The deeper you go, the more of yourself you lose.

A genre-shifting tower defense rogue-lite, where your population is both your currency and your health.

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Descent Into the 'Depths'

Genre: Rogue-lite, Tower Defense, Platformer
Ludum Dare: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/you-are-the-end

This game was made during the Ludum Dare 57 game jam, with the theme “DEPTHS.” Not really wanting to make another diving game, I started thinking of how to use the theme in a different way... What if, rather than how deep you can dive, it was all about the emotional depth — the weight of your own choices during gameplay!?

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A Kingdom Measured in Lives

Your army is your people. Your resource is their blood.

The game starts as a Tower Defense, where you play the role of a King trying to save his kingdom. But it's no ordinary tower defense. To summon a unit, you have to sacrifice your people. They're your only resource — your health, your currency, and your power. The stronger the unit, the more people you have to sacrifice.

This raises a powerful moral choice for the player: if protecting your people means sacrificing them first... Just what would be left at the end?
Just an empty kingdom, with you as the sole survivor? That doesn’t make sense!!

That’s the reason behind the title — "You Are the End" — because as the King, you're sacrificing the very people you were meant to protect.

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Death is Only the Beginning

You will fall. But each failure leads to new choices. 

To make things fair, there is a card system in the game. At the end of each run, you get to pick any one of the three cards - Good, Neutral, or Evil.

Each card offers its own power or sacrifice for the greater good, pushing you to try different strategies. To win, you must repeat this loop again and again — making thousands of sacrifices until you finally reach the end.

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A Genre-Defying Twist

Unlocking the King unit, completely changes the game! Summon him and the game turns into a platformer — where you fight alongside the very units you've summoned!

This opens up entirely new strategies which you could use — using other units as your shields or going solo to test out your skills, against the entirety of your enemies!

It’s a moment where everything changes — the mechanics, strategies, and even your emotional connection/guilt towards the world you’ve been sacrificing to protect.

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Your Prophecy, Written by You

Five lines. One fate.

To deepen the theme, the game includes the Prophecy system — a page with 5 lines and missing words that reveal themselves during key moments. These words reflect your actions: how many you’ve sacrificed, your strategies, and the choices you’ve made along the way.

No two prophecies will tell the same story. 
Some will rise as saviours. Others shall be named the End.

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Controls — Commands of a King

Mode	Action	Control
Tower Defense	Move View	Arrow Keys (← →)
	Summon Units	Left Click on the Unit
Platformer	Move the King	Arrow Keys (← →)
	Attack with Sword	Left Click
	Jump	Space
	Summon Units	Left Click (still available)

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If You Fall… the Kingdom Falls with You.

You Are the End.