Project-Ascend-Prototype

This is not a finished game. It is a design experiment built to answer one question:

When a character generated with their own history dies forever, does the player feel real loss?

Everything in this prototype exists to test that hypothesis: generated characters with names,
pasts and personalities; a tower that kills them; and a graveyard that remembers.

How to run

1. Download and extract the zip.
2. Run ascend.exe from inside its folder (it needs resources/ next to it).
3. Windows x64, no installation or dependencies required.

What's inside

• Summoning: every unit is generated with a name, a backstory and 1-2 personality traits.
• The tower: push-your-luck incursions, floor by floor. Each floor holds an encounter.
  Climb higher for more XP -- or retreat while you still can.
• Traits that act: the Brave hold the line, the Cowardly leave gaps, the Reckless charge
  in headfirst (and take the hits).
• Permadeath: when a unit dies, it is gone. For good.
• The Necropolis: the only thing that remains of the dead -- who they were, where they
  fell, and what killed them.
• Echoes: new summons may arrive marked by the fallen. Today's death writes tomorrow's story.

How you can help

Play a few sessions. Let some units die. Then tell us:

1. Did any death actually bother you? Which one, and why -- was it losing the stats,
   or losing them?
2. Every session is automatically recorded to sessions/session_*.log.
   Please attach your logs when you share feedback -- they let us re-read exactly
   what happened in your tower.

Known quirks

• Names can repeat between units (epithets are planned for a later phase).
• Balance is rough by design: big teams steamroll the early floors.
• English-only, plain-ASCII console output.

Release Project Ascend — Phase 1 Prototype (v1.2)
Project-Ascend at phase1