The countdown is not a timer in the corner. It is somewhere on the map, and you are not there yet.

Gravetoll is a gothic survivors-like where the horde never stops thickening — and the only way out is down. Farm souls while the veil holds. When it TEARS, a rift opens somewhere far across the crypt with 75 seconds on it. Reach the light and descend, and the pressure resets. Miss it, and you are stranded in a horde that keeps compounding — and the next tear is further, with less time on the clock. Three misses and the crypt keeps you.

Every second is a greed decision: the chest off your path, the shrine that dumps an elite wave on its own 20-second clock, the bell that summons the Gravewarden for a prize — all while YOUR clock burns.

Made in 96 hours for the GMTK Game Jam 2026 — theme: COUNT DOWN.

How to play

- WASD / arrows — move

- Autofire is automatic — hold LMB to aim manually

- SPACE / SHIFT — dash (i-frames)

- E — crack open a casket (costs 3 embers — foes drop them)

- ESC — pause · 1/2/3 — pick boons · F11 — fullscreen

- Souls level you up. The veil tears on the meter at the top. Follow the chevron. Run.

Windows download — extract the zip and run `Gravetoll.exe`. It's an unsigned indie build, so SmartScreen may warn: More info → Run anyway.

What's in the crypt

- 8 foes with layer-gated behaviors + the Gravewarden, who guards every third rift while your countdown still runs

- 16 boons in level-up drafts — including Widow's Toll, which pays extra soul value only while a rift is open

- 4 playable wraiths — Bellwright, Vesper, Mourner, Gloam

- The Ferryman — a shop between layers that charges you in your own memories (XP)

- Ember-priced caskets, challenge shrines and bell altars scattered across a 4×4-screen crypt — every detour is a bet against the clock

- Endless layers, four arena themes, strand-based second chances, persistent best runs

Credits

- Everything is procedural: all art is drawn in code (pygame), all audio is synthesized in code. No generative-AI assets — no image models, no audio models, anywhere.

- Fonts: [Cinzel, Cinzel Decorative, EB Garamond](https://fonts.google.com) — SIL Open Font License.

- Engine modules (particles, glow rendering, pickups, sound manager) reused from our game Gravebound — pre-existing code, per jam rules.

- Code written with AI pair-assistance (Claude). Design, direction and every decision: human.

-  Made with pygame-ce.

The bell tolls below. 🔔

Disclaimer - Gravetoll is a 96-hour cut of something much bigger. The full game — GRAVEBOUND — is a full gothic roguelite: 16 playable revenants across four weapon archetypes, 89 relics, seven kings and their mega-bosses, endless shifting arenas, and online co-op for 2–4 wraiths. Same ink, same gold, a far deeper crypt.

Gravebound is coming to Steam. If Gravetoll's countdown got its hooks in you, stay tuned — and bring friends. The crypt has room for four