TIDEBREAKTIDEBREAK

The sea takes a little more every night

You wash up on a low island with nothing. By the end of the first day you want a fire, a spear and somewhere to stand with your back to a wall, because the things that come out of the water at night are not there to talk. Every night the tide rises three metres and stays there. The beach you camped on is gone by night two. Your rock is an islet by night five. By night nine there is not much island left.

What you actually do

• Punch a tree, pick up driftwood, pull fiber from the grass. Craft a stone axe, then flint, copper, iron and coralite tools that chop and mine faster.

• Build a camp: workbench, campfire, furnace, anvil, smokehouse, walls, gates, spike traps, torch posts and a tide wall that buys your base one more night.

• Fish. Sixteen kinds, each in its own water and time of day, some with effects when you eat them. Roast them at the fire or smoke them for twice the food.

• Fight with what you made: clubs, knives, spears, bows, a sling, a cutlass, an anchor, a harpoon crossbow, a trident, and the blade you forge from a boss's ore.

• Wear armor. Cloth and bark first, copper and iron once the furnace runs, coral at the end. It shows on your character.

• Open chests for powerups that last the run and stack. 33 of them. Shrines offer you a choice of three.

• Kill the three bosses on nights three, six and nine, take their Tide Sigils, build the Beacon and light it. Then hold out until the ship comes.

Every run is a new island

Type a seed or let the game roll one. Same seed, same island, so you can hand a good one to a friend. Nothing in the world is placed by hand. Days are six minutes, nights three, so a full run is a little under an hour and a half if you reach the end. Most first runs do not. Storm tiers open up after an escape and make everything hit harder for more Sea Glass. Some nights it rains.

Between runs

Sea Glass buys Workshop perks that carry over: start with better gear, get a free chest, get back up once after you go down. Achievements unlock hats, shirts and packs. The codex remembers every fish and creature you have met.

Co-op for three

Invite Steam friends or connect directly. Everyone has their own bag, health and powerups. The island is the same for all of you and the waves grow with the group. If you fall, a teammate can carry the night and you get back up at sunrise.

Small print

Made by one person in Godot. Every model, sound and effect in the game is generated by code. The only recording is the menu song, and I played that one. Runs fine on modest hardware. Solo runs save between nights, so you can stop and continue later. If something breaks, tell me on the community hub. I read it.