Living Collapse is built one playable version at a time. Each version is a handful of rows, and a row only counts once it has been played and tested in the game itself.
Latest version
Version 6 of 16
Rows done
7 of 7
Versions shipped
6
Up next
Version 7, predators and the fire: The dark has teeth. Fire, noise and a spear keep them off; tracks warn you what passed.
A bison, a horse or a camel is a week of food and the hide for a blanket, and it can kill you. The herds now keep a day of their own, smell you on the wind and keep clear of your fire. You stalk, throw or thrust, live through a charging bull, dress the wound, butcher the carcass before the scavengers and the wolves arrive, and turn hide, bone and fat into clothes, a lamp and a spear thrower.
The film A stalk, a charge survived, a carcass defended at dusk · 75 seconds, played in the game
7 of 7 rows done
6.1Herds in the basin: ancient bison, western horses and western camels, each keeping its own day. They graze, walk down to the pool at their own hour and bed down for the night.Done
6.2Animals answer the world: they smell you downwind, keep thirty metres from a burning fire, and hear you knap stone or break wood. One alarm runs through the whole herd.Done
6.3The hunt: stalk in from downwind, then throw, or thrust when you are close enough to touch. Follow the blood trail and finish a staggering animal where it stands.Done
6.4The price: a cornered bull gores you. The horn wound bleeds and festers if you leave it, and a turned ankle holds you to a walk. Dress it with a strip of your shirt and boiled water.Done
6.5The carcass is a clock: butchering a bison takes three hours of game time. Teratorns circle it within twenty minutes, and at nightfall three dire wolves come up the wind.Done
6.6Tier two opens from the hunt: a hide blanket, a bone awl, sewn clothes, a fat lamp that burns for six hours, and an atlatl that throws a spear to 45 metres. Covered up, you can now stand through the wet first night that kills a bare body.Done
6.7The version six film: a stalk from downwind and one throw, the bull's charge sidestepped, the butchering under circling teratorns, and at dusk a fire by the kill that holds three dire wolves at its edge.Done
6.1 Horses come down to the water in the late afternoon.6.3 Close enough to thrust: a wounded bison, one metre away.6.3 A hit at thirteen metres, and the bull turns on you.6.4 Bleeding badly. A strip of shirt, boiled water, and the wound bound.6.5 The bison goes down. Now the work starts.6.5 Teratorns circle the kill. The whole basin can see them.6.5 Night. A wolf's teeth close on your arm.6.6 The make drawer turns to the hunt's page.6.6 A wick in the fat: six hours of light.6.7 Night at the kill. The fire holds, and the carcass stays whole.
5
ShippedVersion 5
Stone, wood and sinew
There is no spear in your pack any more. You make one at the fire: knap a stone flake, harden a pole in the coals, twist sinew into a tie and bind the stone to the tip. Every make takes real game time, and its materials are spent only when the work is done.
The film From a bare knife to a stone tipped spear · 48 seconds, played in the game
5 of 5 rows done
5.1Making things: every recipe is physical work with its own time, tools and materials, chosen from a make drawer at the fire.Done
5.2The first makes: a stone flake, a fire hardened spear, a stone tipped spear, sinew ties and a carry frame for a second load. A stone tip opens two wounds where a bare point opens one.Done
5.3Work you can see: the survivor knaps, scrapes, twists, binds and butchers on screen.Done
5.4Tools wear out: a spear can snap or lose its stone tip, and you mend it at a fire.Done
5.5The version five film: from a bare knife to a stone tipped spear, then a stalk and a hit, and the bull turns.Done
5.1 The make drawer at the fire.5.3 Knapping a flake by the fire.5.3 Seating the flake and binding it tight.5.5 A spear of your own.
4
ShippedVersion 4
Hunger and the first snare
Day two now has a reason: you get hungry. You set snares where the rabbits run, check them at first light, butcher and cook what you catch, forage with care, find the second water, and from the ridge you see mammoths for the first time.
The film A snare at dusk, a meal at dawn, the mammoths · 109 seconds, played in the game
13 of 13 rows done
4.1Hunger: the body burns energy through work and cold. Hunger is a word on screen, never a bar, and starving can end a run.Done
4.2The first Ice Age animals: the ancient rabbit and the dwarf pronghorn, each walking its own runs and fleeing noise.Done
4.3The snare: made from cord and two sticks and set across a run. It only catches where animals run, and something may rob it in the night.Done
4.4Checking the snares is the morning's reward.Done
4.5Butchering a small animal with the knife: meat, hide and sinew, each with its uses.Done
4.6Cooking on a skewer over the fire: raw to cooked, and burnt if you leave it.Done
4.7Foraging: berries and mushrooms, and some of them will make you sick.Done
4.8The second water: a cloudy pool that has to be boiled.Done
4.9Day two's guidance names the goal until your first meal, then leaves the choice to you.Done
4.10The first sighting: a mammoth herd crossing the far meadow at ten on the second morning, seen from the ridge.Done
4.11The field log: a page for every animal you meet, with stars earned by what you do. It survives every death.Done
4.12The map of Kettle Basin: every named place measured from the world itself.Done
4.13The version four film: a snare checked at dawn, a meal cooked, the mammoths from the ridge.Done
4.3 A snare across a rabbit run at dusk.4.6 Breakfast, if you do not walk away from it.4.7 The game will never tell you which ones are safe.4.10 Mammoths, from the ridge lookout.4.11 The rabbit's page: seen and tracked.
3
ShippedVersion 3
Hands on the controls
The controls and the camera were left open, so this version built two layouts and let the evidence choose. You can zoom between a near view and a far one, turn the camera, stalk a bison herd and throw a spear, and a wet night in the open can still kill you.
The film Zoom, a stalk, two throws, a wet night · 58 seconds, played in the game
9 of 10 rows done
3.0Cold is a dose: every hour your core spends below 35 °C counts against you, degree by degree, and warmth pays it back.Done
3.1Zoom: pinch, the wheel or a button, between a near view and a far view for hunting.Done
3.2Turn the camera in steps of 45 degrees, and the survivor stays in frame.Done
3.3Layout A: an arc of verbs and wheels around the right thumb. This is the one that ships.Done
3.4Layout B: a cluster of four action buttons, like a game controller, kept as an option.Done
3.5A blind playtest of both layouts: built, then parked to keep the pace up.Parked
3.6A phone build that boots to the deploy screen on a simulated phone. The real phone run comes later.Done
3.7The version three film: the far view, a crouched stalk, two throws and a wet night lost to the cold.Done
3.8The animal lineup: every model of every extinct species we hold, measured side by side at the game's camera, one pick for each.Done
3.9The hunt, tried first because it was the riskiest idea: six ancient bison that graze, smell you and flee, and a bull that charges. It was good enough to build on.Done
3.7 Rain, no shelter, and the night still ahead.3.9 The first hit on a bison.
2
ShippedVersion 2
The night can be lost
The first night can now end the run. Collapse from the cold and the game tells you what happened and how long you lasted, then lets you begin again in a new world. Live to first light and it tells you that too.
The film One night lost, one survived · 64 seconds, played in the game
10 of 10 rows done
2.1Collapsing from the cold ends the run and brings up an end card.Done
2.2The card says what happened and how long you lasted, then offers to begin again.Done
2.3The body falls and lies on the ground instead of freezing upright.Done
2.4Begin again: a fresh world, while what you learned carries over.Done
2.5Living to first light says so on a card, and play goes on.Done
2.6Two short pieces of music: one for a collapse, one for dawn.Done
2.7Pausing the game freezes the world, the body, the fire and the sound.Done
2.8The finished game boots straight to the deploy screen.Done
2.9Test survivors with bad habits, such as the wanderer and the one who drinks unboiled water, played fifteen nights. All of them reached first light.Done
2.10The version two film: a lost night and a survived one.Done
2.2 A cause and a time. That is the whole card.2.5 You lived through the night.
1
ShippedVersion 1
Walk the basin
The valley and the first evening. You start from the deploy screen, walk the campsite with a thumb stick or the keys, and the light goes towards evening.
The film The valley, and the light going · 25 seconds, played in the game
4 of 4 rows done
1.1A deploy screen to begin from.Done
1.2Walking the campsite with a thumb stick or the keys.Done
1.3The light going from afternoon to evening.Done
1.4Underneath it, the whole first evening: gathering branches, a windbreak, a fire, boiled water and rest, saved at every step.Done
1.3 The light will not hold.
Still to come
The road ahead
7
Predators and the fire
The dark has teeth. Fire, noise and a spear keep them off; tracks warn you what passed.
8
A better camp
A lean-to with walls, a drying rack, a wood store, and rain that changes the day's plan.
9
The pup
A dire wolf den, a pup taken at a price, days of feeding, a bite, and one day it follows.
10
On the phone
The whole game on a real phone, holding a steady frame rate for half an hour.
11
A week in the valley
Fish in the pool, smoking and drying, skills learned by practice, and the season turning colder.
12
The horse and the haul
Raise a foal that carries your loads, and set up a second camp at the pool.
13
Over the pass
A second valley through the gated pass, older animals, and the first keepers' station.
14
The mammoth calf
The long goal: an orphaned calf raised over weeks, grown to haul your timber.
15
The far ridge
The third valley, the last station, the radio, and the ending's choice.
16
Complete
Every part finished and tested together: the whole game, start to end.
