Explore a dying fantasy world, lead heroes and armies, develop castles, and fight tactical turn-based battles where every encounter can play by different rules. Discover powerful entities, transmute them into cards, and take your collection into the League.

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Early Access Game

Get instant access and start playing; get involved with this game as it develops.

Note: Games in Early Access are not complete and may or may not change further. If you are not excited to play this game in its current state, then you should wait to see if the game progresses further in development. Learn more

What the developers have to say:

Why Early Access?

“Bramble Guard combines turn-based adventure-map strategy, RPG progression, army building, and several forms of tactical combat. Although the core systems are already playable, getting their balance, pacing, clarity, and difficulty right requires more than internal testing.
Early Access allows us to see how different players explore the world, develop their heroes, build their armies, and approach battles. That feedback will help us improve the game’s systems, determine our development priorities, and shape Bramble Guard into an experience that can be supported for years to come.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“We currently expect Bramble Guard to remain in Early Access for approximately 6-12 months. The exact duration will depend on the amount of balancing, polishing, and iteration required after receiving community feedback. We will share regular progress updates and revise this estimate if our plans change.”

How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?

“The full version is planned to build upon the existing core rather than replace it. During Early Access, our main priorities will be stability, performance, balance, difficulty, onboarding, interface clarity, and the overall pacing of exploration, progression, and combat.
We also intend to refine the different encounter types—including defensive battles, siege attacks, and tactical encounters—based on how players actually approach them.
The most significant planned content expansion is the addition of campaigns for other playable factions. Each faction campaign is intended to tell a largely self-contained story while contributing to the wider world of Bramble Guard. The exact scope and development priorities may evolve in response to Early Access feedback.”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“At launch, the Early Access version will include the opening chapter of the Empire Alliance campaign, offering approximately one hour of story content, as well as a replayable single-player skirmish mode.
Skirmish mode provides unrestricted access to the currently playable faction and its core systems. Players can expand their castle, recruit and develop heroes and armies, and explore most of the currently available biomes while encountering the existing range of creatures.
Core features—including hero progression, equipment, mounts, and vehicles—are already playable. However, this remains an actively developed Early Access build, so players should expect balance, pacing, usability, content, and stability to continue evolving.”

Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?

“Yes. Our initial plan was different, but we ultimately decided to launch Early Access at $15 instead of $20. We currently expect the full release price to be around $20–25.”

How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process?

“We will communicate with players through the Steam Community Hub and our official Discord server.
Bug reports will help us identify and prioritize technical problems, while discussions and gameplay feedback will inform balancing, usability improvements, difficulty, and the development of individual systems. We also plan to share patch notes and development updates so players can see what is changing and why.
Not every suggestion will necessarily fit the game, but every constructive report or idea will be considered. We want the community to have a real influence on how Bramble Guard develops throughout Early Access.”
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About This Game

EXPLORE LIKE AN ADVENTURE STRATEGY GAME. FIGHT LIKE A TACTICAL RPG. EXPECT THE RULES TO CHANGE.

Bramble Guard is a turn-based fantasy strategy RPG about heroes, armies, castles, exploration, and tactical battles that do not always play by the same rules.

Lead heroes across branching maps, uncover the fog, claim valuable locations, develop castles, recruit armies, discover treasures, and decide which road deserves today's limited movement.

What you discover matters. New routes, resources, heroes, units, equipment, locations and other entities steadily expand what becomes possible.

{IMAGE: HERO + WORLD MAP / MAIN GAMEPLAY BEAUTY SHOT}

Heroes lead your armies through a world of branching roads, dangerous regions and opportunities that frequently look safer from a distance.

Explore one move at a time. Claim mines and settlements. Open blocked routes. Visit shrines. Discover treasures. Strengthen castles. Meet factions, characters and creatures who may be helpful, hostile, or simply inconvenient.

The strategic map is not a menu between battles.

It is where much of Bramble Guard happens.

  • Explore branching fantasy maps under fog of war.

  • Lead heroes and their armies across the world.

  • Claim mines, settlements and other valuable locations.

  • Develop castles and strengthen important positions.

  • Discover treasures, shrines, characters, events and new opportunities.

  • Spend limited movement carefully.

Heroes and units move, attack, defend, use abilities, control space and support one another. Equipment, formations, RPG progression and positioning can matter as much as raw strength.

But Bramble Guard does not force every encounter into the same rulebook.

Some battles are direct tactical clashes. Some ask you to hold territory. Some turn the usual objective around. Some introduce entirely different battlefield rules.

  • Fight grid-based, turn-based tactical battles.

  • Command heroes and the armies travelling with them.

  • Combine abilities, equipment, formations and unit roles.

  • Face encounters with different objectives and battlefield rules.

  • Adapt your strategy instead of repeating one solution forever.

There were ten Trees of Memory once. Nine burned. One remains.

The Heartwood is the last living Tree of Memory and the final refuge of an ancient order.

The corruption spreading from its roots was born from grief rather than simple evil.

Bramble Guard begins colorful, inviting and almost comfortable, then slowly lets something sadder creep between the branches.

Some encounters shift into Bramble Guard's unusual take on tower defense.

But towers are not passive weapons on sticks.

They are places defenders come from.

Knights leave their towers and step into the lane to physically hold enemies in place. Archers support the line from behind. Spearmen buy precious space. Monks keep wounded defenders standing.

Your defensive line moves because your defenders do.

  • Place towers to control space, not simply deal damage.

  • Deploy physical defenders directly onto the battlefield.

  • Reinforce heroes and armies with defensive infrastructure.

  • Watch front lines move as units block, retreat, recover and return.

Sometimes the answer is another tower.

An adventure does not exist in isolation.

Resources, discoveries, opened routes, claimed locations, castle development, heroes and armies steadily expand your possibilities.

But discoveries can have another life.

Eligible entities found during play can be transmuted into cards and added to your collection.

Heroes. Creatures. Equipment. Artefacts. Other discoveries.

The adventure becomes a source of new strategic possibilities.

  • Discover entities while exploring and fighting.

  • Transmute eligible discoveries into collectible cards.

  • Experiment with new combinations and strategies.

  • Grow your collection through normal play.

The League connects competitive play back to the world you have been exploring.

Build from your collection, create strategies around your preferred heroes, faction and playstyle, and bring them into competitive matches.

Your adventures are not simply something you finish before multiplayer.

They are where your possibilities come from.

Bramble Guard's factions are more than visual themes.

Different factions bring their own heroes, armies, castles, abilities and approaches to exploration and battle.

Learning another faction means discovering another set of tools, synergies and strategic problems.

During Early Access, the available faction roster and campaign content will continue to expand toward the full game.

  • Hero-driven fantasy adventure strategy across branching maps filled with castles, mines, shrines, settlements and discoveries.

  • Turn-based tactical RPG combat built around grids, positioning, abilities, armies and hero progression.

  • Multiple encounter formats with different objectives and battlefield rules.

  • An unusual tower-defense system where towers deploy physical defenders directly onto the battlefield.

  • Heroes, armies and castles that develop alongside your exploration of the world.

  • Distinct factions with their own units, heroes, castles and strategic possibilities.

  • Single-player and hot-seat play built around exploration, experimentation and replayability.

  • Transmutation and card collection connecting discoveries from your adventures to the wider meta-game.

  • Competitive League play built around the strategic options you have assembled.

  • A colorful fantasy world with something considerably sadder growing underneath it.

AI Generated Content Disclosure

The developers describe how their game uses AI Generated Content like this:

Generative AI was used during development to support early concept exploration and rapid prototyping, including testing visual directions, compositions, and placeholder ideas. All AI-assisted material was reviewed and refined by the development team, with final creative and design decisions made by humans. The game does not generate content using AI during gameplay.

System Requirements

    Minimum:
    • OS: Windows 10x64 / Windows 11x64
    • Processor: Intel Core i5-14400F (or equivalent)
    • Graphics: RTX 3050 (or equivalent)
    • DirectX: Version 11
    • Storage: 8 GB available space
    • Sound Card: DirectX Compatible Sound Device
    Recommended:
    • OS: Windows 11x64
    • Processor: Intel Core i7-14700KF (or equivalent)
    • Graphics: RTX 5070 (or equivalent)
    • DirectX: Version 12
    • Storage: 8 GB available space
    • Sound Card: DirectX Compatible Sound Device
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