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Thank you, that means a lot! It's my first game, and mixing calligraphy into a survivors-like felt like a gamble, so it's great to hear it comes across as something different.

I just pushed update 0.4: evolutions, merges and bosses now play out right on the battlefield. Next week is all about making hits feel stronger. If anything feels off or flat while you play, I'd love to hear about it!

Small update: v0.3 is out. Every character you write is now carved on a Stele Wall, and at the end of each run you can save the run as a piece of calligraphy. Devlog: https://stonebell.itch.io/brushsworn/devlog/1688346/update-03-the-stele-wall-and...

Hi all! I'm a solo dev, and I just pushed a big update to my first game, Brushsworn. It's free and runs in the browser.

It's a survivors-like with an idle side, drawn entirely in brush and ink. The world was written in calligraphy until the Ink Tide washed the words away; you're one of the last calligraphers, cutting through Blots to write them back.

The thing I'm most excited about: every skill is a Chinese character, and characters combine. Level up 木 (wood) and it becomes 林 — "two trees make a grove" — and a ring of trees grows around you. Sun 日 and moon 月 make 明 (bright), which fires a beam across the screen. Two people 人 make 从 (follow), ink doubles that fight beside you. There are 15 characters to find, and 7 have hidden recipes. You don't need to read Chinese — every card shows the English name and the recipe as icons, and you pick it up as you play.

A few other things:

• Each skill adds a voice to a live folk band (drums, zither, flute, bells), so your build changes the music
• Idiom ultimates like Cut in Two (一刀两断) — one stroke splits the screen
• After a couple of runs you unlock Auto, and the game keeps playing while you're away

It's an early test build and I'm still tuning the balance, so honest feedback helps a lot — especially: which character did you remember, and when did you stop playing?

▶ Play: https://stonebell.itch.io/brushsworn

Thanks for reading!