Dimwood
a little light leads them home
The Great Beacon has gone out. Somewhere in the dark, a small creature is waiting for someone to say: follow me.
Coming to the App Store
The night
Night fell on the Dimwood and never lifted. The Beacon went dark, and the Gloom — a soft, creeping thing that eats unattended light — moved in behind it. The small creatures of the wood are stranded in pockets of fading glow.
You are Lumen. A spark that leapt from the Beacon's last ember, and the last light left.
Lumen cannot fight. Lumen can only lead.
One thumb, and a line behind you
Drag anywhere on the screen. Light gathers the wood's creatures; the dark scatters them. Everyone you have found walks in the line behind you, and the shape of that line is the whole game — how tightly it follows, how far it strings out, what it brushes against on the way.
Eight chapters, from First Steps to Glade's End. A night is a few minutes long, and it is meant to be played in the dark, quietly, before sleep.
You cannot lose a night
If the dark takes a friend, they do not die and you do not start over. They drop out, and they wait for you to come back for them.
A night can take longer and earn fewer stars. It cannot be failed. There is no score to defend, nothing to lose, and no way to be punished for going slowly — the only thing ever asked of you is to bring everyone home.
The ones who follow
Five kinds of creature live in the wood, and each one carries exactly one idea. You do not read about it — you feel it in the shape of the line, because the creature behind you walks differently than the one before it.
One of them is not rescued at all. It is found, rarely, and it comes along because it wants to.
Endless Dimwood
Past the road's end, the wood keeps making nights — new shapes, new weather, and a name for each one, kept in the almanac alongside the nights you have already walked.
The whole road is in the game from the start: all eight chapters, the ending, the almanac. Endless Dimwood is the only thing there is to buy — one payment, no subscription, no advertising, and nothing else offered to you ever again. The first generated night is free, so you can see what it is before you decide.
Made to be played quietly
It works with the sound off
Everything the music and effects tell you is also said in light and motion. Silent Mode does not mute the game — the mute button inside the game is your control, and it is yours to use.
It works without sight
The menus are labelled throughout. During a night, a VoiceOver rotor called "who is still waiting" speaks where home is and where each friend is standing, in plain directions rather than numbers. A separate Read the night aloud setting speaks the narration for anyone who wants it, VoiceOver or not — and it is deliberately not tied to the mute button, because silencing the music should never mean losing the world.
Reduce Motion and Reduce Transparency
Both are respected. With Reduce Motion on, effects become changes in brightness rather than movement, and nothing you need to know is carried by animation alone.
Nothing leaves your phone
No account, no analytics, no advertising, and no network code at all. Your progress is saved on your device and nowhere else, and the nights the wood invents are dreamed on your phone rather than on a server.
Questions?
Dimwood is made by one developer, in Vienna. Mail goes to a human, not a queue.
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