Shearline

About the Game

Fractured time shapes the battlefield.

Shearline is a turn-based tactical RPG where the board itself decides who can move cleanly, who arrives compromised, and who controls the fight. Fast-time, slow-time, and unstable ground change movement, status, and combat advantage turn by turn.

• Fight through battle, defense, and escape objectives on handcrafted tactical maps

• Navigate temporal terrain that changes combat effectiveness, movement, and route planning

• Use character abilities to create openings, protect allies, and punish bad positioning

• Shape a squad of 15+ recruitable characters through class unlocks, upgrades, equipment, skill synergies, and other party-building choices

The board pushes back. Take control of it.

Fast-time, slow-time, and unstable ground do more than change the map's color. They change who is effective, how cleanly a squad can move, and how dangerous it is to cross the line at the wrong moment. Vel fighters thrive on haste shear. Other units may lose footing, waste movement, or enter the fight already compromised. Some fights are won by raw damage. Others are won by putting the right person on the right ground one turn earlier.

Shearline gives you tools to break an enemy terrain advantage, open a route, or recover when a unit crosses shear at the wrong moment. Zev's anchor is the clearest of those tools: it can stabilize a hostile patch of ground or clear Disorientation from an ally when you need their attacks to land.

The world runs on stolen years.

Workers go into the time mines for three calendar years and come out thirty years older. Frontier towns survive on leased drift stakes they do not control. The people who profit most from dangerous time also get the safest, most controlled version of it. Zev and her squad begin with a routine mission to protect the area around Threshold, then uncover a crisis reaching far beyond the frontier.

Build the squad each fight demands.

Recruit a distinct cast of 15+ characters and shape them through a flexible squad-building system. Each unit has a unique trait that can be combined with classes, skill sets, equipment and more to build a team around the fight ahead. Some units excel on specific terrain. Others bring control, support, mobility, or raw staying power. Repeated deployment deepens relationships and unlocks bond abilities that let the right pair cover each other, open routes together, or break an enemy line at the exact moment it matters most.

Meet your crew.

Zev is a Shear-Touched Scout who carries Threshold's only portable field anchor and reads the line better than anyone in town. The tool is very much on loan.

Kir is a Vel Soldier who is at her best on haste shear. Her father lived through a 10x time claim. Kir knows what haste costs.

Bryn is a Meridian Medic from a family made comfortable by frontier supply contracts. He knows the mine economy from the inside and still chose Threshold.

They are only the first recruits drawn into a widening crisis.

The Demo

The upcoming demo is built around five handcrafted battles, party progression, exploration in Threshold, and a frontier mystery that opens into a larger conflict.

About the Developer

Shearline is a solo project by Hasteward.

Walk the Shearline. Master time before it turns on you. Wishlist on Steam.