The Hollow Moors
Keep the fire lit. Chop by day, craft at dusk, and hold the circle of light when the lamps come in off the moor. How long can you last?
DRM-free on Windows, macOS, Linux and Android. A game from Ikigai Game Studios.
New in v0.0.37
The moor, relit
There is a sun now, and it moves. It comes up low and gold, climbs to noon and goes down the other side, and everything standing in it throws a shadow that turns with it.
After dark the fire, the lamps and whatever you carry throw shadows of their own, and under the big moon the trees throw moon shadows across the camp. The moor rolls, the bracken and the fern grow thick under the trees, and crows, grouse, rabbits and red squirrels are out on it with you.
Three graphics levels, one world. Pick one in Video settings; it is the same camp in all three of these.
Classic
The pixel look, blocky light and all.
Modern
Smooth light, glow and a warm grade.
Beautiful
Soft shadows, shading in every crease, the fire throwing shadows and the ground stood up in relief.
One day, one night, forever
The loop
By day
Chop and gather
Swing your axe at anything that grows. A tree leans back from each blow, then goes over and leaves its logs where it lands. Wood, stone, apples and mushrooms all go in the bag, and the bag is never big enough.
At the bench
Build up the camp
Turn logs into tools, fences, stake lights and better fires. The axe starts out rusty and ends up steel. A ring of stones tonight, a palisade and a proper fire pit by the weekend.
At dusk
Feed the fire
Nothing out there will cross the firelight. Every log keeps the circle wide, and nothing outside it is safe.
After dark
Hold the light
They gather at the edge of the light and wait for it to shrink. Let the fire die and the run ends.
What early access gets you
Yours to keep
DRM-free
No launcher, no always-online check, no licence server. Once it's installed, it runs without an account or a connection, for as long as you keep it.
Updates itself
Sign in inside the game and new builds download in the background on Windows, macOS, Linux and Android.
Every build to launch
One purchase covers every alpha and beta build, and a Steam key when it launches.
Play together
Host a world on your home network from the desktop or Android game, and friends join your fire. Online play with a room code comes with the beta. Everyone keeps the tokens, stickers and tapes they earn there.
One hollow, three ways to see it
Play it your way
The same world through three cameras. Classic isometric shows the whole camp at once, so nothing reaches you unseen. One key puts you in 3D behind your wanderer's shoulder, among the trees, where the canopy closes over you and you can't see what's behind you. Zoom all the way in and you are looking out of their eyes, with the axe in your own hand.
Playing together, everyone picks their own view: one of you can watch the clearing in isometric while another meets the boggarts at eye level.
Where it's set
The Hollow Moors, winter 1999
The edge of the Hollow Moors, in the last winter of 1999. Every step up in your fire opens up about twice as much ground: rolling moorland with rock breaking through it, abandoned camps and stone rings to find, a dense forest to the west, marsh pools to the south, a railway station nobody uses any more and, past the bog, what is left of an abbey.
Days last six minutes, so there's time to go somewhere and come back. Finds and chests get better the further the fire reaches.
North-east of camp
The old station
The Hollow Beck line closed on 6 March 1965. A torn platform ticket near camp is the start of a trail up it: three pieces of a signalman's card, the stationmaster's keys, and eight levers in the signal box that have to be pulled in the right order. The lost property office has things worth the walk.
Past the bog
The abbey
Three storeys of pale stone open to the sky, and a tower two stages higher through the middle. Stone stairs climb from the nave to the top floor and on up the tower. The best chests are at the top, and something has been living up there.
To the south
The marsh
Pools, reeds and wet banks, with one clear way across. Keep to the trail and you'll keep your boots dry.
To the west
The forest
The trees close in. Good wood, plenty of stone, and a lot of trunks to lose the fire behind.
After dark
Out of the light
Nights are two minutes of trouble. Boggarts and barghests keep coming, more every night you last, and they spot you from further off when you're out of the light.
Sixty-two nights to midnight
Halloween to the millennium
Five of you came out to the hollow on a dare. The first night was fine. You woke on Halloween morning alone in the fog. Every world starts on Sunday 31 October 1999, and the last night is New Year's Eve. Hold out to midnight on the 31st and the Millennium Bug comes for the camp. Keep the fire lit until dawn and it is the year 2000.
Some nights are not like the others. The fog comes right in to the firelight on the 12th of November, and there are stalkers in it. On the 18th the Leonids come over, and one of the shooting stars comes down on the moor with something in it. In December a railway telephone nobody has used since 1965 rings on the 3rd, your pager goes off on the 17th, and Christmas Eve is quiet, with a present by the tent in the morning.
5 November
Bonfire Night
Somebody out on the moor is letting off rockets, and the fire burns slow all night.
26 November
The storm
Rain from dusk to dawn. The fire eats logs, and every flash of lightning shows you what is at the edge of it.
10 December
The power fails
Every light on the moor goes out at once, and the fire is the only light for miles.
22 December
The biggest moon in a hundred years
Bright enough to see the treeline at midnight. It brings out the Hollow as well.
After dusk
The 18:10 calls
Nothing has been timetabled at Hollow Beck since 1965. Set the signals off and something stops at platform one anyway.
31 December
The Millennium Bug
At midnight every light you built goes dark. Get the fire to dawn and the year 2000 starts with fireworks over the camp.
The moor turns
Winter comes for you
The land follows the date. It goes over, it goes brown, it frosts, and by the twentieth of December there is snow on it that stays into January. It is the same camp in all four of these.
31 October
Late autumn
Bracken, red shrubs and grass gone gold, and the leaves coming down in drifts. Pumpkins in a patch behind a broken field wall, bunting up at camp, and the friends’ own jack-o’-lantern kicked over by the tent.
11 November
Bare November
Bracken brown, the tall grass bleached, the red shrubs gone dull. The trees thin out, the hard fern stays green in the shade, and what is left of Halloween goes sodden.
1 December
Frost
Rime on the grass and the wet stone dark. What would have been rain comes down as sleet, and the nights start to bite.
20 December
Snow
Snow lying on the moor and the paths trodden dark through it. Flurries, steady falls, and the odd blizzard that closes the whole moor in.
The cold gets into you, and there is no new bar for it. Stay out in it and your food burns faster, then your health goes; the edges of the screen frost over and you can see your breath. A lit fire's circle keeps it out, and so do a roof over you, a stake light, and something hot inside you.
So you go and get a coat. There are sheep out on the moor that let you walk up to them and bolt if you run. Hand shears off the first bench take the fleece, and it grows back in a few days. Somewhere past the second fire's reach there is a shepherd's bothy with a loom still in it, and nine wool makes a coat you wear from then on.
And right out at the edge, where only the biggest fire lets you walk, somebody else's pitch has been left as it fell: the tent down, the stove cold, and a gas lantern still burning on the pole. It lights all round you, it warms your hand, and you can set it down at camp. There is one.
No signal out here
It's 1999 in the hollow
The woods are full of what people dropped on the way through: a tape player, a handheld with four flat AAs, a phonecard with twenty units left and not a phone box for miles. Ten finds, scattered further and further from camp, and none of them any use to you.
Press use on one and your wanderer stops for a moment and thinks about it. That's the point. Each one is a sticker in the sticker album, which keeps your tally across every run, so pushing out to the far rings is worth something even after the fire goes out.
At the workbench
Live off the land
Till the ground with a hoe and plant a carrot, a potato or a tomato: one in, several out. Rain waters them. A berry planter, a stew pot, a storage box and a log store that dries the logs a rainy day leaves you.
Out on the moor
Hunt for the pot
Rabbits, red grouse and roe deer are out on the moor with you. Stand still and they come closer; run and they scatter. Take one with a thrown stone, the bow or a close swing, or set snares from the bench and check them at first light.
With a rod
Fish the pond
Face the water and cast. Something bites after a while and you have a moment to strike. Fish is fine raw, better on the fire and best in a stew.
Settings, then Video
Play it on a CRT
Scanlines, a phosphor mask and a flicker at four strengths, and a shape option that bows the whole picture into the glass, corners and all, on the desktop build. It sits over the menus too.
Press I
A bar and a bag
Nine numbered slots always on the bar. Find a backpack in the woods and you get nine more behind it; a bigger one holds eighteen. Everything stacks only so high, so a slot is worth something.
In 3D
Walk it yourself
Pools, reeds and the treeline beyond, at eye level. The mist stops at whatever your fire can reach, so feed it and the world opens up.
After dark
Night by the fire
In 3D you stand in the dark instead of looking down on it. The boggarts wait just past the firelight.
What outlives the fire
Something to show for it
A run ends when the fire does. What you earned on the way doesn't.
Arcade tokens
Dawns, friends brought home, finds and stickers all pay out tokens, and they are banked the moment you earn them. A run that ends on night four still paid. No shop sells them for money.
Starting kits
Spend tokens before a new world on a packed lunch, a scout's rucksack, a first aid tin or a BMX.
The sticker album
Eight pages: places, wildlife, friends, finds, mixtapes, November nights, December nights and the old railway. An empty space says how to fill it, and a full page pays extra.
Mixtapes
There is a cassette hidden on the moor for every song in the game, and a boombox by the tent that plays whichever ones you have found.
The music is made by the game while you play: 90s synths through tape hiss, changing with the hour, the fire and whatever is close by.
A new build comes out most weeks. What changed in each is in the changelog.
The earlier you buy, the less you pay
Own it from the start
ALPHA
£4.99
BETA
£7.99
LAUNCH
£14.99
Buy once and every build through to launch is yours, DRM-free, plus a Steam key at launch. The price goes up at beta and again at launch.
Not ready to play yet?
Get news by email
New builds, devlogs, and a warning before prices change. One or two emails a month, and a link to leave in every one.
Support the game
Buy us a coffee
The Hollow Moors is made by Ikigai Game Studios. A Ko-fi donation pays for more evenings at the workbench.
Before you download
Questions
Is it really DRM-free?
Yes. The Windows, macOS, Linux and Android downloads don't check a licence when they start, don't need a launcher and don't need to be online. Signing in only adds cloud saves, automatic updates, and your wanderer's look, tokens, stickers and tapes on every device. Copies from Google Play, TestFlight or Steam come through those stores instead.
What does it cost?
£4.99 during alpha, £7.99 in beta and £14.99 at launch. Buying at any stage covers every build after it.
When is the beta?
In the next few weeks. It brings online multiplayer: host a world, hand a friend a room code and they join your fire from anywhere. The price goes to £7.99 when it starts, and anyone who has bought by then keeps every build through to launch.
Why do I need an account to download?
The account is how the site knows which builds are yours and how the game fetches updates. You don't need it to play: skip the sign-in and the game still runs.
How does updating work?
Signed in, the desktop game downloads the next build while you play and installs it when you quit. The Android download fetches it and asks you to tap install. Worlds carry over.
What if I don't like it?
Try the free browser demo first. If you've bought it and changed your mind, you get a full refund within 14 days.
Playable now on
Buy once and every new build is on your download page the day it ships, and in the game the next time you open it.