Ardmor

The forty-first day of the siege.

Before first light, Lord Haskel's men come out of the trees with ladders and a ram. Sir Edric's relief column was seen crossing Wendle ford at dusk. If it marches through the night, it will be under the hill when the sun clears the eastern ridge.

Fifteen minutes until dawn. Hold Ardmor until then, or take its keep before it comes.

You fight as one man in a battle of more than a hundred. Hold a crenel with sword and shield, loose arrows from the walls, or carry a ladder up the spur and fight your way off the top of it. When you fall, the battle goes on, and so do you, as another man.

- Choose your side: hold the castle, or storm it.

- Sword and shield, or bow and sword. You choose which side your blow comes from, shields can be shoved aside, and arrows fly true but drop with distance.

- Scaling ladders that must be carried, raised and climbed, and that the defenders can throw back while nobody is far up them.

- A ram under a hide roof, stones dropped from the gatehouse, and murder holes over the passage once the gate is broken.

- When the walls are lost, the garrison falls back to the keep. Its hall decides the battle.

- Dawn rises over the whole fight.

The castle is built to the proportions of real ones: a curtain wall low enough to climb with ladders, and a road that brings attackers along the wall with their unshielded side toward it.

Controls

Move: W A S D. Run: Shift. Jump: Space.

Attack: hold left mouse, release to strike. Move the mouse as you press to choose the side.

Block: right mouse. Shove: F. Use: E.

Bow: hold left mouse to draw. Swap weapons: 1 / 2.

On a ladder: W to climb, S to come down.

Help: F1. Pause: Esc. Full screen: F11.

Requirements

Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit. If it runs slowly, lower Picture in Settings.

Windows may show "Windows protected your PC" because the game isn't signed. Click "More info", then "Run anyway".

How this was made

Ardmor was my idea. I wanted a battle of swords, shields and bows, with one side holding a hilltop fortress and the other attacking up the hill and into it. I made it with Claude, an AI by Anthropic: I came up with the game, chose its direction, and play-tested it to find what needed fixing. Claude wrote the code, built the castle and soldiers in code, and wrote the text. The sounds are real recordings and the textures are real photographs, shared freely by other people on Freesound and ambientCG.

Made in Godot.

This is the games first version and this is my first game so please leave a comment down the bottom  so I can get some advice and some more ideas for this game.