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A clapboard farmhouse with its windows lit, seen through a chain-link fence in blue fog, with three figures walking out of the mist on the right

Survival life-sim · desktop browser · early build

Hearth & Horde

Build a home, make friends and fall in love at the end of the world.

Play in your browser

Keyboard and mouse. Saves live in your browser. Up to four in co-op.

Three games in one town

Project Zomboid's survival, The Sims' building and social play, and 7 Days to Die's horde nights, on one isometric block you can cut away and look inside.

The household

Seven needs, moods and emotions, an action queue, skills and a survivor you make yourself.

  • Talk your way from stranger to friend to partner
  • Ask someone to move in at 35 friendship
  • Settlers take jobs: guard, builder, cook, farmer, scavenger
  • Thirty levels, each one an attribute point

The homestead

Drag walls or draw a whole room, then fill it from a catalog of about fifty objects.

  • Doors, windows, gates, painted floors
  • Loot fridges, cars and gun lockers in town
  • Power fails on day 3, water on day 5
  • Generators, fuel, rain collectors, farming

The horde

Every tenth night the dead come in from the map edges and path straight at your weakest wall.

  • A siege flow field, not a spawn circle
  • Turrets, dart and blade traps, spikes, wire
  • Craft ammo at the workbench
  • Each horde night is bigger than the last
An isometric suburban block at dusk: a half-built cabin by a campfire, cutaway houses, and zombies shambling in from the streets

Horde Night

  • Day 3 · power out
  • Day 5 · water out
  • Day 10 · horde
  • Day 20 · horde
  • Day 32 · the helicopter

The days are for looting, building and talking. The tenth night is for finding out whether the wall you built holds. Zombies bash through planks, doors, walls and furniture, and they will always find the softest edge of what you made.

An emergency radio counts down to a rescue helicopter that lands at noon on day 32 and leaves at six. Whether you are on it is up to you.

In your hands

Everything is on the mouse and a handful of keys. No tutorial gate — the first thing you do is walk.

WASD · Shift · C
Walk, run, sneak.
Left click
Interact through a radial menu, walk to the ground, or swing at a zombie.
Right mouse held
Aim at the cursor; hold left to keep firing.
B · V
Build mode and craft mode. Shift-drag the wall tool to draw a whole room.
Q · E · wheel · Tab
Rotate the camera, zoom, and cut the walls away to see inside.
1–6 · L · H
Weapons, flashlight, bandage.

Five minutes in

Captured from the build that is playing on this site right now — day one, furnishing a room, meeting a neighbour, and what the tenth night looks like.

Isometric daytime view of a suburban lot. A survivor in a pink shirt stands on the lawn beside a small campfire, next to a cutaway single-storey house showing a bed, kitchen counter and bathroom. Roads, parked cars and neighbouring houses surround the lot; a garden gnome and a raised planter sit on the grass. Panels overlay the screen: an Aspirations list top left, a supply row of icons top right, a survivor card bottom left reading Gus Dunn, Okay, with bars for Hunger, Thirst, Energy, Bladder, Hygiene, Fun and Social, and a bottom bar reading Live, Build, Craft, Day 1, 8:27 AM, Free Will ON, Horde in 9d, Grid power, Water, Clear.
Day one at the homestead: your survivor in the yard while needs, aspirations and supplies tick along on the HUD.
Same isometric homestead by day, with the Craft mode catalogue panel open across the bottom of the screen. Tabs read Comfort, Kitchen, Bathroom, Fun, Lighting, Utility, Farm & Pets, Decor, Defense, Tools; cards show Sleeping Bag, Single Bed, Double Bed, Plaid Sofa, Armchair, Dining Chair and Dining Table with material costs, and Double Bed is highlighted. A translucent green placement footprint sits on the wooden floor inside the house. A hint line reads: Double Bed, click to place, R / right-click rotate, Esc drop tool. A banner at the top reads: Click any placed item to pick it up.
Furnishing the house: the catalogue open on Comfort with a double bed previewed on the bedroom floor.
Isometric daytime street of brick houses seen in cutaway. Two survivors stand together in a tiled bathroom. A radial interact menu floats over them with three entries: Friendly, a centre label reading Stranger, Lv 1 - Stranger, and Mean. The Aspirations panel top left lists 'Introduce yourself to a neighbor'. The survivor card bottom left reads Bella Reyes, Okay, with need bars; the bottom bar shows Day 1, 8:35 AM.
Meeting a neighbour: the radial interact menu opens with friendly and mean ways to break the ice.
Night-time isometric view lit in deep red. A column of zombies files through the cutaway homestead house and crowds its rooms. Outside, a survivor stands beside a burning campfire, a flashlight beam sweeping the grass toward a tree. The survivor card bottom left reads Hector Bishop, Okay, with an INFECTED tag and need bars. The bottom bar shows Day 11, 3:43 AM, a red HORDE NIGHT badge, and status text reading Power out, No water, Night, 69.
Horde Night, 3:43 AM: the dead file into the homestead while the campfire is still burning.
Night-time isometric view of two cutaway houses in dark red light. A flashlight cone picks out three zombies mobbing a survivor on the grass beside a bed and a lamp. The open panel bottom left reads Theo Quill, Uncomfortable, with the skills tab selected: LEVEL 4, XP 37 / 650, '3 attribute points to spend', and rows for Strength, Endurance, Agility, Aim, Charisma and Handiness each at 0 with a plus button. The bottom bar shows Day 11, 2:33 AM, a red HORDE NIGHT badge, Power out and No water.
The survivor sheet mid-fight: level 4 with three attribute points waiting to be spent.

What's in this build

An early build, not a release. Here is what you'll find, and what you won't yet.

Playable now

  • Create-a-Survivor, traits and a household you can switch between
  • The full build and craft catalog, walls, rooms and paint
  • Looting, chopping, farming, power, water and infection
  • Horde Nights with turrets, traps and the siege flow field
  • Thirty levels, aspirations and the day-32 helicopter
  • Play Together: up to four survivors in one town

Not yet

  • No voices and no cutscenes. Everything is played, not told.
  • Desktop browser only — there are no touch controls.
  • Saves live in your browser. Clearing site data starts a new town.
  • Co-op runs peer-to-peer through your browsers; there is no game server, so the host leaving ends the session.
  • All art and audio is generated by code, so it changes between builds.

The first night is quiet.

Play in your browser