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Adverse Action
A model denied four thousand people this morning. The law says a human has to explain why. Read the file, work out what the machine saw, write the reason, and decide whether to sign your name to it. Sixty cases before the deadline.

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Features
Single-player
Steam Achievements
Steam Cloud
Family Sharing
Steam is learning about this game 
Languages:
Interface Full Audio Subtitles
English ✔

Coming Soon To Early Access

The developers of this game intend to release as a work in progress, developing with the feedback of players.

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?

“ADVERSE ACTION is a game about reading documents carefully, and the only way to
know whether its rules land as clear, fair, and catchable is to watch people
play it. We can build the desk. We can't tell from the inside which files are
genuinely subtle and which are simply unfair.

Early Access lets us put the complete campaign in front of players, find the
places where the game is confusing rather than difficult, and grow THE BACKLOG (the endless mode) around what people actually want to keep doing once the
story is over.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“We expect around six to nine months max. That's the window we think we'll need to
work through player-reported issues and add the features described below, but
we would rather leave Early Access when the game is right than leave it on a
date.”

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

“The Early Access version contains the complete story campaign, all eighteen
shifts and every ending, along with THE BACKLOG endless mode.

For the full version we plan to:

- Add Steam Achievements and Steam Cloud saves.
- Expand THE BACKLOG with additional case templates, so the endless mode stays
surprising for longer.
- Continue tuning difficulty and clarity across the campaign in response to
feedback, particularly in the early shifts where the game is teaching its
rules.
- Fix what players find. A game built out of small details will have small
details wrong, and we would like to catch them.

We may add further shifts if there is appetite for them, though we aren't
promising a specific amount of new story content.”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“Feature complete and playable from beginning to end. All eighteen shifts of the
campaign are in, along with every ending and THE BACKLOG endless mode. Nothing
is stubbed out, locked, or marked "coming soon."

What's missing is the polish that only arrives once other people have played
it: Steam features such as achievements and cloud saves, more variety in the
endless mode, and the clarity and difficulty tuning that comes out of feedback.
Expect a complete game with rough edges rather than an unfinished one.”

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

“We're not planning on changing the price when we leave Early Access. Anyone who
buys during Early Access receives the full version at no additional cost.”

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

“The Steam Community Hub and discussion boards are the main channel. We're
especially interested in:

- Bugs, and any file that behaves in a way you don't think it should.
- Cases where you were marked wrong and still believe you were right. Those
usually mean a rule wasn't clear, which is our problem to fix rather than
yours.
- What you'd like to see more of in THE BACKLOG.

We read what's posted there and patch as we go.”
Read more
This game is not yet available on Steam

Planned Release Date: Aug 25, 2026

This game plans to unlock in approximately 11 days

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About This Game

THE MODEL DOES NOT PRODUCE REASONS.

SECTION 61 DOES.

Adverse Action is a paperwork thriller from QuietMachines (solo developer). A scoring model decides who in the city of Newmark gets credit, housing, insurance, a utility connection. It does not explain itself, but the law says every denial must carry a signed Statement of Reasons, prepared by a person.

That person is you. Desk 9, Reasons Section.

RECONSTRUCT. Each case arrives as continuous-feed printout: the subject's file, the source records, and a stub reading DENIED. No explanation. Cross-reference the sources, work out which fact the model acted on, and cite the exact lines that prove it.

COMPOSE. Select the reason code and attach your evidence. Wrong reasons come back as appeals — and appeals cost you shift time and go on your record.

SIGN, OR REFUSE. If the reason is there, sign it, in your name. If the reason is monstrous, it is still true, signing it is the game. And when there is no reason at all in the file, you can fabricate one that will probably survive appeal, or refuse to sign and eat the time. It costs you either way.

The model gets retrained. Your hard-won heuristics quietly stop working. And the deeper you get, the more the denials start to make a shape the paperwork never names.

  • A bureaucracy game of pure deduction: no combat, no meters, just documents, a clock, and your signature

  • Every case hand-written; a document inspection game where the answers are hidden, not checked

  • Rendered entirely as dot-matrix printout on greenbar paper, a dot matrix game with not one generated pixel

  • 5–6 hours to your first ending; multiple endings; your final performance review is built from how you actually played

  • Entirely hand-made: every word, portrait, and sound in this game was written, drawn, or recorded by a person. No generative AI anywhere in the pipeline.

The Section thanks you for its accuracy.

System Requirements

    Minimum:
    • OS: Windows 10, 64-bit
    • Processor: 2.0 GHz quad-core, 64-bit
    • Memory: 4 GB RAM
    • Graphics: Any modern integrated or dedicated GPU
    • Storage: 100 MB available space
    • Sound Card: Any Windows-compatible audio device
    • Additional Notes: A 1920x1080 or larger display is recommended. The game is built around reading documents, and a larger screen gives the paper room to sit at full size. Requires the Microsoft Edge WebView2 Runtime, which is included with Windows 11 and installed automatically on Windows 10 if it is not already present.
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