How to Play
Survive the Dragon
You have 32 turns to fill the treasury with 10,000 gold. Don't make it in time and the dragon eats everyone. No pressure.
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Declare & Work
Pick a job, earn gold, tell the King how much you'll contribute. Or just... lie about it. Nobody's checking. Probably.
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Trust the King?
One player controls the taxes and bribes the dragon. Sounds fine, right? Except the treasury has a back door and power does weird things to people.
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Beware the Dragon
The dragon gets hungrier every turn. If the King doesn't pay up, it picks someone to eat. Lowest contributors go first. Sleep on that.
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Slay the Beast
Every role can forge a dragon-killing weapon. It's expensive, it's risky, but if you pull it off - you're the hero. Your name on the kill. Not the kingdom's, yours.
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Hidden Agendas
Some players get a secret role at game start. Thief, Assassin, Vampire, Werewolf. Your own agenda, your own win condition. The others won't know until it's too late.
Read the codex →Active Kingdoms
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Changelog
v1.1.0
2026-04-28
- Free accounts - you can now create an account with just a username and password. No X account needed. Your stats, achievements, and game history are saved across sessions.
- X login still works if you prefer it.
v1.0.0
2026-04-23
- First complete version. All 8 roles are in and working: King, Peasant, Knight, Thief, Assassin, Vampire, Werewolf, Dragonkin. Each one plays differently. Each one matters.
- Prison is live - get caught doing something shady and you're locked up. Someone has to bribe you out, or you wait. It changes how you play.
- Spectators can now watch public games without joining. Good for learning, good for lurking.
- The game is stable. No half-finished systems, no placeholder mechanics. This is the version I'd send to someone and not feel embarrassed about.
v0.17.0
2026-04-23
- Spectator Mode - you can now watch any public game without joining. Click Watch next to a game in the lobby. You'll see the player grid, treasury, kingdom events and chat in real time - but no actions, no role, no declaration form. Just watching.
v0.16.0
2026-04-23
- Prison & Dungeon - the king can now throw any subject in the dungeon for 1, 2 or 3 turns. The prisoner can't act at all while locked up. Everyone sees who got jailed and how long they're in for. If you're the one behind bars, you'll know exactly when you're getting out.
v0.15.0
2026-04-22
- Three new secret roles added to the pool - they can show up in any game.
- Mage - can look up who's holding a specific weapon part. Pure information. What you do with it is up to you.
- Guard Chief - can take a guard stance for the night. Anyone who attacks them gets killed and loses everything they had.
- Alchemist - can spend gold to conjure a random weapon part (7 in 10 chance it works), or corrupt a target and destroy one of their parts.
v0.14.0
2026-04-23
- Dragonkin — a new secret role that shows up only when there are 10 or more human players in the lobby. Someone in the game is working against you. You just don't know who. Every turn there's an "Unknown loss" in the realm report — gold leaving the treasury with no explanation. Could be noise. Probably isn't. The dragon also seems to leave one particular player alone more than it should...
- If you're the Dragonkin: you drain 20 gold a turn, survive dragon attacks most of the time, and can spend 300 gold once per game to quietly fan the flames of revolt. The kingdom loses, you win — regardless of whether you're still alive when it happens.
v0.13.0
2026-04-20
- Forest unveiled — hover any patch you've searched and it tells you exactly what's there. When the game ends, the whole forest pulls back the curtain — colour-coded map of every search anyone made, hover anywhere to see who searched when.
- Fresh searches pulse — the patches you hit this turn flash briefly between turns so you don't lose track of where you just looked.
- Achievements now have rarity — Common, Uncommon, Rare, Legendary. Hover any achievement to see exactly how many players have pulled it off. The unlock toast tells you how rare yours is the moment you earn it.
- First-timer welcome — your very first game opens with a short welcome modal so you don't land on turn 1 cold. The help button in the top-right is always there if you need a refresher, and the full Wiki is one tap away.
- Under the hood: the secret-role action pipeline got a quiet refactor so adding more roles (Mage, Guard Chief, Alchemist, Dragonkin...) is now a day's work instead of a week's.
v0.12.0
2026-04-20
- Gifts — you can finally send gold or one of your items (weapon parts, kit pieces, scrolls) to another living player. Pick them, pick what you’re sending, it moves at turn end. Everyone sees who gave what.
- Until now the only ways to move anything between players were taxes, theft, and bribes. All of them adversarial. Now there’s a nice option too — prop up a struggling peasant, hand a fellow hunter the bow string they’re missing, fund someone’s tournament run.
- Kings can’t give gifts (they’d just launder the treasury), but they can receive them. Tip the king at your own risk.
v0.11.1
2026-04-17
- Datastar 1.0 shipped — the reactive framework powering the whole UI hit its first stable release. We upgraded from RC.7. Nothing looks different — that’s the point. The foundation is now v1.
v0.11.0
2026-04-17
- Tournament rebalance — losing a tournament now costs you: your stake is seized by the Crown, you’re injured for a turn, and your glory drops. No more printing gold from the arena.
- Glory & the Dragon Slayer Set — knights earn Glory from tournaments. At 10, 20, and 30 Glory, the Royal Armourer gifts a Knight Set part automatically — a safety net for unlucky champions
- Tournament part drop rate raised 12% → 20% on win. Squire bonus toned down (+5% per squire, cap 80%) to keep the fights competitive
- Injured knights see a clear Recovering banner; their action buttons are locked until they’re back in fighting shape
v0.10.2
2026-04-13
- The forest is safe to search — no more coin-flip deaths. Wander freely, click areas, find parts. Danger now comes from the dragon and from rivals, not from a random survival roll
- Stay logged in for 30 days — fixed a session cookie bug where X logins were timing out after 24h
- Lombard (Pawn Shop) UI actually shows up now — two bugs were hiding it from the screen even though items were being deposited
- Fix: ACME kits, tournament parts, and spell components now actually appear in your inventory after you earn them
v0.10.1
2026-04-13
- Player Wiki! — a 9-page codex covering roles, economy, dragon, weapons, forest, pawn shop, and special functions. For players and future devs.
- Pawn Shop now actually visible — fixed two bugs that hid the Lombard from the UI entirely. Items were being deposited on every death, they just never rendered
- Pawn Shop initial sync now loads items on connect (not only after the first turn resolution)
v0.10.0
2026-04-13
- Forest Map Minigame! — the dark forest is now a 33-area map. Click where you want to search, reveal on turn resolution
- Bow parts are unique — only one string, one shaft, one arrowhead in the whole game
- Followers earn extra clicks per turn — recruit wisely, sweep the map faster
- Contested discovery — if two peasants click the same area, the stronger one wins the part
- Parts never return to the forest — death drops them to the Pawn Shop
- Custom bow part art — string, shaft, arrowhead each with their own icon
- SEO & share cards — Open Graph image, sitemap, robots.txt for better link previews and discoverability
- X login rewritten — now uses OAuth 1.0a and works on the X Free tier
v0.9.0
2026-04-10
- Mobile! — game is now playable on phones. Player list slides in from the side, chat actually works
- Top bar icons — 💰 for treasury, ⏳ for turn counter instead of text
- Fixed 3 bugs found during mobile testing — chat height, z-index layering, button sizing
v0.8.0
2026-04-09
- Achievements! — 20 achievements across 5 categories, unlocked at game end
- Leaderboard — most victories, lifetime gold, most games, dragon slayers
- Player profiles — career stats, achievement grid, game history
- Post-game stats — every game now records your role, gold, survival, and more
- Career progress — track games played, wins, and lifetime gold across sessions
- Achievement toast notifications when you unlock something in-game
- Splash art — parallax dragon hero image on the lobby
v0.7.1
2026-04-09
- Lobby redesign — condensed layout, collapsible name bar
- How to Play — crisp SVG icons, animations, 6 cards with dragon-slaying & hidden roles
- Found a Kingdom is now the central action
- Join by invite code merged into Active Kingdoms
- Bigger text across the board
v0.7.0
2026-04-09
- Special Functions! — secret hidden abilities assigned at game start
- Thief — rob other players for gold and items
- Assassin — kill targets for their gold
- Vampire — drain victims, turning them into ghoul followers
- Werewolf — hunt prey, building a wolf pack
- Vampire vs Werewolf — contested combat with possible mutual kill
- Functions are secret — only you know your hidden ability
v0.6.1
2026-04-08
- Balance: ACME Kit now requires 3 parts at 60g each (was 2 at 30g)
- Balance: knight tournament weapon drops reduced (12%, was 35%)
- Balance: prince spell research costs more (20g) and is harder (20%)
- Princes seduce better — 50% chance, steal 30% of gold (was 30%/20%)
- Prince AI declares higher to avoid being eaten first
- AI players pursue weapons less aggressively — treasury path is viable again
- End game screen now shows who slew the dragon and with which weapon
v0.6.0
2026-04-08
- Every role now has their own path to slay the dragon!
- Citizens — order ACME Dragon Kill Kit parts from the catalog (3 parts, costs gold)
- Knights — win Dragon Slayer Set parts in tournaments (3 parts, earn them in battle)
- Princes — research the Anti-Dragon Spell (2 parts, costs gold + luck)
- Role-specific followers: children (peasant), bodyguards (citizen), squires (knight), guards (prince)
- Squires boost knight tournament win chance
- Fix: action selection now remembers correctly between turns
- Pawn shop buying — click to purchase items from the lombard
v0.5.0
2026-04-08
- Inventory system — players can hold items
- Followers — recruit a follower to shield you from the dragon
- Pawn Shop — buy items from fallen players
- Forest Search — peasants can search the dark forest for SuperElf Bow parts
- Slay the Dragon — collect all 3 bow parts and end the dragon’s reign!
v0.4.0
2026-04-08
- Choose your name on the lobby page
- Drop-in/drop-out — take over AI slots mid-game
- Auto drop-out after 3 missed turns
- Polished input fields with gold borders and focus glow
v0.3.0
2026-04-08
- Help overlay with game rules
- Chat filter (all / system / players)
- Death memorial screen for fallen players
- Role-grouped player list with alive counts
- Persistent declaration and action between turns
- Onboarding flow for new players
v0.2.0
2026-04-08
- Action buttons now highlight when selected
- Debt slavery shown clearly in UI (chains icon, red debt counter)
- Submit button disables after click to prevent double-submit
- Fixed SSE buffering through Nginx/Cloudflare
- AI players can now submit when in debt
- King dashboard added for real-time declaration tracking
v0.1.0
2026-04-07
- Initial MVP release
- 31-player games (1 king + 30 subjects) with AI filling empty slots
- 5 roles: Peasant, Citizen, Knight, Prince, King
- Economy: work, invest, tournament, farm upgrades
- Dragon attacks, king bribes, revolts
- Real-time SSE updates, tavern chat
- Invite links for multiplayer
- 4 difficulty presets
Roadmap
Done
- ✅ Gifts — send gold or one inventory item to another player
- ✅ Tournament rebalance — Knight Glory, Dragon Slayer Set, injury recovery
- ✅ DataStar 1.0 — reactive framework upgraded from RC.7
- ✅ Player Wiki — 9-page in-game codex
- ✅ Forest Map Minigame — 33-area clickable search, unique bow parts, contested discovery
- ✅ SEO & link-share cards — OG image, sitemap, robots
- ✅ Mobile-friendly game view — sliding panel, chat fix, icon top bar
- ✅ Achievements — 20 achievements, career progress, toast notifications
- ✅ Leaderboards & player profiles
- ✅ Post-game stats tracking
- ✅ Thief, Assassin, Vampire, Werewolf — secret special functions
- ✅ SuperElf Bow — search the forest, slay the dragon
- ✅ Followers — recruit followers to shield from dragon
- ✅ Pawn shop — buy items from fallen players
- ✅ Inventory system
- ✅ Change your nickname
- ✅ Drop-in/drop-out — take over AI slots mid-game