Content and age notice
Grim Saga Mini contains fantasy violence, death, crime and interrogation scenes drawn in pixel art. There is no sexual content.
Game
Grim Saga Mini
A pixel-art kingdom simulation where 33,000 people live their own lives.
72%
14 complete, 40 in progress, 1 planned, across 55 tracked features.
About Grim Saga Mini
Grim Saga Mini is the world of Grim Saga at pixel scale. The map is 2,875 by 2,875 tiles: the vortex, the bridges, the capital in its three rings of water, the dwarf holds, the oases, the ancient forests and the corrupted shards. Thirty-six settlements and about 33,000 people live in it, each with a job, a home, a family and a day of their own.
You arrive as a traveller in the wilds. Buy an axe and fell trees, quarry stone, and let the steward plan a town that goes up with real planks and real coin. Run a shop. Speak to a crowd and watch a movement form. Marry, raise heirs, and when you fall, continue as one of them. Fight with a sword, a bow or a spell, and answer to witnesses, the watch and the cells if you choose badly. Raise a squad, take the commander's map and meet an orc warband on the bridge.
Game systems own reality; nothing is scripted. Real items and real coins move between real containers, and everything you see is saved and loaded. It is built in Python so it shares its living-world engine with Hearthbound, and it is designed to run on almost any PC.
Where it stands: Playable inside the studio and tested every day: 49 automated suites drive the real game. No public build yet. The percentages below are the studio's own progress figures.
Progress
Features
Every feature carries the studio's own progress figure. Red is barely started, amber is under way, green is done and proven in the real game. Click a feature to read what it means.
Screens and settings95%A living world77%Towns, trade and building72%Combat and magic75%Battles and war60%Peoples and creatures72%Crime, law and politics58%Family and body62%Exploration53%
Screens and settings
95%
Home screen on the real clock100%
Sunrise and sunset come from today's date. The lantern comes on at dusk, the castle windows light, stars come out.
Available now
Settings book95%
A leather-bound book of settings where every control changes something: keys, difficulty, colour-blind modes, subtitles, reduced motion, text speed, ambience.
In development
Save and load the whole world100%
Bodies, knocked-out people, arrows in flight and stores in the storehouse all survive a save. Autosave every ten minutes.
Available now
Pause menu100%
Esc stops the world: resume, save, load, settings, controls, main menu, quit.
Available now
Character creator85%
A creator book with race, build, hair, beard and kit. Your own head becomes the HUD portrait.
In development
Music and the sound of each place90%
The commissioned Grim Saga theme on the menu; in the world, wind, birds, crickets and owls, a stream near water, murmur in towns, cups in a tavern, drips in the mines, rain and thunder.
In development
The notebook95%
Inventory with a paper doll, stats, skills, magic, companions, journal, map and dynasty on one Tab key.
In development
A living world
77%
Thirty-six settlements, 33,000 residents100%
Humans, elves, dwarves, orcs, goblins and the Kifa, each person with a job, a home and a family.
Available now
Every person has their own day90%
Early birds and night owls, guards on their watches, children at lessons and home by their mother's clock, each trade in its own room.
In development
Day, night and lighting100%
Streets fill in the morning and empty at night; the watch walks its rounds under lit windows.
Available now
Weather and seasons95%
Rain, fog, snow, storms, blizzards, heat and cold. Snow and mud slow you, the cold hurts unless you dress for it, farmers stay home in a storm.
In development
Winter shortages and famine40%
Harvests follow the season; explicit famine events and snow on the ground are still to come.
In development
Wildlife that behaves like its kind85%
Deer watch then bolt, wolves hunt in packs and take turns, owls swoop at night, boars hold their ground.
In development
Caravans, raids and road news70%
Caravans carry real cargo between towns; raiders ambush them; prices and gossip follow.
In development
Intelligent movement85%
People prefer streets, use doors as doors, queue, pass in crowds and walk home as households.
In development
An interior for every trade90%
Forty-one kinds of building with their own rooms: taverns with plates on the tables, barracks, prisons, granaries, the necromancer's tower.
In development
Calendar page10%
A calendar in the notebook; today the date lives in the HUD only.
In development
Towns, trade and building
72%
Chop trees, quarry stone100%
Buy a felling axe or a pickaxe, swing by swing a tree falls, a stump stays and a sapling grows back. The law may ask for a permit.
Available now
Build a town from real materials100%
Press B and the steward Maren plans a town where you stand. The storehouse starts empty; builders are paid real coins and materials are consumed.
Available now
Underground mines90%
Build an entrance from ten real stone, go down, dig by lantern light, place timber supports, find ore, survive a cave-in.
In development
Trading60%
Buy food and tools from smiths, woodworkers and merchants; sell timber, planks and stone to the building trades. No haggling yet.
In development
Shops of your own80%
Own a shop with clerks, live customers and hired gatherers.
In development
Dwarf holds that brew and trade70%
Dry cellars are answered by the books: an ale price, a ruler hiring a brewer.
In development
Crafting5%
Making things from what you gather.
In development
Combat and magic
75%
One fight engine for every blow95%
Windup, active and recovery, real sweep shapes, block and perfect block, dodge, armour by body part. The same engine for you, a guard, a goblin and a wolf.
In development
A fighter's brain85%
Range, openings, feints, flanking, turns and nerve. Packs take turns: one goes in, the others circle.
In development
Archery100%
Arrows are stopped by walls, trees, rocks and cliffs, fly over water, and hurt the first person they meet.
Available now
Knockouts, wounds and death that stays100%
Blunt knocks out, blades kill. Leg wounds slow you, head blows daze you. The dead are buried in towns and rot in the wilds.
Available now
Spells on the hotbar80%
Mana, cooldowns and bolts that fly toward the mouse; the magic engine decides fizzles and range.
In development
Brain Magic35%
Six branches, levels, the sigil ritual, corruption and shamans. The engine is built; most of it is not yet in play.
In development
Werewolves30%
A lycanthropy hierarchy with its own rules, not yet loose in the world.
In development
Battles and war
60%
Organised battles80%
Squads by culture, formations, lines that meet, archers first, flanks and routs. Sixty against sixty on screen.
In development
The commander's map80%
COMMAND on the dial: select squads, right-click orders, walls, gates and woods drawn on the map.
In development
Raise a squad70%
Bounties, bands for a fee, and a party of your own, hired with real coin.
In development
Walls and bowmen60%
Town walls with bowmen on them; nobody fights from the wall yet.
In development
Sieges and wars between realms10%
Armies, sieges and the consequences of raids on the factions.
In development
Peoples and creatures
72%
The necromancer and his dead85%
Calm, provoked or wrathful. He knows only what he or his skeletons saw. Zombie bites sicken and turn.
In development
Goblin camps, caves and the pot75%
Goblins with a camp, a cave and a stew; they scatter or warn depending on who draws a blade.
In development
Elf wardens70%
Wardens who hunt anyone felling the nearest ancient forest.
In development
Orc duels and challenges75%
Orcs settle things in a ring; the winner takes the weapon.
In development
The Kifa60%
A people who serve, then go free.
In development
Forest Protectors65%
Ancient trees that stand up when the forest is wronged, now drawn from the newer design.
In development
Crime, law and politics
58%
Witnesses, the watch and the cells100%
People learn only what they saw. The watch hunts you, demands surrender, drags you to a cell. Hide lockpicks about your body and pick the lock.
Available now
Interrogation100%
A tool tray, body regions, pain, fear, will, blood and shock. A crime unless the law allows it.
Available now
Government100%
Offices, laws, petitions and votes on one screen, with unrest and your own popularity.
Available now
Speeches100%
Press T and type. People agree or heckle by their own views; those who agree gather round you and a movement forms.
Available now
Typed conversation45%
Talk to one person, three, or a group of five in your own words.
In development
Council scene10%
Yes, no or abstain in the chamber.
In development
Reputation page10%
What each town has heard about you.
In development
A bandit camp of your own0%
Recruit dark companions, ambush the roads, draw the kingdom's patrols.
Planned
Family and body
62%
Marriage, children, heirs100%
Court, marry, raise children. When you die you choose an heir; without one, the game is over.
Available now
Food, water and the body70%
A canteen with four, eight or twelve sips, meals at the tavern, a body that thins or thickens with how you eat.
In development
Relationship web15%
Who likes whom, drawn as a web.
In development
Exploration
53%
Cliffs, passes, caves and ruins15%
Hidden routes and places worth finding.
In development
The map in the notebook90%
The whole sky world, a minimap on the HUD and markers that announce arrival.
In development
See it
Screenshots
System requirements
Grim Saga Mini is a 2D game written in Python with pygame-ce and uses almost no graphics power. Exact minimum figures will be measured before release; the studio develops it alongside Hearthbound on the same PC without touching the GPU.
| Component | Minimum | Recommended |
|---|---|---|
| Operating system | Windows 10 or 11 (64-bit) | - |
| Graphics | Integrated graphics are enough | - |
| Display | 1280 x 720 or larger; the game renders at 480 x 270 and scales up cleanly | 1920 x 1080 for 4x pixel scaling in fullscreen |
Follow Grim Saga Mini
Full Grim Saga Mini news archiveNews and updates
Grim Saga Mini is not for sale yet. The store opens when there is something to buy; people on the list hear first.