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Unbarred

Before the Seal Breaks

A tactics auto-battler for PC and phone. You never play the fight. You win it before it starts.

Get the launch email
  • DemoPlay in your browserComing soon
  • App StoreiPhone and iPadPlanned
  • Google PlayAndroidPlanned
  • SteamWindows and MacPlanned

The teaser

Music: “Reign Supreme” and “Danse Macabre - Big Hit 1” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License, creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0. Sound effects: “10 Impact/Shield Blocks” by StarNinjas and “Air whoosh” by pyranostudios (opengameart.org, CC0).

From the demo

Seat your team: two rows, four places, facing the enemy.
Seat your team: two rows, four places, facing the enemy.
The fight plays itself. You watch your plan work.
The fight plays itself. You watch your plan work.
Between fights, pick a blessing for your team.
Between fights, pick a blessing for your team.

What makes it different

All the thinking comes first

Fights play out by themselves. There is nothing to tap during one. Your choices are who you bring, where they stand, and who they go for first.

You see what you face

Before each run you are shown the enemy. A team that wins one fight can lose the next, so you change your team and try again. When you lose, you can tell why.

Every fight has an answer

Some teams cannot win a given fight, but a team that can always exists. So every hero is worth growing, not just a favourite.

How it plays

Both sides stand on two rows of four places. You pick your heroes and seat them: tough ones in front, the ones who hit from afar behind. Then the fight runs by itself. The enemy is on top, your team below.

Assassins jump over the enemy front row to reach the back. Who stands where decides who gets hit first.

Three races, three factions, twelve heroes

There are three races; each race created its faction. Any hero can fight beside any other — a faction is what its heroes are good at together.

The Emberkin

Burns enemies down: sets them alight, and every round the whole enemy team takes burn damage.

The Verdant Pact

Outlasts the enemy: heals and regrows, and every round its heroes heal a share of their health.

The Hollow Order

Cripples the enemy: stuns, slows and marks them, and enemies hit softer — but your own heroes lose some max health.

Four classes

Bulwark

Tough front-liner: taunts, so enemies attack it first, and hits the enemy front row.

Blademaster

Hard single hits (and crits) on the enemy front row.

Assassin

Leaps over the enemy front row to strike the back row.

Mage

Area damage: hits several enemies at once and can reach either row.

Fair by design

No ads. No loot boxes. No random-pull hero draws. Money can save you time, but it never decides whether you can win a fight.

Planned for Windows, Mac, iPhone and Android. Nothing is released yet, and dates are not promised.

What's new

  1. The demo is being rebuilt

    The first playtest showed that a fight was hard to read. The new demo is built so that what you see before a fight is enough to plan a team that wins it.

  2. A home on the web

    Unbarred now has its own web address: unbarred.games.

  3. The game has a name

    Unbarred: Before the Seal Breaks.

How it is made. I make Unbarred on my own, with an AI helper. The helper writes most of the code for the game and for this website, including the drawings in the game and on this page; I decide what it builds and I test the result. If AI-made pictures or sounds are added to the game later, I will say so here. Nothing in the game is made by AI while you play: fights follow fixed rules.