Every look costs you. Every look buys her time.

A dark-fantasy checkpoint game. Judge the gilded students of a walled school of forbidden magic, distill their attention into Mana, and buy a cure for your dying sister before the mentor's tithe comes due.

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Free demo on itch.io · Windows · Linux · Android

Judging a student at the gate against the day's dress code

Judge every student against the day's shifting dress code.

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The bargain

You are not corrupt. You are cornered.

You are the underpaid warden of the gate, the one ungifted soul inside a walled school of forbidden magic. You took the post for a single reason: your sister is dying of the hollowing, and the Academy's rationed arts are the only cure that might reach her. An honest wage never will.

The detention master has an answer, and a smile. He offers a Binding Sigil that distills Mana (the essence a cure needs) from the attention you pay the gilded daughters who pass your gate. It shields you from the Headmistress, who would see you expelled and cast back outside the walls, where she dies. The price is a weekly tithe. And favors.

Every illicit look is to save her.

What you do

I.

Work the gate

Read each student against the day's edicts, cite what they flout, and decide who passes. The rules tighten as the term wears on.

II.

Feed the Sigil

Every glance pays in Mana. Upgrade the Sigil to see further, bank what you earn, and race the cure against the calendar.

III.

Answer the mentor

The tithe falls due each Sunday. Pay, and the walls stay open. Fail, and you are cast out, and she is lost.

Pixel art · A full checkpoint judging system · A roster of students you come to know · Save-anywhere runs · 8 languages · Windows · Linux · Android

Glimpses

Measuring a student's skirt against the day's dress code at the gate
At the gate, every hem and button is measured against the day's code.
Medical exemptions and notes muddy the gate rules
Medical exemptions and forged notes muddy every call.
Unbuttoning a student to inspect what the code hides
Unbutton her to check what she's hiding, and whether she breaks the code.
The detention interview, reading her temperament
Detention: read her temperament, then break her defiance or send her on.
A door left unlatched on the evening rounds
A door left unlatched, and the choice to look.
What a student leaves behind
Some of them really do fall for you, and invite you in.
The Binding Sigil drawing Mana from a glance
The Binding Sigil drinks Mana from every stolen glance.
The mentor, and the weekly Mana tithe
The mentor, and the tithe that comes due each Sunday.
The drawer of collected keepsakes
A keepsake from every girl, and a drawer to fill.
The warden's ledger of the twelve students
Twelve daughters of the great houses, and all you learn about them.

Enter

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