What is Under One Flame?

At a glance

From one city to a war

A game of Under One Flame grows in stages, each one opening onto the next.

1. Build your city. Raise buildings and upgrade them over time. Farms and mines bring in the food and gold that everything else costs.
2. Train an army. Infantry, archers and cavalry, each trained in its own building and each strong against some troops and weak against others. Siege engines for breaking walls come later.
3. March out onto the map. Monsters roam a world map you share with every other player. Defeat them for loot, or conquer them, and some of the beaten monsters join your army.
4. Join an alliance. Find the players you want to stand with, plan together and help defend each other's cities. Planned
5. Grow your realm and go to war. Found more cities, and when you choose to, join your faction's war: take neutral towns and fight for ground in the Ashlands. Planned

The first three stages are in the game today. Alliances, more cities and the war come in later stages; see Where the game stands.

Built around alliances

Under One Flame is designed around the alliance experience. What you build alone matters, but the game is meant to be at its best when you plan, fight and hold ground together. What we are designing:

• A place to talk. An alliance chat for members, and a recruiting channel where alliances and players find each other.
• Help that counts. Allies can send troops to defend each other's cities.
• Ground held together. Every player city takes a single square on the map, so an alliance can settle side by side and hold an area as one.
• Wars no one wins alone. The strongest places in the Ashlands are meant to need a planned effort by an alliance, not a lone player.

Alliances are not in the game yet. They come later, and what the testers tell us will shape them.

Two factions and the Ashlands

Every player belongs to one of two factions, the Phoenix or the Dragon. Each faction has a homeland of its own, and the two homelands never touch. Between them lies the Ashlands, a contested land scorched by both sides.

Your cities start in your faction's homeland, where players of the other faction can't reach you. The war is something you choose. Each player decides for themselves whether and when to join it, and joining is for good: from then on all of your cities can be attacked, and in return the neutral towns and cities across the world, and the Ashlands, are yours to fight for.

A faction gains ground in the Ashlands area by area, so a war is won by advancing together.

The two factions are equal in strength. Choosing one is about who you stand with, not about power.

• The Phoenix: Those sworn to the Phoenix may fall, but they rise again.
• The Dragon: Those sworn to the Dragon are patient, and they do not forget.

The choice of faction, the war and the Ashlands come in later stages.

How you play

Under One Flame is played in short visits through the day rather than in long sittings. Start an upgrade, set troops training, send an army out, then put the phone away. The world keeps going on the server while you are offline: buildings finish, food and gold come in and armies reach their targets whether or not the app is open, and your phone can tell you when something is done.

Your player character is called a Lord, whose health limits how often you can send armies out and regenerates over time. A few short visits a day go a long way.

The game is online only. Everything you own lives on the server, in one world shared with the other players there.

Where the game stands

Under One Flame is in development, made by a solo developer. We don't give dates; this is the order things come in.

In the game today, still in development

• Your city, its buildings and their upgrades, with food and gold to manage.
• Training infantry, archers and cavalry.
• A world map full of monsters, with raids, conquests and a report for every battle.
• Ranks to rise through as you play.

The closed alpha, next

• A small group of invited testers, starting with players who know this kind of game well.
• Installed from Google Play's testing track, with sign-in through your Google account.
• One test world, where testers see each other's cities on the map.
• Feedback and conversation on our Discord server. While the game is being tested, its world may be reset.

Later Planned

• Alliances, with alliance and recruiting chat.
• Choosing the Phoenix or the Dragon, and the war in the Ashlands.
• More cities for each player, and neutral towns and cities to conquer.
• An iPhone version.

How to join

Nobody outside the developer can play yet. The closed alpha will be by invitation: players who know this kind of game well are invited first, and more players follow as the game grows. To be on the waiting list, join our Discord server and pick Notify me about testing when you join (or later, under Channels & Roles); it isn't a promise of a place. The server is also where testers will talk with us and with each other.

Join the waiting list on Discord

When your invitation comes, you install the test version from Google Play and sign in with your Google account.

What it costs

Under One Flame will be free to play, with optional in-app purchases planned for later; there are no purchases or ads today. There will never be random loot boxes: anything for sale will show exactly what you get before you buy it.

More questions? See the frequently asked questions.