Coming soon

About This Game

A tiny wizard lives at the edge of your screen and rebuilds his tower while you work.

The star over the tower fell one night, and Pell's master went north to keep it warm. Pell stayed behind in the ruined tower with a book of spells. He mends the tower floor by floor so the star can go back up. You choose what he casts, and he gets on with it while you get on with your day.

Buy it once. No ads, no energy, no premium currency, no account and no online requirement. It runs fully offline.

The tower at the edge of your screen

The tower stands on your taskbar at the left or right edge of the screen, in a window no bigger than the tower itself. Clicks on the empty pixels around it go through to whatever is behind. It can stay on top or not, and a framed window mode is there if you prefer one. When a fullscreen game or video is running, the tower hides, then catches up when it comes back.

The Spell Loop

Pell casts the spells in his ring one after another, and you can watch every cast. The ring starts with 3 slots and grows to 8. If an ingredient is missing he skips that slot with a puff of smoke, and if his Mana runs out he sips tea until it refills. Nothing ever fails.

• 12 spells, each with Mastery from 1 to 10 that grows as he uses it
  
• 3 saved Loops you can switch between
  
• One real choice every chapter: two things that want the same ingredient

Six floors and a roof

The Hearth, the Greenhouse, the Alembic Room, the Library, the Roost and the Observatory each have 4 repairs, and every repair changes the room you see. The last repair of a floor settles in real time, from 10 minutes in the first chapter to 12 hours in the sixth, and it settles while the game is closed too. Then the next floor opens, and Pell's hat grows one notch taller.

Familiars

Pip the toad, Wick the moth, Saffron the cat and Ledger the owl move in as the tower grows. Each runs a small loop of its own, and Tinctures raise them to level 5. Saffron naps on the floor you choose and makes its spells stronger.

Shooting stars

While the tower is open, a star falls in its sky every 25 to 40 minutes (sooner with research), never more than 2 in an hour, and Pell always catches it in his jar. While you are away, the owl brings one for every 8 hours (sooner with research). Stars light a chart of 27 stars in 6 constellations with bonuses that last, and they pay for the Masterwork.

Letters and visitors

Twenty letters from Pell's master arrive in the mailbox as the work goes on. Eight neighbours knock 3 times each, among them a postwoman with bad knees and a goat that gets stuck in fences. Let them in, and they bring Trinkets to spend on 18 pieces of decor. Two of them bring a piece of their own. The Library opens 18 pieces of research from the fourth chapter.

The sun and the stars

The tower's sky follows your clock. Sunsip catches Sunlight by day and Starlight by night, and time away is counted under the real day and night.

While you are away

Time with the game closed counts in full for up to 16 hours, or 24 with research. It is played out by the same rules as open time. When you come back, the owl leaves a letter that says what was made and who knocked.

An ending

The six chapters take about two weeks. In the game's own pacing simulator, a player who keeps the tower open all day reaches the ending on day 12, one who opens it 9 to 5 on day 15, and one who looks in for 20 minutes morning and evening on day 17. The first chapter takes about 45 minutes. Then Pell performs the Masterwork on the roof, and after the credits the tower keeps running in Keeper mode.

Quiet by design

• Hush puts Pell in a nightcap and stops most of the tower's movement, with the same rewards
  
• Calm pace slows every animation, and Pause stops the tower
  
• Tower sounds and the chiptune music play only while you are looking at it, unless you choose to keep the music playing quietly all day
  
• The tower is redrawn only when something in it changes
  
• When you have not touched the mouse or keyboard for 5 minutes, Pell naps until you are back. For that the game reads only the time of your last input, never which keys. To let clicks through around the tower it checks where the pointer is, and to hide for fullscreen apps it checks which kind of window is in front. It has no keyboard hook, collects no data and uses no network except Steam

Steam Cloud saves with local backups you can restore, 26 achievements, keyboard shortcuts, text size from 85% to 160%, four colour-blind palettes and cues that do not rely on colour, three contrast levels, reduced motion, a plain lettering option and partial controller support.