ONE TRAIN. ONE STOLEN TIMETABLE. AN ARMY AT YOUR BACK. Steel. Steam. Sorcery. Boiler & Blood is a tactical real-time-with-pause roguelite about building a dieselpunk armored train, commanding its crew, and fighting through hostile territory before a relentless army catches you. You have thirteen days to reach the enemy command train. Every mile burns coal. Every detour gives the army time to close in. Every car you couple changes how your train fights—and whether it survives the next battle. BUILD A WEAPON ON RAILS Choose a locomotive with its own strengths, flaws, and defining trait: a fragile speed machine, a dependable workhorse, a diesel bruiser, or a rolling fortress. Couple together the train your strategy demands. Bring howitzers, Gatling turrets, mortars, and flamethrowers for raw firepower. Add auxiliary engines, smokescreens, steam shields, medical coaches, crew quarters, coal tenders, and occult machinery to keep the whole monster moving. Every powered system competes for the same limited boiler pressure. Feed the guns for a devastating volley, divert power to the running gear for speed and evasion, or keep vital support cars alive. Upgrade your hull, boiler, fire control, running gear, and individual cars—but remember: there is no perfect train. There is only the machine you can afford and the fight waiting at the next signal. PAUSE. PLAN. OPEN FIRE. Battles unfold in real time, but you can slam on the air brakes and pause at any moment. Inspect both trains, target individual cars, reroute pressure, move your crew, trigger specialist abilities, and coordinate your next volley. Then release the brakes and watch the plan collide with the enemy. Strip away smokescreens. Arc mortar fire over enemy defenses. Silence the weapon seconds before it fires. Board a damaged train, repel raiders from your own cars, fight spreading fires, and patch shattered systems while the wheels are still turning. A beaten enemy may offer surrender. Take its tribute and spare your battered crew—or finish the job and tear the wreck apart for scrap. EVERY SOUL HAS A JOB Your crew are more than numbers. Post gunners to charge weapons faster, stokers to push the locomotive harder, brakemen to repair damage, surgeons to keep the wounded alive, and marauders to carry the fight onto the enemy train. Assign battle stations, equip hard-won gear, and develop survivors into specialists. When someone goes down, another crewmate can drag them from danger or a surgeon can bring them back to their feet. Fail to reach them in time and they are gone for the rest of the run. PUT THE OCCULT ON THE MANIFOLD A Séance Car is a supernatural generator. Feed it boiler pressure to produce aether , then spend that power on forbidden rites: ward a car against incoming shells, set enemy iron ablaze with witchfire, mend torn plating in the middle of battle, or pull stranded crew through the space between trains. Occult specialists can drain hostile souls, turn enemies against one another, and power spectral artillery that cuts through supernatural defenses. Magic does not replace steel. It makes steel unfair. COAL IS TIME. SCRAP IS SURVIVAL. Choose your route through a branching, randomized campaign of hostile trains, dangerous encounters, scarce depots, and isolated repair stops. Every move consumes coal and advances the pursuing army. Take the safer line and arrive under-equipped—or risk a harder fight for the salvage that could transform your run. Spend scrap on fuel, repairs, recruits, upgrades, and new rolling stock. At the final junction, decide how to open the assault: attack head-on, use raw speed to create an advantage, or sabotage the enemy before the battle begins. However you reach it, the command train must be destroyed. A persistent milestone ledger records your feats and unlocks new locomotive hulls across runs. Changing routes, encounters, recruits, and depot stock force you to build a different war machine each time you leave the railhead. KEEP HER ROLLING The line ahead is hostile. The army behind you never stops. Your boiler is hungry, your crew is mortal, and the final battle will test every decision you made along the way. Build the train. Hold the crew together. Break the enemy before it breaks you.
