Your Spring is the map
A healthy Spring visibly pushes the Fog back. Over-extract it and the Fog closes in, monsters thicken, and the land around your walls turns hostile. Stewardship is a mechanic, not a moral.
Springfall
Tend. Delve. Survive.
A colony sim RPG set in Vale — a world still bleeding from the Sundering. Raise a settlement around a Mana Spring, follow the stair beneath it into the dark, and keep the Fog at your walls while six factions decide what your Spring is worth.
“The Springs are not wells. Wells you drain. Springs you tend.”
The Premise
An empire tried to bind every Spring at once
It worked for a heartbeat. Then the Grand Confluence failed, and the Arcanate ended inside a single season. What it left behind is the Fog — corrupted mana that never returned to the earth, thickening over every Spring left untended, and changing whatever lives inside it.
Everything descends
Beneath every Spring is a stair, and beneath the stair is what the Sundering buried — flooded vaults, chasms, the bones of things that outlived their Spring. The colony funds the delve; the delve saves the colony.
Six factions, no good guys
The Ledger arrives first with fair terms. The Covenant watches before it offers. The Convergence only cares if you have a Spring. None of them are villains — and all of them want something.
Three Words, Three Games
Tend. Delve. Survive.
The seal says it plainly: a village in the light, roots running down, and something waiting at the bottom of the stair.
I — Tend
A colony that runs itself, until it doesn't
Colonists aren't cursor-slaves. They carry needs, moods, skills, heritable traits and an origin story, then take work off a job board according to what they're good at and what the settlement actually wants done.
- Priority-driven job board with hauling, harvest designations and zones
- Farming, cooking, stockpiles and a food policy that survives winter — or doesn't
- Workstation tiers and accessories that make a craftsman meaningfully better
- A seven-branch research tree, from Metallurgy to Arcana
- Leaders, ceremonies and a court where your colony's decisions get argued out loud
II — Delve
The stair beneath the Spring
Send a hero party down, or go yourself. What's below isn't a dungeon crawl bolted on — it's where the metal, the knowledge and the pre-Sundering relics your colony needs actually come from, guarded by whatever grew up around a corrupted Spring.
- Hand-crafted and generated depths: vaults, chasms, dragon graveyards
- Held light sources that matter — the Fog is worse underground
- Directional combat with blocking and parry, not stat-roll trading
- Gear loadouts and item condition; nothing lasts forever down there
- Bring it back up, or it never happened
III — Survive
The Fog does not negotiate
Vision is a resource. Fire pushes the Fog back, lenses cost mana, and scouts turn the unknown into a map one careful trip at a time. Everything that hunts you knows the dark better than you do.
- Fog of war tied to Spring health, not just to where you've walked
- Perimeter fire, waymarks and scout-drawn maps as real infrastructure
- Fogborn, corrupted beasts and Old Things with genuinely different behaviour
- Hostile perception: light attracts as often as it protects
- Raids, sieges, prisoners — and factions who remember how you handled them
Under the Hood
Systems in the build
Springfall is built as independent, interlocking systems. Here's what's in the project today — this list grows as development continues.
Colony & Jobs
A job board with priorities, task nodes and hauling. Colonists pick work by skill and urgency, and keep working while you look elsewhere.
In buildThe Fog
Dynamic fog of war driven by Spring health and firelight, with torches, lenses and scouting as the counterplay.
In buildMana Springs
Tend it or strip it. Spring state feeds Fog density, monster pressure, faction attention and what you can build.
In buildGenetics & Origins
A twelve-gene model behind height, build, metabolism, longevity and colouring — inherited across generations, with authored origin narratives.
In buildResearch & Skills
Seven research branches climbing from foundations to capstones, plus per-colonist skill trees and ability unlocks.
Design doneCrafting & Gear
Workstation tiers, material tiers, armour sets and item condition — gear degrades, gets repaired, and eventually fails you at a bad moment.
In buildCombat
Blocking and parry, weapon holstering, hit feedback and screen-level combat readability for both squads and single heroes.
In buildFactions & Court
Six factions with their own approach logic, plus leaders, ceremonies and court dialogue that turn politics into events at your table.
In buildDungeons & Depths
Layered underground content — chasms, vaults and dragon graveyards — with light, line of sight and retreat as core tension.
In buildWorld & Weather
Day/night cycle, sky simulation, streaming vegetation and wildlife that lives its own life whether you're watching or not.
In buildNeeds & Mood
Hunger, rest, comfort and social needs that push behaviour rather than just draining a bar in the corner of the screen.
In buildZones & Building
Stockpile grids, designation painting, prop placement and building cutaway so you can actually see inside what you built.
In buildThe Signature Mechanic
Visibility is the resource you're really managing
From open ground a person sees maybe thirty paces before the Fog takes the world. A torch doubles that. A bonfire at the perimeter triples it. A Convergence lens can reach hundreds of paces — for a continuous draw of mana you may not be able to spare.
And the relationship runs both ways: a well-kept Spring carves a clearing in the Fog around it. Let it fail and the clearing closes, one metre at a time, until the dark is at your gate.
Unaided sight~30 paces
Torchlight~60 paces
Perimeter bonfire~90 paces
Healthy Spring clearingSeveral hundred
Corrupted SpringFog expands
Who Comes Knocking
Six factions, six different first contacts
Nobody here is evil, except the ones who are. Every faction has a reason to find you — and a different opening move when they do.
The Ledger
“Every trade is an act of faith. Every contract, a prayer.”
Arrives first, almost always — friendly, useful, offering terms you'd be foolish to refuse. The terms shift later, once you're inside the network.
The Iron Covenant
“We are not the strong. We are what strength is for.”
Watches you before it speaks to you. If your settlement passes their assessment, they offer protection openly and honestly. If it doesn't, they simply leave.
The Convergence
“What happened once can be understood.”
Uninterested in you until you have a Spring. Then a Scholar-Envoy arrives faster than should be possible, with reasonable terms and unusual clauses.
The Unbound
“The road belongs to no one.”
Road Clans probe your defences once before deciding whether you're a trade partner or a target. The Ashwalkers don't announce themselves at all.
The Root-Sworn
“We do not tend the Springs. We companion them.”
They may never contact you — unless you have a Spring. How you treat it decides whether you meet a Listener with an offer, or the Thornguard with an ending.
The Abyss
“The Springs were never meant to be tended.”
Does not introduce itself. It is already there. Every other faction in Vale agrees on exactly one thing: this cannot be allowed to finish.
Where We Are
Development status
Springfall is in active development by a small team. Progress gets posted as it happens — no fixed dates promised.
Now
Core colony loop & the Fog
Jobs, needs, hauling, farming and building working end to end, with Fog of war and Spring health driving visibility across the world.
In progressNext
Delving & combat depth
Underground content pass — chasms, vaults and graveyards — alongside blocking/parry combat, gear condition and hero party expeditions.
UnderwayThen
Factions, court & consequence
Faction approach logic, leader ceremonies and court narrative wired into the simulation so world politics reach your settlement as events.
DesignedLater
Playtest builds
First hands-on builds go to the Discord before anywhere else. That's the best place to be if you want in early.
PlannedFollow Development
Come watch it get built
Devlogs, clips of systems misbehaving, and early builds. The Discord gets everything first.