been born. Tamsin Vey, the village scrivener of Wendle, is the only one who can still see the shimmer of what was there, and the Ember Quill left with her as a baby can write a forgotten thing back into the world. She sets out to find who is feeding the kingdom's memory to the Hush beneath it, and gathers a small party on the way: Kes, a King's Post courier whose little brother nobody but her remembers; Brother Aurel, the last monk of an abbey whose bell has started ringing its brothers out of existence; and Hob, an old soldier who keeps a toll gate on a road through a valley the maps call waste, and who remembers why. The battles are turn-based, on a visible timeline: every foe has weaknesses to six elements and a Poise bar that cracks when you hit them, and a Broken foe loses its turn and takes far more damage — which is the answer to every boss's telegraphed attack. Hit weaknesses to build Echo and spend it on Recollections, shared techniques that unlock as the four become friends. There are seven bosses with their own rules, a forest, an abbey, a burned valley, a capital city of canals and an archive that goes down further than the city goes up, six side quests that each tell somebody's story, an original score, and a choice at the end about whether a kingdom should keep its painful history. Everything — every sprite, portrait, building, note and sound — is generated by the game itself.
You begin at Lanternmass in Wendle, on the night the village forgets the second half of its own song. Go home to bed when Edda tells you to. In the morning, read the Tally in the Records House, then look for the mill in the meadow west of the river. The journal in the menu always says where the story is going next.
A pale shimmer on the ground is a Remnant: the trace of something forgotten. Walk up to it and press the action key to Recall it. Some only show you what used to be there; some — a bridge, a walkway — come back for real, as long as somebody remembers them.
Foes are visible on the map and can be avoided. Walk into one from behind and you strike first; let one catch you from behind and it does. There is no random encounter anywhere in the game.
In battle, the strip at the top shows who acts next. Tamsin's Mark shows a foe's weaknesses. Hit a weakness and the foe's Poise (the thin blue bar under it) drops fast; empty it and the foe is BROKEN — it loses its next turn, takes half again as much damage, and any big attack it was winding up is cancelled.
Weakness hits, critical hits and Breaks fill the Echo meter. Spend Echo on Recollections — techniques two or more of the party do together — which you unlock as the story brings them closer.
Saint Orra's Abbey is the first dungeon. The hand-bells in the side chapels must be rung in the order the mural behind the altar shows. In the scriptorium, part of the floor has been forgotten; the Ember Quill can hold only one of the two walkways across it at a time.
From the abbey the road goes east through the Corrow Ashfields to the capital, Vellamy, where the Royal Remembrancer keeps the Archive and the Deep Register below it. The shelves of the Register move on levers; every lever has a twin on the far side, so you can always undo a move.
Rest at inns and at campfires; both offer to save. The game also autosaves every time you change place and after every battle, and has three save slots of your own. If the party falls, you can try the same battle again from its first turn.
Hushfall is a free story-driven JRPG that runs in your browser. It is a complete turn-based fantasy RPG of about three hours, with a party of four, seven bosses, six side quests and two endings, set in a kingdom where people are being forgotten one name at a time.
Yes. It runs in the browser tab with no download and no account, and it saves to your own browser: an autosave whenever you change place or finish a battle, plus three save slots of your own.
Most players finish a first playthrough in two to four hours, depending on how many of the side quests they do. There is no grinding: the party reaches the right level for each boss by playing the story, and fights far beneath your level give less experience so there is nothing to farm.
Battles are turn-based on a visible timeline. Every foe is weak to some of six elements, and every hit wears down its Poise; hitting a weakness wears it down much faster. When Poise runs out the foe is Broken: it loses its next turn, takes extra damage, and any attack it was winding up is cancelled. Weakness hits, critical hits and Breaks build Echo, which pays for Recollections — techniques two or more of the party perform together.
Tamsin Vey, the village scrivener of Wendle, who can see what has been forgotten; Kes Dunmore, a King's Post courier looking for a brother nobody else remembers; Brother Aurel, the last monk of Saint Orra's Abbey, who heals by singing; and Hob Greaves, an old soldier who keeps a toll gate on the road through a burned valley and remembers what happened there.
Yes. The story ends with a choice about whether the kingdom should remember its history, painful parts and all, or let it go and begin again. Both are complete endings. Finishing all six side quests adds a scene after the credits of one of them.
Yes. On a touchscreen there is an on-screen stick and an action button, you can tap the ground to walk there, and every battle command and menu is tapped directly. It also plays with a keyboard, a mouse or a gamepad, and switches between them as you go.
You can try the same battle again from its first turn with exactly what you went in with, load your last save, or return to the title. There is also a Story difficulty that softens the fights, and an Auto button in battle, for anyone who is mostly here for the story.
No. Its world, characters, creatures, music and story are original. It borrows only the shape of a classic turn-based JRPG — a party, a timeline of turns, elements and weaknesses — and every picture, portrait, building and note in it is generated by the game itself.
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