The Last Warren In playtest
the line of Sorrel
kept by whoever is left.

One of us writes. When that one is gone, the next one writes. The night writes one sentence of its own, at the end, and we copy it in.

a tower defense game where you are the thing trying not to be foundan Unstuck game · in playtest

If none of us sees a dawn, this book closes.

That was the last warren.

Here is what happened to one family. You can make another.

Play a night → Watch a night Leave your name
Watch: the bot plays seed 1. Then it’s your turn. The game is in playtest, behind a password; no password, ask for a key at the door.
11
night 1→ 19nursery
shallow2 sweepersdecision: STAY
Sorrel Inight 1 · dusk
We were four at dusk.
There are nineteen of us now.

They found the coast before we did.
1
tick 31watched
3 ticksring
formingno growth
We stayed because the ring was still far off. By the time it reached the eastern trees, there were eleven more of us.
Tick 31. Seen. They have stopped three blocks out and are waiting for enough of them. We have stopped growing.
They can’t hear us through the lake. They can.
2
sweepers ×2tracker ×1
on our printslistener
coming
where they stand
the ring. three blocks. they wait for enough of them.
3
tick 33decoy −419 → 15run
13 ticksRUN
Tick 33. We sent four of us east, loud, the way we told them to be. They turned.
We ran the other way, into the open, for the deep warren in the south. Thirteen ticks. In the open everything hears us.
4
the decoy
four of us went east so the rest could go south.

A decoy is loud and runs the other way. It is taken, or goes to ground.

5
dawn23 → 9boon
HUSHnight 2
trackers
Dawn. They turned for the edges. We counted: twenty-three.
Two in five of us go on. The rest are the reason there is a next page.
We chose hush. Tomorrow there are more of them, and a new kind, and they start where we hid tonight.
6
Night 2nine of us at dusk
The trackers have come. They follow where we were. We are quieter now.
From the Scout warren we can see what they believe: a gold smear over the nursery, where we are not.
7
Night 3. Nine ticks before dawn.

Found where you stayed, a shallow Combat warren, 41 strong, by two sweepers and a tracker.

We should have run.
8
where she stayed
— Sorrel II. We are four. She left us Teeth.

One heirloom carries for each dawn she saw. Teeth: +30% strength, for life. Never more than one thing per dawn, so no line grows mighty; it grows old.

9
night 220caughtnight 1
19
hush
Night 2. Sixteen ticks before dawn.

Caught in the open, 20 strong, by two trackers.

We ran at the wrong time too. There is no twin for running.
Sorrel III. Born with Hush. Nineteen of us. We are writing this at the nursery mouth, where they always look first.
10
Turn the page, or wait: it turns itself.
What we decideddecision · reason · consequence
stay
Stay
We had four. The Nursery would give us another every tick. The sweepers were still three blocks away.
So we stayed.

Rule · +1 a tick in a warren. Twice the troop is one and a half times the sound. Once they have you they stop three blocks out and wait for enough of them; under siege you don’t grow.

run
Run
They had watched the eastern mouth for nine ticks. We could have grown stronger. We chose the road anyway.
They were waiting for us.

Rule · in the open you are seen, heard and tracked, and caught if a hunter lands on your square. A little faster than everything but hounds. Forest hides and slows; lakes they can’t cross. Hover the map: it shows the race before you commit.

attack
Attack
The hound was close enough. We had nineteen.
We killed it.
Then the others knew exactly where we were.

Rule · a sally on one hunter within two blocks, ×1.2 from ambush. Win and the group dies and you lose some of yours; lose and that is the night. Either way, everything now knows your cell.

the drowned coast · the racefold-out · seed 1

Hover a square: our ticks against theirs, in our colour if we win the race, theirs if we don’t. Click to run there. The hunters move when we move.

Decoy−4
Four of us went east, loud. They turned. We went south.

Loud; runs the other way; taken, or goes to ground.

Rearguard−5
Five of us stayed at the road and met the sweeper. They held one tick. One tick was what we needed.

Stays behind; fights what comes; buys ticks.

Scout−3
Three of us went up to look. Now we can see what they believe: gold, over the nursery, where we are not.

Shows their belief map, the way a Scout warren does.

Dig−8
Eight of us dug. A new mouth, four blocks from anything they know. Tomorrow they will not start here.

A new warren where you stand; or dig the one you’re in deeper.

How it workswe break character here, a little
The rules
Every tick: +1 person · +1 hunter step
if we’re in a warren and not under siege. a night is fifty-four ticks.
The verbs
Staygrow stronger, become easier to find Runescape, but exposed in transit Attackremove a hunter, reveal yourself Scoutlearn where they believe you are −3 and spenddecoy −4 · rearguard −5 · dig −8
The hunters · one more kind each night
Sweepers→ Trackers→ Listeners→ Hounds

They cut the ground into strips; they follow where you were; they hear through the trees; they catch runners. Two at dusk on night one, one more each night, another every twelve ticks. They share one belief about where you are and search it together. At dawn they turn for the edges.

The working

Every roll is hashed by seed, tick and who. Change one decision and only what follows from it changes, so every “found where you stayed” has a twin: the same night, leaving one tick earlier. Thirty cores play about 1,300 nights a second, and the rules aren’t done until at least a quarter of those deaths were one tick late. Any seed replays. The bot plays any policy you name.

measured, not guessed.
12
Dawn

Keep two in five, never fewer than four. Draft one of three boons: brood · hush · teeth · walls · legs · dig deeper · dig · scatter. They start the next night where you hid.

The line

When a generation falls, one heirloom carries for each dawn it saw, three at most: a kind it was born to, or a boon it held. The hunters remember the family: their first guess is where your mothers hid. A generation that never sees a dawn ends the line.

A night takes a few minutes.
A line can survive across generations.
Every night is seeded and replayable.
The chronicle so far
Sorrel I2 nights · Found where you stayed, 41 strong. Passed on Teeth.
Sorrel II1 night · Caught in the open, 20 strong. Passed on Hush.
Sorrel IIIout there now · 19 strong, in a shallow Nursery warren.
13
$5a month · every Unstuck gamefree is the whole game

No ads anywhere. No power. God Mode here lets you replay the night from the twin’s tick, the one where leaving would have seen dawn. Same seed, same dice, your hands this time. One ad a day turns it on for an hour; after that, another hour, no ad, as often as you like until tomorrow.

You get
No ads, anywhere
God Mode always on
Every Unstuck game
Never
Energy or lives
A second ad
Pay to continue
One letter when the warren opens.

And the odd note on the next Unstuck game. Nothing from them.

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