RUNTIME - a game of unsigned software

The current version is being presented without art, pending raising funds for an artist. Buy the book and the art arrives quicker!

Beneath cities of white ceramic and black glass, impossible machines older than memory continue executing the processes that keep civilisation alive. They allocate, route, weave, measure and build without understanding why. Above them, Programs live ordinary lives beneath the glow of the Authority Towers, renewing their Signatures, travelling the Buses and believing the System has always worked this way.

You are Unsigned Instances. Unlicensed. Untrusted. Too dangerous to certify, too useful to delete. When the Authorities cannot solve a problem, when the Giants begin behaving strangely, or when something Below starts climbing towards the light, you're the ones they send.

Descend into machine cathedrals lit by rivers of blue light. Load Binaries that transform your capabilities. Push your Buffer beyond safe limits. Salvage forgotten technology from the ruins beneath civilisation while your own Validity ticks steadily towards expiration.

Runtime is a rules-light science-fiction RPG inspired by TRON, Portal, Mirror's Edge, The Matrix and classic exploration games. It combines elegant mechanics, resource management and investigation with a luminous world of impossible architecture and existential mysteries.

Load your Binaries.

Mind your Buffer.

Keep your Signature alive.