Hi all! I wanted to share a browser game I've been building solo, and honestly to start a conversation about the idea behind it rather than just drop a link.
Play it here: https://knomz.itch.io/purge (runs in the browser, no download, works on mobile)
The quick version:
PURGE:// is a real-time multiplayer game with exactly one world. Not one per player, not one per server. One. Everybody who opens the link is a defender of the same grid, and that grid is being consumed by a spreading corruption called the Blight. The important part: it keeps spreading in real time whether anyone is online or not. So the state you come back to tomorrow is genuinely whatever the community did, or failed to do, overnight.
The core loop takes about a minute to learn (there's a short training mission on your first visit):
- Tap corrupted nodes to purge them. Every purge costs energy, and energy refills on its own, even while you are away.
- Level up to unlock abilities, from auto-cleansing Purifiers to a damage-over-time Sear that burns the bosses down.
- Hunt the Corruption Hearts. They drive the spread and regenerate, and they have a damage cap per player, so no single hero can kill one. You genuinely need a swarm of defenders hitting it together.
Clear the wave and the whole community wins it, once, forever. Fail and the world falls back a wave and it goes in the log for everyone to see.
Why I'm posting here specifically:
The design bet is that "your absence matters." Most live games simulate the world only for you. Here, when you return and find a region cleansed or lost, that was real people. I would love feedback from this community on whether that feeling actually lands, and whether the "you can't win alone" boss design reads as intriguing or just frustrating when you first hit a Heart you can't defeat solo.
It's a single HTML file and a small server, no engine, and I'm very happy to talk about the tech or the balancing in the replies. Thanks for reading, and if you defend the grid for a few minutes, let me know what you think of the gameplay.