Arcanum Idle

The house came with the study, and the study came with the circle.

Your predecessor left no letter. There is a circle chalked on the floorboards that has not smudged in years, a stub of chalk on the desk, and a candle that has not gone out. Put a hand inside the line and the circle gives you mana.

Buy it once. No ads, no energy, no premium currency, no account. It runs fully offline.

AN ENGINE THAT BUILDS ITSELF

Eight tiers of Sigil, each producing the tier below it. Buy an Ember and it makes mana. Buy a Rune Stone and it makes Embers. By the Sanctum you are eight rungs up a ladder that runs itself, and the numbers are past anything with a name.

SIX LAYERS DEEP

Resonance redraws your circle wider. Transcription writes the whole Study onto a page as Insight. Ascension leaves the pages behind for Attunement and the Elements. Convergence takes you above the house to arrange a sky. Chronomancy is paid for in the number of times you have torn it all down, and the Choir is four other houses finally answering, with too few Voices to go round.

All six are in the game today, and the story has an ending. In playtesting the sixth layer opens 55 to 75 hours after you start, counting time with the game closed.

A PLAYSTYLE, NOT A DIFFICULTY

Choose a Doctrine after each Ascension. The Quickened builds Momentum by hand and is strongest while you play. The Patient grows stronger the longer a run is left alone. The Threefold Path takes half of each.

ARRANGE, DON'T JUST BUY

The Constellation is a five-by-five board. Stars are worth what their neighbours make them worth, and a Bridge is worth nothing alone, only for the Stars it touches.

TRIALS

Seven runs of the Study with a rule broken: no tempo, only two Sigils, no ladder at all so every tier has to pay for itself. Each one you finish leaves a permanent reward.

RELICS

Each Ascension offers three relics and you keep one. There are ten, and two come only to the right Doctrine. A stub of chalk. A bell with no clapper. An hourglass that was already broken. Each one changes a rule of the Study for good.

MADE TO BE LEFT RUNNING

The circle keeps working at reduced strength while the game is closed, for up to a week, and the Transcriptions auto-Transcribe would have made still count toward Chronomancy and the Choir. Autobuyers switch themselves on as you unlock them, and automated resets stay quiet. Steam Cloud saves, with local backups you can restore. Keyboard shortcuts, text size, colour-blind palettes and contrast settings, and partial controller support.